Story analysis/a bit of Russian translations

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 156149

Alla: 
Ok 24 hours start a new, so may as well post it.

> Carol responds:
> But you're denying other people's interpretations because they
> conflict with your emotional reactions, and you're conflicting your
> feelings with facts. *Of course* Snape's actions can be interpreted
> differently, whether you agree with those interpretations or not. 
All
> you need to do is read the posts on this board to see that. 

Alla:
Um, **No** I do not deny other people's interpretations.
I said that they can be interpreted differently, just that I 
don't see it, meaning that I do not understand where those 
interpetations coming from, not that they cannot happen. Just as I 
am pretty sure that on such huge list very many people do not see 
where I am coming from and that does not mean to me that they deny 
my interpretations. Respecting difference of opinions does not mean 
to me that I am obligated to be convinced by other interpretations. 
I always think that the majority of us ( including me) does not move 
on major topics anyways, so if I see the reasonableness of the 
opposing theory, **that** to me pretty much means the same as being 
convinced for the purposes of the discussions, but I don't even have 
to do that. 


Moreover I said that I can see where some interpretations coming 
from ,which is not so drastically different from mine, but different 
nevertheless. As in I see Snape as abuser, but I can also see him 
simply as jerk, mean teacher (lesser than abuser, but higher than 
sarcastic, somewhere in the middle)

But this is not my point.

Carol:
Your
> feelings about him are as valid as anyone else's, but they can't be
> used to persuade anyone who doesn't feel that way about him, any 
more
> than I can persuade you to like licorice or Herman Melville 
because I
> like them. My feelings and tastes can't influence yours and yours
> can't influence mine. And feeling-based opinions won't persuade
> anyone, either.

Alla:

Of course **only** feeling based opinions will not persuade anybody, 
moreover I am not **looking** to persuade anybody when I present 
opinion piece, but my point is that **mix** of canon supported 
argument and how I feel about it does help me to argue.

I suspect we have to agree to disagree about it.

Carol:
 Snape can be shown to be sarcastic ("Our new
> celebrity" establishes that trait from our first contact with him),
> but whether that sarcasm constitutes abuse is a feeling-based 
opinion
> that no argument is going to alter.

Alla:

Yes, just as he can be shown to be so much more than sarcastic when 
he threatens to poison Neville's toad or when he jumps at Harry who 
just arrived to WW, or when he jumps at Harry who is looking for 
help with Barty Sr.

Those are all events on the page. If in addition to interpreting 
them, I express how I feel about it, I think it makes my argument at 
least not weaker.


Carol:
 It's an area on which we have to
> agree to disagree. 

Alla:

Yes, but my point is that IMO complete detachment in analysing 
characters is rarely happens and as a reader not in the academic 
setting, I don't know if I want to try. I mean, it is also question 
of degree of course. 

Let's take someone whom I consider to be one of the most brilliant 
list members of HPFGU of all time and I think many people will agree 
with me - Elkins. I am a very big fan of her posts and hope that one 
day I will be able to write quarter as well as she does. But one day 
somebody brought up Elkins' posts as the example of detachment, 
which I don't think I agree with at all.

I mean, sure in some of the posts she seems to be, but take her post 
about "Draco Malfoy, who is so lame and dead * ( paraphrasing, too 
lasy to look up exact subject heading, but I am sure you know which 
one I am talking about).

I think this is post is *very* coloured by her love for Draco, or at 
least that is the impression I get from it ( um, I don't know Elkins 
personally,never talked to her, so maybe I am completely wrong) and 
IMO that is causing the interpretation which so very radically 
different from mine, because no matter how hard I look I don't see 
Draco's angst, Draco's stoic sufferings anywhere in canon in books 1 
through 5. I see the wimperings of the coward, who starts his 
misfortune and brings his troubles upon himself, where Elkins 
sees "hurt-comfort". There is some or a lot of **Draco angst** in 
HBP, sure ( which he still brought upon himself IMO), but before 
that? I find this post, which is of course brilliant and of course 
analyses canon evidence to be **very** coloured by emotions, which 
makes it only more beatiful.

Um, yes, back to Snape then.

I am arguing that just as my dislike of Snape's canon based actions 
colours my perceptions and pours into my argument, your liking of 
Snape colours yours and makes you interpret his actions 
as "sarcastic teacher". When I read it, I usually blink and stare at 
the page, just as I am guessing you do when you read mine 
interpretations of Snape actions as abuse and that is fine, I am 
just saying that this does happen. I am just saying that our dislike 
or like of the character colours the **canon** interpretation, 
unless it is hard canon facts, IMO.

Of course,  IMO it is easier to be objective if one does not read 
story 
for characters, but mainly for plot. This is not how I read 
Potterverse, so I try to embrace characters emotional appeal, 
positive or negative and run with it to help me interpret canon, 
that is all. And I refuse to accept that this way of arguing is 
somehow wrong in the setting like this, that is all. 

Snipping everything else.


> zanooda:
>> Books 5 and 6's translations left a better general impression, 
sure.
> However, while reading translations 1-4, I could see at once how 
bad
> they were and I was prepared for all kinds of ridiculous mistakes 
that
>  I met there.

Alla:

I threw book 3 away when they translated **brilliant** 
as "brilliant", you get the drift. That for some reasons overpowered 
my patience.

zanooda: 
> Anyway, I agree that the latest translations are better, especially
> compared to the previous ones, which were done by incompetent and
> indifferent people, IMO.
>

Alla:

Yes, word to that.


JMO,
Alla.