[HPforGrownups] Re: Slytherins/Krum are/are not Jews.../The Houses Again

[Lenore]

No: HPFGUIDX 173706


Magpie:
>But these books aren't the real world, they take place in a school. I
>think there could have been more than there was, and more of an
>attempt than they're was. I don't think it would have been
>unrealistic.
>
>But this is JKR's book and she didn't have to do that if she didn't
>want to. Obviously that wasn't where her interest lay, and she didn't
>owe it to me to give it to me. But this was my reaction to the book
>and perhaps the books from now on. I didn't post it to make others
>feel badly or feel stupid--I didn't realize it was so upsetting to
>others to read stuff like this, since I'm generally not as bothered
>by hearing books I liked criticized (sometimes it makes me like the
>books less, sometimes not) and obviously it interests me. But maybe I
>understand it a bit in that I don't particularly enjoy posts about
>the negative effect on the group in general (or posts mocking this
>thread outside the group).
>
>Anyway, I don't mean to keep beating a dead horse--probably I
>wouldn't have posted quite as much except that there were certain
>misunderstandings that were a bit too horrible to let stand, like
>that Slytherins were supposed to be persecuted Jews in canon or that
>Shylock-type stereotypes were actually real.
>-m

Lenore:
I'd like you to know that I appreciate your efforts to clarify this issue,
as well as all of the other posters who have contributed.  For me, it
has been helpful, because I saw and felt all that you have expressed,
but found it daunting to find my own way of expressing it. I've been
amazed at your stamina in hanging in there until the issue was fully
covered.

I have been thinking and wondering if there were some deliberate
purpose in the book's leaving these issues so baldly unresolved.
IF they had been resolved in ways that were more or less satisfactory
to most of us, we would not be so roused by the fact that they are
still there in the WW.  Is it possible that our awareness has been
raised to a keener edge of problems in our world because the series
didn't give us a "happy ever after"?  I don't know.  For me, I want more
than ever to do my part, the part that is mine to do to heal our world....

Lenore (perennially idealistic in my belief that such a thing IS possible)