[HPforGrownups] Re: What Came First: Task or Cabinet? - The Plan v1 & v2/Bigotry or Not?

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 157709

Snow:

Ok I see where you are going. You defiantly are a person who believes what 
Faith has to say, the problem is sometimes Faith can be a bit
tricky and make a person believe something as confirmed, when it really 
hasn't been.

Magpie:
I admit I don't get the whole "Faith" schtick.  Don't know what it means, 
never have. So I may be misunderstanding things later in the post--sorry if 
I do.

Snow:
You see, at Spinner's End, Snape never agreed to killing Dumbledore if Draco 
failed to, Snape agreed to "carry out the deed that the Dark Lord has 
ordered Draco to perform". Wording is everything with JKR. We will naturally 
assume that what was meant by this particular wording was to kill Dumbledore 
since
that is what inevitably happened

Magpie:
Yes, and that's not a bad thing at all.  It's how books are read.  Many 
people didn't get that Draco's task was to kill DD early on.  They thought 
he was supposed to kill Harry or do something else.  So they got more of an 
answer at the end when everything led to Draco trying to do what Voldemort 
told him to do in killing DD.  If you don't accept this, the story is just a 
pile of random events. The end has nothing to do with the beginning, it's 
all just ever more complicated with little meaning at all.

Snow:
 but you can never be totally certain because this is where the author can 
make her twist. (Leading you to
the obvious conclusion is Faith's diversion)

Magpie:
I think the word choice in this case was to keep the reader from hearing 
flat-out that his mission was to kill Dumbledore, though it was fairly easy 
to guess, especially when the attempted murder attempts start happening.

As to the author making her twist, if JKR wants to put information in the 
next book that totally deletes or changes the plot that played out in HBP, 
that's her right.  I'll face that when I come to it. I'm open to any new 
information the author gives me in later books and will retroactively apply 
it to what I've already read--I'm already preparing to do that with the 
obvious questions still hanging open.  However, I'm not open to entertaining 
any AU version or fanfic premise anybody comes up with in the meantime as 
equal canon.  Or turning the story into an incoherent mess just in case the 
author decides to do that later.

One of the many problems with these theories is that they are all 
unfalsified premises.  There's nothing actually there.  Whenever somebody 
points out a flaw in it given the story in canon--a story that has a 
structure and so has limitations and shape--it can be explained away with 
new inventions.  And maybe that sounds exciting when you're coming up with 
the answers, but as its own entity it just reads like working your way 
around canon that wasn't written to support what's being said.

Snow:
To truly understand what I'm attempting to get across to you, you would have 
to open your mind and allow suspicion to enter. Be suspicious of Faith and 
question wording that could also be interpreted with another suggestion, a 
twisty outcome, like what we have been proposing (although this suggestion 
isn't all conclusive, there are others).

Magpie:
So it's basically what I've already allowed, that yes, this is the plot of 
the book but if the author still has the power to announce in the next book 
that the plot of this one was totally fake?  Yes, if the next book takes 
time to explain that Draco was not given the task of killing DD early in the 
year, but instead was given the task of fixing the cabinet, and that's what 
Snape agreed to do, and then Draco committed some near-murders for some odd 
reason, and then Voldemort surprised him with telling him to kill DD late in 
the year, I will certainly revise my thinking on HBP (perhaps for the 
worse).  As of now I just read the books using the normal comprehension 
skills I apply to any book and assume, until further notice, that this was 
the plot--just as I assume Barty Crouch Jr. polyjuiced himself into Moody 
and put Harry's name in the Goblet to get him to the Portkey, and Kreacher 
went to Narcissa with info about Sirius and Harry, and Quirrel had Voldemort 
on the back of his head, and Lucius slipped Ginny the diary and it possessed 
her.  It's worked fine so far.

Snow:
Some of the unanswered questions in HBP, for instance are, why Snape not 
only voluntarily took the vow but actually initiated it; why was Snape 
asleep when the castle is in an uproar and Dumbledore is out
leaving The Order in charge in his stead?

