Deathly Hallows Reaction - Could do Better, Sorry/Our epilogue

[littleleahstill]

No: HPFGUIDX 172739

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "ohnooboe" <hautbois1 at ...> 
wrote:
>
> > I think you've all missed the boat completely.  JK makes a good 
point 
> here.  All is not happy and puppy dogs and I think it would be a 
> disservice to a series whose morality so closely mirrors the "real 
> world."  All cannot be "happily ever after," rather it's 
> just "well."  destroying Voldemort simply meant ridding the world 
of 
> that one evil.  The end of WWII did not bring happiness and 
> perfection to the world...it simply eliminated an evil and 
returned 
> things to the way they were.  

Leah

It would have been quite possible to have addressed the issues of 
social justice and the unity of the Houses, without creating 
a "Hello trees, hello clouds, hello sky" kind of world. As I have 
said earlier, if the book were just about ridding the world of 
Voldemort then DH is fine. But Rowling throughout the series raised 
questions of social justice.  I always found these slightly clunky 
myself- ok it's not ok to enslave house elves, but why it is ok to 
hiss and boo eleven year olds when they're sorted into Slytherin.  I 
always preferred the quest/mythic elements of the book, and now I 
find that in effect that's all there was. All those social justice 
questions need not have been raised.  

The end of WWII did not make the world a fairy tale place, but that 
war did have an effect. In the UK the votes of service personnel who 
had fought in that war brought in a government with a radical agenda 
of social justice (the US feared it was almost communist). Some 
things were not returned to the way they were.  Racism would not 
disappear but the acceptable public face it once had has gone.

> She was never making the statement that ONLY Gryffindors are good 
and 
> ONLY Slytherins are evil...we know that is not true.  Not all 
> Gryffindors are without fault and not all Slytherins are evil.  
> That's a rather narrow view of the books.

Leah
But it is the view we end up with.  Yes, we've seen flawed 
Gryffindors but in the end Gryffindor is the place to be (with 
Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff ok if you're that way inclined).  Do we 
have Harry saying "Not all Gryffindors are without fault and not all 
Slytherins are evil" to his children? No, we don't, we get a 
reference (and it's a moving reference) to the behaviour of one man. 
But since DD has already suggested to that man that he should have 
been in another House that's not much help.  Harry's view of Snape 
hasn't prevented the anti-Slytherin taunting that's been going on in 
Harry's home.  
> 
> Thinking the houses to be reunited and the MoM to be cleaned up is 
> completely unbelievable.  This is not a fairy tale.  It may be 
> fantasy, but it's based in a world that very closely mirrors our 
> own...and in our own nothing is every perfectly happy and ending 
the 
> books that way would be completely contrary to the rest of the 
> books.  That doesn't make it "ugly," it just makes it more 
believable.

Leah
I think it would take a while for the MOM to be cleaned up, but 
after 19 years it wouldn't have been impossible.  Perhaps the Houses 
couldn't be reunited with ice-cream and balloons, but the Slytherin 
problem could have been tackled. It's a school, not the Middle East. 
Abolish the house system, abolish Slytherin as a house. It could be 
done without any one falling over in amazement.  If the whole thing 
was so very very unbelievable why did JKR waste so much print 
suggesting it ought to happen? 

Leah, who thought Katie's suggested epilogue was pretty much what 
should have been written