World Building And The Potterverse

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 167448


> Betsy Hp:
> I had a hard time snipping this because I didn't want to mangle your 
> idea.  And I *think* I get it.  Basically JKR *wants* us to see the 
> holes in order to sort of jump start our thinking about why we want 
> those holes filled in?  Or maybe allow us to write in our own reasons?
> 
> The issue I have with that is, IMO, encapsulated by Ken's response to 
> my rant on Draco's hand of glory:
> 
> > >>Ken:
what would we think of the Hand of 
> > Glory?
> > Most likely we would think that here is a careful story planner who
> > makes as few mistakes as is humanly possible.
> > <snip>
> > Even though we only saw the first and last steps in this
> > progression we would confidently fill in the details and think     
> > nothing of the omission of the intermediate steps.
> > As it is we can't be sure with this author. Do we give her the     
> > benefit of the doubt, or is this just more sloppy story planning?

Pippin:
That's a good illustration of what I'm talking about <g>. The
Hand of Glory is *not* sloppy in the same sense that  the
number of students is. It doesn't  violate the internal logic 
of the Potterverse. It's established that Draco  wanted one when 
he was twelve, and though  Daddy didn't buy him one at the time,
(just like he didn't let first year Draco bully him into letting him take
a broom to school)  it's hardly inconsistent that by the time Draco 's 
seventeen, he's had one for a while. It's not like Hermione's 
laid down the law and said that Hands of Glory don't work at 
Hogwarts! 

IMO, the sense of violation comes from breaking the narrative 
convention that says a story is a chain of connected events with
a beginning, a middle and an end. The end of the story isn't
logically inconsistent with the beginning, but it's narratively 
deficient because we don't learn how the conflict between Draco
and his father was resolved. In terms of the overall 
narrative this omission is probably no more significant than the
omission of how Harry recovered the Marauders Map. We aren't
likely going to need to understand that in order to understand
how Harry defeats Voldemort. 

 But there are many stories in the Potterverse with Missing 
Middles and some of them doubtless *are* significant. How can 
we tell which ones they are? We can only guess. Does  it 
matter why Dumbledore trusted Snape or where
Lupin spent the missing twelve years between Godric's Hollow
and PoA?   We don't *know* -- and that simultaneously builds 
reader interest in solving the puzzles and tempts us 
to presume it can't be done -- thus preserving the mysteries
even though millions of readers are hunting for the answers and
 JKR has declared that all the clues are there.

Pippin