Cinderella (was:Re: Protection-Abuse / Patron-Client (was:re:Blood protection...

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 158661

> >>Tesha:
> You make your point then you un-make it???

Betsy Hp:
Did I?  The first point was: Cinderella is a folk-tale and can be 
retold.  The second point was: Cinderalla has specific plot points 
that Harry with the Dursleys does not closely match.

> >>Tesha:
> The Cinderella story is based on a very simple outline - that can 
> be added to or embelished in many ways. Right?

Betsy Hp:
Right.

> >>Tesha:
> We've all heard father dead, father traveling, father sick, father 
> under the thumb of the nasty step-mom...

Betsy Hp:
Actually, I haven't.  But I agree that as long as the "good" parent 
is out of the picture you can still have a Cinderella-type tale.  
And Harry does fit the required profile in that he's an orphan.

> >>Tesha:
> If you get into specifics you lose Harry Potter and become         
> Cinderella, right?

Betsy Hp:
It depends on the degree of specifics.  To link Harry at the 
Dursleys with Cinderella there does need to be enough specifics to 
link his story with the Cinderella story.  Not every story about an 
orphan is a Cinderella tale, IOWs.

> >>Tesha:
> OK, my point is that the same basic outline is used to create the 
> same effect in the reader - we are meant to empathize with the    
> hero.

Betsy Hp:
By putting Harry in ill-fitting hand-me-downs, by having Harry be 
the one child in the house to be given chores, etc., I agree that 
JKR uses *elements* of the Cinderella story to help her readers 
empathize with Harry.

But I wouldn't go so far as to call it a re-telling of the 
Cinderella story.  There are too many important elements missing.  
And even the elements that are there are pretty watered down, IMO.

> >>Tesha:
> oh, and btw - the Cinderella story I think you're recalling is the 
> one where the hero as a woman has no power at all and has to wait 
> for someone to save her - the fairy tale that warps women and sets 
> up false expectations every day.

Betsy Hp:
That's the standard feminist reading of Cinderella, yeah.  But it's 
still the Cinderella story.  Change too much of it in an attempt to 
avoid warping women and you no longer have a Cinderella story.

> >>Tesha:
> Do you know any "Cinder-fella" stories? No fairy god-father comes 
> along to make him a beautiful sequined suit for the ball.....  he 
> might slay a dragon... or become the king by pulling the sword    
> from the stone....   hhhmmmm an idea for a book!!!

Betsy Hp:
If there isn't a fairy godmother type character, you're no longer 
talking about Cinderella.  There are tons of fairy tales with male 
protagonists where magic changes their lives without them having to 
do much.  A sticky goose, for example, that wins them a beautiful 
princess and half the kingdom with little effort on their part.

But you're describing more the "hidden prince" type of tale (King 
Arthur is a good example), and that's not Cinderella.  It *is* 
however, more the way I think JKR was directing the Harry with the 
Dursleys stuff in PS/SS.  

Betsy Hp