[HPforGrownups] Re: What Came First: Task or Cabinet? - The Plan v1 & v2/Re: Draco's task (For M

[Jordan Abel]

No: HPFGUIDX 157776

On 9/1/06, sistermagpie <belviso at attglobal.net> wrote:
> > Random832::
> > You're _not_ being told that, though. You're merely drawing a
> > conclusion from the things you have been told. Others have drawn a
> > different conclusion. Also, I don't seriously think that Draco's
> > orders were anything other than to kill DD. But that doesn't mean we
> > know it for a fact.
>
> Magpie:
> You're right in that--all story involves some interpretation.  I am
> interpreting, yes. As your (reasonable) interpretation of the words
> in CoS leads you to remember us "seeing" Ginny possessed--that's how
> I remember the book too.  I do, however, object to the idea that all
> interpretations are equal.

Random832:
My point was that even if we don't see it in a literal sense, we see
enough to know she didn't fake the whole thing. Are we supposed to
believe that diary!Tom was an illusion she conjured? Are we supposed
to believe she can speak parseltongue?

The idea that _any_ theory that's been presented thus far about HBP
rises to the level of a hypothetical "Ginny faked the whole thing to
get attention" theory is ridiculous.

> > >>Random832:
> > If "making up theories" is to be separate from "literary analysis",
> > you can't analyze anything at all other than what's shown on the
> > page.
>
> Magpie:
> Exactly.  That's why they're different.  Analysis by definition means
> looking at what's on the page, breaking it apart, fitting it
> together.  It's exactly the opposite thing.  The theory impulse,
> which Snow explains below, embraces the idea that what's on the page
> is misleading and incomplete.

Random832:
That "idea" is _DEMONSTRABLY_ true. What's been "on the page" in any
given book has _routinely_ been revealed in the next to have been
misleading and incomplete in some way. And you haven't even pointed
out WHERE we're shown "on the page" that Voldemort planned this as a
suicide mission for Draco and summoned him to give him the orders. The
first part is on the page, granted, but it's in Narcissa's mouth, and
we KNOW that Narcissa doesn't have all the facts. The second part is
just an assumption. Just a theory.

Magpie.
>  If analysis finds what's on the page
> misleading or inconclusive, it's because the text itself supports its
> being misleading or inconclusive.

Random832:
A statement made by someone who is explicitly shown not to have
critical information (even ignoring the fact that she's a Black other
than Sirius, therefore highly likely to be a slytherin, which house's
members have often shown to be dishonest) is _not_ conclusive.

> Magpie:
> But if you directly parallel it to this situation, it's the Cabinet
> First people who are the ones who "know" it was Voldemort's Plan,
> because that's the thing that's not in the text.

It being a suicide mission isn't in the text either, in any meaningful
sense. It's in writing, sure, but between quote marks, and the person
it's attributed to is not in a position to draw a correct conclusion.

It's in the text that Narcissa does not have enough information to
draw any other conclusion. It's _CERTAINLY_ in the text that Narcissa
cannot in fact make any conclusion, or even be relied on as evidence,
one way or another, about when the cabinet was discovered and by whom,
because of the simple fact that Narcissa _never finds out_ about the
cabinet.

> Magpie:
> Ah--and this is what I felt that this alternate version *was*
> basically--a prediction that this information we have now

Random832:
What information do we have now? Think carefully. The information we
have now is that Narcissa believes that Voldemort gave Draco a suicide
mission. Another piece of information we have is that Narcissa has _no
knowledge_ about the cabinet. The "fact" that Voldemort gave this
mission to Draco first (not on the basis of information about the
cabinet) is not "information we have" at all - it's a theory. A
conclusion drawn from the first piece of evidence above without
considering the second.