Text vs Sub-Text

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 174757

Steve:

> Here is what I think. I think some people are looking
> for things in the TEXT that rightly belong and are
> found in the SUB-TEXT. I don't want these stories to
> end with -
> 
> '..and the moral of the story is... always obey your
> parents, go to Sunday School, and eat you spinach.'
> 
> I don't want good book to literally give me the 
> answers, I want them to force me to ask the hard 
> questions, and to use the books as a illustration 
> that might help me resolve the answers in my own
> mind. As, I've said before, Revelation is a greater
> teacher than Explanation. The answers that spring up
> from the well of my own intellect, are far more 
> powerful than the droning answers that come from
> teachers and preachers.
> 
> The very fact that we are arguing these points tells
> me that JKR has done her job. Was Harry evil, or at
> least bad, for using the Cruciatus Curse? I say in
> that circumstance he was wrong, but his actions were
> understandable and forgivable. But JKR doesn't spell
> it out for me or for others. That is why others think
> it was a horrendous thing for Harry to have done.
> 
> These opinions, these positions, don't come from the
> author, they come from us. Perhaps that is why the
> discussions are so polarized, perhaps that is why
> each side is so vehemently in their opinions.
> 
> I really don't want, and don't find it beneficial to
> have these moral dilemmas neatly resolved and spelled
> out for me. How do I learn and grow from that? I learn
> and grow more by not having it spelled out, by not 
> having it explained, but by having to reach deep inside
> myself and find the answers there. 
> 
> It's not up to JKR to resolve every moral dilemma, it's
> up to me.

Magpie:
This still sounds like what you keep trying to make the conversation 
about rather than what it actually is. But saying over and over that 
people want a Sunday school primer and a plaster saint and can't 
handle things being in the subtext doesn't make it so.  

Everybody here is already talking about the same subtext--not text. 
The text is only where the subtext comes from. Pointing out how Harry 
is actually described as reacting to something is not missing the 
subtext that he's really reacting in a different way. 

We even seem to be all agreeing on what the subtext is--that Harry is 
a great guy who won't let evil win, and things anyone might think 
(incorrectly?) he does wrong don't matter much in light of that. The 
disagreement only seems to me to be whether you think this is a 
satisfying exploration of morals or not.

I don't see how there aren't any answers in the text here--it seems 
to me that many people have said, when discussing what they didn't 
get from the story, *not* that they want easy answers but that they 
would have preferred an exploration of moral ambiguities. If none of 
the ambiguities are ever recognized in the text at all, not by the 
characters, or in the way the consequences of their actions are 
shown, or even in the way the author talks about it, is it really 
being presented as a difficult issue that readers can't handle? 
Because to me the opposite seems to be true--if I were Harry or 
Hermione morals would be a lot easier, and usually about other people 
being wrong and how I was going to deal with them once I'd judged 
them. Everybody doesn't have to agree with me, but when I got to the 
end of the series I did feel like I'd just read something that leaned 
less toward an exploration of difficult moral questions and more 
towards a more shallow, narcissistic fantasy where heroes kick evil's 
butt by being totally not virulent racists and hating bullies.

You seem to feel the criticism sounds like it's coming from Sunday 
school teachers. I admit some of the defenses sound to me like 
Petunia and Vernon Dursley reacting to a note from Dudley's school: 
He's a good boy! He's wonderfully flawed! And by flawed I mean human! 
The last thing I'd want is a nancy-boy--I mean, plaster saint--for a 
hero. His mistakes only make him more perfect! That's forcing 
yourself to ask the hard questions? (And was it even the book that 
forced you to think about it, or other readers?)

So to repeat, the trouble isn't, at least for me--and I don't think 
for other people based on what they've said--that they find the moral 
quandries presented in canon too difficult and are upset that they 
didn't get a bunny rabbit coming out at the end of each chapter to 
tell us the moral. On the contrary, we would have preferred the 
morals to be a little harder and not so easy as Harry being a great 
hero and a courageous boy who won't let evil win and that's all you 
need to know. We do see some answers in the text, and when the 
answers are presented readers naturally agree or disagree with them.
The answers turned out to be a bit easier than we expected, not 
harder. At least that's the impression I get--I don't mean to speak 
for anybody except myself.

-m