Magpie:
Why Snape took the Vow is a big question I am waiting to have answered.  It 
becomes less of a question if the Vow isn't to kill Dumbledore.  Because who 
the heck cares if Snape took a Vow to make a secret entrance into the 
castle?  As to why he's asleep, that didn't seem like much of a question. 
He may be part of the Order, but he's at Hogwarts as a teacher, he's not on 
guard duty. He's got classes to teach the next day.

Snow:
Ok, try this on for a possible substitute for the `plan' Narcissa speaks of; 
Draco is to find a way in which to penetrate the castle so that his 
deatheaters can dispose of Dumbledore.

This actually fits because Narcissa would still be concerned for her baby if 
he failed this plan; Snape could honestly take the vow without hesitation, 
because Dumbledore could allow the castle
protected entry; and it would be the answer as to why Snape was sleeping 
instead of on watch like the rest of the Order.Was he expecting company?

Magpie:
If the DEs are disposing of DD there goes that whole important "you are/are 
not a killer" part of the must-not-call-it-canon-version which is rather 
focused on committing murder or not, sticking it in only at the last minute 
when you can't avoid it instead of letting it be central. And making the Vow 
something that mundane drains the scene of drama.  And why would I be 
looking for substitute plans?  I'm not in the market of an alternate version 
of HBP--if I was it would be the one that changed the H/G storyline, not the 
one trashing the storyline I enjoyed.

Snow:
This would also fit with Draco's secret obsession with the cabinets and why 
Draco's attempt at killing Dumbledore with the necklace or mead was a bust 
or as Dumbledore put it, "your heart wasn't in it".

Magpie:
So the task being to create a secret way into Hogwarts fits with Draco's 
attempts at killing Dumbledore with the neckalce or the mead being a bust 
because...he's not actually got any reason to be doing these things at all. 
Why on earth is he sending him poisoned mead and cursed necklaces then?

Dumbledore's line about Draco's heart not being in it doesn't come in a 
vacuum.  He's making the point Draco is not a killer, not that Draco was 
ordered to fix the Cabinet instead.  He doesn't seem to be aware he's 
supposed to be validating alternate storylines.

Snow:
You see Faith can be as wrong as Sirius being the bad guy or Mad Eye Moody 
being good in GOF and yet most of us fell for the trap.

Magpie:
Sirius was revealed as the good guy at the end of PoA.  The guy who we 
thought was Mad Eye Moody was revealed to be DE Barty Crouch Jr. at the end 
of GoF.  Draco was revealed to be the would-be murderer of Dumbledore at the 
end of HBP.  Do you have alternate theories for PoA and GoF too?

Snow:
There is entrapment in the books, which is why they are so damned good but 
it is, more often than naught, Faith who leads us into the trap.

I finally learned with OOP, after several attempts of throwing the book 
against the wall and refusing to read further (for several minutes) to 
simply accept that JKR has her answer and I have to be open to it.

Magpie:
I don't understand your point.  JKR has her answer and we have to be open to 
it, yet you reject the answers given in HBP.

Snow:
You know this thread has made me recall a likewise thread before HBP when 
people were totally debating Dumbledore's possible abusive behavior by 
leaving Harry with the Dursley's. So many were quite sure
that Dumbledore had actions he could have taken other than leave him with 
the Dursley's and yet no matter how many of us proposed what became the 
eventual outcome that it was Dumbledore's only and best choice, Faith 
intervened in her magical way and convinced so many that Dumbledore was 
cruel to leave Harry with them.

Magpie:
Err...not understanding what this has to do with chucking out a plotline in 
a novel and writing a new one and shoving it in its place.  Do you mean that 
you had things you didn't like but then later you got information that made 
it better?  Because that's great and I am open for new information in the 
new book, understanding she might decide to rewrite the plot of Book VI with 
different answers. If she rewrites it I'll be taking it as canon.  I'm not 
interested in anybody else taking a stab at it.

Snow:
As this thread is similar to what I've just spoke of, I might agree that its 
outcome will be similar and that no matter how hard any of us may try only 
Faith will be able to enlighten you in the end.

Magpie:
This is more like: "Here's an alternate theory for the plan in CoS: Ginny 
faked the whole diary possession to get Harry to notice her."

I still don't understand the Faith thing, but she sounds rather twee.

-m