To the Extreme

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 164929

va32h:

> Well, I have to disagree with your entire premise. I detest wild 
> improbable theories that have to do with completely random premises, 
> including such old favorites as:
> 
> 1) Any "Good" character is secretly ESE!
> 2) Any "Bad" character is secretly good!

<snip>
> I think JKR does plenty of convential things in her 
> stories...the "extreme" plot twists, like Pettigrew being Scabbers or 
> Crouch Jr. being both alive and impersonating Moody all year long, 
> come with concepts and characters that aren't fully explained, or 
> explained at all, until the book in which they are revealed. Why 
> would we suspect that Scabbers was a wizard who had faked his own 
> death 13 years ago, when we didn't even know the word Animagus or the 
> name Peter Pettigrew until PoA? Why would we think Barty Crouch Jr. 
> had faked his death, when we didn't even know of such a person until 
> GoF?


Pippin:
We knew as early as the first book that some wizards could transform
themselves into sentient animals, because the cat reading a map turned
out to be Professor McGonagall. We knew that fake deaths were a 
possibility because Voldemort himself wasn't really dead. 
 Biting Goyle and then falling asleep was clearly unbelievable behavior 
for a rat, as Ron told us. So it's not true that these plot twists came
completely out of the blue.

Rowling has said enough about hints, clues, red herrings and
'elements of a detective story' to make a hidden killer a distinct
possibility, IMO, and where can a killer hide except among the good
guys?

The question of who is trustworthy is a "live" issue, maybe not
as far as Harry is concerned, but certainly for the readers. Rowling
has said that to answer the question of whether Snape is good or
evil would take away the whole point of Book Seven, so much as
some of us would like to declare the matter settled, it isn't. And
until we know, we can't say with certainty which characters are
"Good" and which ones are "Bad." It's possible that Harry will
outgrow the need to see people as "good" or "bad" and realize
that they are free agents who  can make choices that
are one or the other.

Pippin