Potter's Teacher's Edition / Plea for Canon (was:Re: DH as Christian Allegory...

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 175333

> Betsy Hp:
> I must say the idea that there needs to be Teacher's Edition for DH 
> is a bit funny.  It's not like there's a deep lesson in there.  The 
> intended moral seems to be, "Nazis are bad" (thanks, Jo!).

Pippin:
How do you know there's not a deep lesson? Because there's an
obvious message does that mean there can't also be a more subtle 
one?

> 
> Betsy Hp:

> Frankly, I don't buy Harry's little speech about Snape in the 
> Epilogue.  JKR doesn't sell it for me.  I mean, yes it's there so 
> it's canon, but it doesn't fit.  I have to do too much jumping up and 
> down and dancing around to make that speech make sense.  How does 
> Harry go from "this man must die!" to "I shall name my beloved son 
> after him!"?  Can it happen?  Sure!  I was totally expecting this 
> sort of change before DH.  But for some reason, JKR didn't feel that 
> writing such a change would be interesting.

Pippin:
But she did write it! Harry is not an introspective character. He's an
action hero. He learns by doing, not thinking and what he does, 
all through canon, is have experiences that echo and illuminate
the Prince's Tale. 

Harry knows how it feels to be dressed in horrible clothes, to
embarrass yourself in front of a girl you're trying to impress,
to be bullied for no better reason than because you exist, to have
a secret that would vindicate you and keep your word not to tell, to
let slip, in a moment of fury and humiliation, 'the unforgiveable
word' (only in his case it was 'crucio' and 'sectum sempra'.)

He knows how it feels to sit in Dumbledore's office, with
a hundred years of misery on your face, and feel that the world
has been divided forever into two universes, the one with the
only person who loved you, and the one without. And to know
that it was your doing.

How could he go through all that and *not* feel sympathy for
Snape? The beauty of JKR's plotting  is that we can think back 
through the books and discover all this. It would 
completely spoil the fun for me if JKR pointed it all out. 

Betsy_HP:
> I'm not generally into children's literature so I didn't get into the 
> Potter series in a general interest kind of way.  I read the first 
> few books and I liked them.  That started to change with... I think 
> OotP was where I started to dislike the Trio (specifically Hermione, 
> but Harry was pushing the envelope at that point, too).  I ended up 
> rereading HBP only once, which was weird.  I didn't like any of the 
> Trio by that point (Ron was the closest, but he was awfully pathetic).

Pippin:
It sounds like you're assuming the Trio must be intended as  cuddly
heroes whose  flaws are supposed to be the endearing
sort that make us love them all the more, only JKR totally misread what
you're willing to consider endearing. But I don't think so. Not since
GoF at any rate.

I think these are  supposed to be dangerously gifted young people, with 
admirable strengths, yes, but also with great big honking ugly flaws that 
make us tremble for their humanity, flaws they can't be shown overcoming
because they will always have to struggle against them. 

"Harry held up the Elder Wand, and Ron and Hermione looked at it
with a reverence that, even in his befuddled and sleep-deprived
state, he did not like to see." Doesn't that make it clear enough
that Harry knows he and his friends bear watching?

Pippin