I am about to rant....

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 173511

Geoff:
Warning. I think I am about to rant. :-)

This post which has been brewing for some time was 
brought to a head because two days ago, I marked my 
fourth "birthday" as a member of the group and I sat 
and wondered why I wasn't enjoying reading the list at 
the moment; ploughing through a flood of new messages 
arriving while I am in the land of Nod in the UK each day 
seems to have become a chore.

When I first came onto the group in the days when the 
world was young – after all my first post was 73361! – you 
could usually find a fair raft of threads on the go covering 
a wide range of topics: Riddle's diary, the location of 
Hogwarts, the Weasley family tree and many others which
sometimes could be  - sharp intake of breath - fun. 

After the publication of HBP, there was a sea change. We 
began to get lengthy threads which sometimes went on and 
on and on discussing Snape and Horcruxes and Dumbledore's 
death. OK, good enough. But when they turn into long version 
of what I have been credited with calling "tennis matches" – 
yes it is, no it isn't, yes it is, no it isn't ad infinitum, ad nauseam 
- isn't it time to agree to disagree, accept our different points of 
view and remember that we are actually discussing fiction, 
written hopefully for us to be able to  enter into the author's 
world and enjoy?

Already, with DH only on the streets a week, these lines of 
demarcation are showing again. We`re already getting well 
established Snape threads again and the long threads on how 
we view the morality of the Wizarding world. As an example, 
the question of the Christian element of the book has been 
discussed. OK, I've had my say in this. and I stick to my line that 
Harry is not a Christ figure; he is not God. He is Christ-like insofar 
as any Christian attempts to be and if a person of a different faith
 or world view sees it otherwise, that is their choice. I hope that 
I'm not going to repeat myself for ever trying to bludgeon 
another member into accepting my point of view just to shut me 
up.

There are other points of disharmony. I personally do not believe 
that Harry died and came back. When he found himself in "Kings 
Cross", I believe that he had a near-death experience which lasted 
just few seconds in real time when he had the vision of Dumbledore 
who told him that it was in his head before he returned to reality. 
Interestingly as and aside, I was strongly reminded of the scenes 
in Star Trek: Deep Space 9 when Benjamin Sisko meets the Prophets 
of Bajor in a vague and misty place outside real time. But again, that 
is my take on it and others may want to interpret it in a different way. 
And again, there are lots of unanswered questions; but isn't that the 
situation in our own real lives?

My one wish, which was granted, was for Harry to survive. Beyond 
that, I left it to the will of the author. I read book 7 and was reasonably 
happy – except for the wretched epilogue. So we lost Mad-Eye, Fred, 
Hedwig, Dobby et al. but this was war. Today in the UK, we lost another 
soldier in Afghanistan which is currently costing us more than Iraq. A 
teenager was shot in Manchester, another in the long litany of young 
lives wasted in his way this year. More parents mourn. This is real life 
again. In DH, JKR brings us to a similar place where hatred and war 
make mockery of what we would deem our desires. But, in real life 
and in the Potterverse, there are things which are positive. It isn't all 
doom and gloom despite what the Daily Prophet or the Telegraph or 
the New York times would have us believe.

What I am trying to get at is instead of trying to score points off one 
another or run down what JKR has written, why don't we try looking 
for things to agree on; things that we like about the books. Instead 
of perpetual negativity, why don't we look for good things, encouraging 
things, things to say "wow" about? Instead of counting the dead, why 
don't we remember the numbers who came through the war and will 
go on beyond the last page – in the epilogue or not – Harry, Ron, 
Hermione, Luna, Neville, Bill, Charlie, Arthur and Molly, even Draco 
and his parents(!) and the rest. I read Tolkien and Lewis and Rowling 
first and foremost for pleasure. Perhaps I'm naïve but I don't want to 
analyse them down to the last full stop; I just want to be an armchair 
hedonist for a couple of hours!

There, I've got that off my chest. I think I'll go and find some 
soothing fanfic