World Building And The Potterverse

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 167614

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03"
<horridporrid03 at ...> wrote:

> I do think Dumbledore was badly mishandled.  (frex: While I can
> accept that magically there was no surer way to protect Harry than
> sticking him with the Dursleys, that oddly rude little lecture
> Dumbledore gave the Dursleys in HBP shook my acceptence that any
> sort of wizard interference would have put Harry on the street.
> It was an odd choice on JKR's part, IMO.)


Well, I think we are back to the problem of the invisible stairs
(i.e. the connections between different levels of the story not being very clear).  JKR has lived with DD in her head for so long that when he says and does things it is perfectly obvious to HER why he is saying and doing them.  She tends to forget it is not so obvious to anyone else.

I think this particular instance, the problem began at the end of
OOTP.  JKR, I think, thought that she was being perfectly clear in
DD's speech to Harry.  Unfortunately, she thought he was being clear
because SHE knew perfectly well what he was trying to say.  She
didn't understand that it wasn't very clear to someone who doesn't
live with this character in their head.

When it became evident that images of DD were beginning to circulate
that she thought were badly flawed, she tried to "reel him in" in the first part of HBP.  As you say, however, the cost of that was raising yet more questions about basic plot situations.


BetsyHp:
> But I think Dumbledore was a sort of dues ex machina (always
> arriving in the nick of time to save the day, but missing for long
> enough for things to get really tense first) so I'm not sure JKR
> really thought too much about his characterization beyond a unique
> quirk or two.


Actually, I think there are two DDs, and herein is where at least
some of the trouble arises.  There is DD the plot device and DD the
character, and the actions and attitudes of the one don't always mesh too well with the actions and attitudes of the other.  DD the plot device appears in PS/SS to leave Harry at the Dursleys.  DD the
character now confronts the Dursleys in the first part of HBP.  It is in some ways efficient to have a single character carry so much of the plot, but there are a lot of problems with that approach.  The DD situation illustrates one of them.

Lupinlore