What's fun about the HPs? (was: Request for new topics)

[cubfanbudwoman]

No: HPFGUIDX 152410

Carol wrote:
> Ideas, anyone? Any themes we can discuss besides love, revenge, and
> immortality? Can we look at the books themselves instead of our own
> lives and social views?


SSSusan:
You know, I've recently been bemoaning the fact, offlist to a couple 
of folks, that there seems to be a tendency to focus a LOT on real 
life morality when we discuss the Potterverse these days.  That's 
not always a bad thing... it's certainly natural to draw parallels 
to the life we lead... but sometimes it almost seems like we just 
can't have FUN with the books and characters, can't JOSH about 
things, without a RL "standard" or "judgment" being handed down.  

('Course, I tossed my two knuts into the Tom/Merope/Love Potion 
thread today by talking about grounds for Catholic annulment, so 
take my whining with a grain of salt. ;-))

I mean, would anyone dare suggest Snape is sexy here?  Come on, tell 
the truth!  Would anyone??  And I don't mean Rickman!Snape either.  
It *has* been done here before, you know, people talking about Snape 
being sexy and why....

But more to the point, I suppose, in listening to some folks talking 
about HP and the online forums, it struck me that a lot of people 
don't seem to write about the FUN they find in the books, the JOY of 
Harry Potter or JKR's world.

So how 'bout it?  

Am I truly in a small minority of people who still really LIKES the 
Potterverse? still guffaws at some of JKR's clever turns of phrase? 
still marvels at her creativity? still shakes her head that this 
writer can have us arguing after SIX books about whether a character 
is evil, good, neither or both? 

Am I in a small minority of people who still actually LIKES Harry 
himself?  ::huffs on D'oH shield and glances at it sentimentally::  

How 'bout we -- without succumbing to a series of just one-liners -- 
talk about what we LOVE about the books? what we find FUN about 
them, even after all this time?

By way of an example, I'll say that for me one of the things is the 
richness of the characterization.  I know many argue that Super!
Ginny popped out of nowhere, but I still think that in many ways 
what makes these books so fun is that the world JKR has built is so 
richly detailed, that she takes the time to give us so many 
conversations, so many snippets of day-to-day life, so much of a 
chance to get to know these characters, so that we RECOGNIZE them, 
feel we can anticipate some of the things they'll say & do on a 
daily basis. (Well, not SNAPE, of course, but he's her Special Case 
and too tied into the Mystery aspect of the series to count!)  

By way of another example, I love that Luna bugged the crap out of 
me in OotP but that Jo made me laugh out loud with this:

"'And that's Smith of Hufflepuff with the Quaffle,' said a dreamy 
voice, echoing over the grounds.  'He did the commentary last time, 
of course, and Ginny Weasley flew into him, I think probably on 
purpose, it looked like it.  Smith was being quite rude about 
Gryffindor, I expect he regrets that now he's playing them -- oh, 
look, he's lost the Quaffle, Ginny took it from him, I do like her, 
she's very nice....'"

****

"'...but now that big Huffleupff player's got the Quaffle from her, 
I can't remember his name, it's something like Bibble -- no, 
Buggins --'

'It's Cadwallader!' said Professor McGonagall."

****

"Then Cadwallader scored again, making things level, but Luna did 
not seem to have noticed; she appeared singularly uninterested in 
such mundane things as the score, and kept attempting to draw the 
crowd's attention to such things as interestingly shaped clouds and 
the possibility that Zacharias Smith, who had so far failed to 
maintain possession of the Quaffle for longer than a minute, was 
suffering from something called 'Loser's Lurgy.'

'Seventy-forty to Hufflepuff!' barked Professor McGonagall into 
Luna's megaphone.

'Is it, already?' said Luna vaguely. [HBP, "Elf Tails"]

Hee.

Anybody else game?

Siriusly Snapey Susan