[HPforGrownups]Deconstructing the Potterverse

[Bart Lidofsky]

No: HPFGUIDX 165104

eggplant107 wrote:
> Historians love revisionism because it's the easiest way to make a
> name for yourself; try to show that the villain was really a hero and
> the hero was really a villain. But sometimes they take things to
> ridiculous levels.  

Bart:
	It came from a postmodernist philosophical idea called 
"deconstructionism", by the recently deceased Jacques Derrida (I used to 
think that it was a fake name, a pun on "Shock the Reader", but that was 
his real name; I read too much Harry Potter I guess). The theory was 
that in any idea, there is a major concept and a contradicting minor 
concept, and that the major concept wipes out the minor concept. It 
encourages studying the minor concept. So, for example, deconstructing 
the Harry Potter novels, we start out by wiping out the major concept: 
That Voldy is a major villain, that Dumbledore is the leader of the 
heroes, and Harry Potter is destined to defeat Voldemort. A number of us 
here have pointed out evidence that Dumbledore is a coldly manipulative 
bastard, not allowing the suffering of his allies get in the way of his 
eventual goals. From Hagrid in Book 1, we learn that the official reason 
why the WW people don't want the muggles to find out about them is that 
if they did, they would want the WW people to solve all their problems. 
But, if you take Voldy as the hero, then what is happening is that the 
people in the WW are forever afraid of being subjugated by the Muggles, 
and Voldemort wants to free them of staying in hiding by having the WW 
subjugate the evil Muggles (as typified, of course, by the Dursleys).

It has been done; the novel and Broadway show, "Wicked", deconstructing 
the Wizard of Oz (although mostly the movie, as the novel was an 
allegory of the Heroic Journey necessary for the protagonists to see 
that what they were seeking was within themselves, not to mention 
containing strong esoteric symbology of good and evil which "Wicked" 
throws away because it would keep the story from working) comes to mind 
immediately.

	Bart