[HPforGrownups] Re: DH as Christian Allegory

[Irene Mikhlin]

No: HPFGUIDX 173929

lizzyben wrote:

But even if we accept the (IMO horrifying) contention that JKR
intended her world to be a Calvinist split between the "divine elect"
& the unclean, evil masses, it still doesn't make sense to me. Because
how do we explain HBP? In that novel, Harry spends a lot of time
learning about, and integrating, Slytherin qualities. He inherits the
home of Slytherin wizards, rides the train in the Slytherin
compartment, interacts positively w/Slughorn, shadows Draco all year,
& learns from Snape's potion book. He actually considers young!Snape
as a kind of friend, and feel a sense of pity & compassion for Draco
(for the first time). The Slytherins were arguably the most
interesting characters in that novel. It seems like all of this was
about integration - internally, w/Harry integrating the Slytherin
shadow side into his personality, and externally, w/Hogwarts
integrating the Slytherin house into the school as well. 

Then, all of a sudden, in DH she suddenly reverses course and
literally isolates & eliminates Slytherins from the narrative. All the
subtlely of HBP is lost as Slytherin = evil once again, and Draco &
Snape are marginalized & reduced to the stereotypes. That's what's
weird to me. It's like she started writing about Jungian
integration, and then suddenly switched to Calvinist pre-destination
mid-stream. 


Irene:

One of my theories is that Rowling has planned the ending quite in advance. And she could not have planned the middle arch of the story in full details. So during the years of writing the story took her somewhere, and the characters has developed in unforseen ways. And then she had to take some artificial measures to bring them back to the planned route.

My husband has a different theory, which I find more amusing. Rowling has confessed to reading some discussion boards, right? So can you imagine her reaction after HBP: "I gave you super-spy-suave-Snape in the beginning of the book, I gave you wicked-wizard-Snape in the end, and still you won't believe he is ESE, which I need for my book 7 surprise?!!! Right, I'm keeping him off page for the most of book 7! No more confrontations with Harry!" :-)


lizzyben:

Yeah, me too. All the imagery of the pure good Gryfindors vs. the
impure evil Slytherins set off every type of alarm bell in my head.
Because once you start talking about "pure" & "impure" people, it gets
all kinds of ugly. 

Irene:

Her own answers to the "Which house you'd be sorted into?" only reinforce this impression. It's usually "I'd like to be in Gryffindor, but I can only hope I'd be deemed worthy". She always uses the "worthy" word in this connection.

Irene