Appeal of the story to the reader

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 175665

houyhnhnm:
> Look, not at this discussion group, but at the billions 
> of words that have been written by fans about the Harry 
> Potter series (not to mention fanfiction).  Can anyone 
> deny that a great part of the appeal of these books is 
> the enjoyment of violence, punishment, revenge, inflicting 
> pain, watching other people suffer?  Of course it's on 
> bad guys.  Those who are on the receiving end of vengeance 
> are always "the bad guys".  I find it disturbing.

Jen: I'm having a surreal experience at the moment, naively realizing 
for the first time that the way I've read the series, the things I've 
placed importance on, are not just different but *vastly* different 
from some other readers.  

Take what you said above, the enjoyment of 'violence, punishment, 
revenge, inflicting pain, watching others suffer.'  I would 
characterize that part of the series in a very different way, as dark 
humor or tragic-comedy or the necessary conflict of a 
protagonist/antagonist in order to have a story.  It's not an 
overarching theme for me, definitely not *the* theme.  It's part of 
the story and there are revenge moments on both sides as well as 
times revenge is overcome.  Past that, I've explored some ideas but 
not come to any conclusions because the story is very gray to me.

Part of my opinions come from indentifying with Harry from book 1, 
understanding JKR was sympathetic to her hero and not expecting a 
complete reversal in the end for Harry.  It's why I read Snape as 
Grey!Snape, because I couldn't picture Harry in a place of realizing 
he was wrong about *everything* re: Snape's person even if he 
discovered Snape was indeed loyal and working to defeat Voldemort.  
DH wasn't a big smack in the face for me (except for the DD piece).

Also, the premise of hundreds of kids living with about 12 adults 
supervising (and not at night), all carrying around weapons on a 
daily basis and not having half of them killed or seriously maimed 
every year required a huge suspension of disbelief for me to begin 
with!  I just...it's so hard for me to lay a real world template over 
the books.  Children are getting petrified, at risk to be killed and 
the school stays open? Right.  A werewolf is allowed to go to school 
and the protection provided is a tree and a shack?  Good idea.  A 
potentially life-threatening competition takes place at the 
school and an underage kid without much training has to compete b/c 
of a binding magical contract?  M'kaaaaay.  

There were times I laughed when I was 'supposed' to and times 
something struck me as mean or too dark for me - oh well, JKR and I 
don't have the same sense of humor.  I don't characterize myself as 
someone who rubbed my hands with glee and shouted 'more violence, 
more eye-for-an eye - wahooo, I can't wait to see how JKR gets the 
baddies next.'  The story was much too gray for me to see this very 
black/white aspect others see when characterizing it as a 
revenge story, full stop. 

Houyhnhnm:
> But some other things, I just don't know what to make of 
> them.  Like the miserable creature in the train station 
> and the injunction not to pity or comfort it.  Repeated 
> over and over.  Once might not have been so bad, but it 
> was just hammered in. I've been bothered by the mean-spirited 
> undercurrent in the books all the way along, the Appeal 
> to the Crowd, and trying to deny to myself that I see 
> what I see.  Learning that an author I really admire  
> (who's worth twelve of Rowling) had come right out and  
> said it was kind of a tipping point.

Jen:  I have some things to work out as well, but the difference is 
I'm pretty sure mine will end up as a plot point or fitting in with 
the theme of exploring death or *something* - they won't likely fit 
into the moral aspects of the story, not at the moment anyway.  Like 
I said, it's very gray for me now; I was reading DD as the moral 
compass and since he's been brought down some notches, the moral 
universe feels like a swirling mass of grayness that I haven't sorted 
out yet.  So mostly I was surprised that others closed the book and 
had this very clear picture of Potterverse as a bad place since my 
reading was the moral aspect was *less* clear, not more. 

Jen