[HPforGrownups] Re: Storytelling in Harry Potter (long)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 170909

Ann:
Regarding the Trio's passivity, I agree totally. They aren't anything
special as wizards - Hermione's talented but not outstandingly - and 
I'm not that fond of them as people. Even given what I said above, I
think they're pretty lily-livered compared to the Marauders. And
Draco's even wetter than they are. I've *never* understood what people
see in him.

Magpie:
I admit seeing the Marauders in the Pensieve they come across as
immediately a lot cooler than the Trio or any of their classmates at school
(I swear it's a generational thing--years ago I was working on a series
where we did a flashback to the dead father and he immediately,
effortlessly made his 90s son look like a dork just by being 14 in the
70s). But in general, MWPP are not all that great either by adult
standards. James was a jock with a big ego who got killed young, Sirius had
no adulthood and spent his last year bitter, sniping and Snape, and
drinking, Remus as a grown man never got over some of his biggest problems
with lily liver, and Peter was the worst of the bunch. Then there's Snape,
who's in many ways stuck in his adolescence. 

I don't think the Trio or Draco stand out as being wet in this
universe--the Marauders benefit from the fact we don't see them as
teenagers often. Their advantage is that they might not make such bad
mistakes in early life that they have mature lives like the past
generations. Harry could not have James' worst qualities, Draco might not
get trapped in bitterness and pass the point of no return that Snape did.
Are they all kind of pathetic? Sure, but all JKR's characters usually are.
I can't speak for what everyone sees in Draco as a character, but for me
that's part of it, and Snape too. I'm not dating them, so they can be wet.
I like watching them struggle to do the right thing once in their life.
(Lucius has a veneer of not being wet, but he is too--what a mess he made
of his life.)

Ann:
Here's where I disagree with Mike Smith. I don't think the books need
to have something happen all the time. I think they run off a
different power source. Not plot, but story. I've said I don't think
narration without action, antagonists running the show, or one thing
after another are part of a plot, but that doesn't mean they can't be
full of Story, hanging around in the subconscious giving us a reason
to live. Which HP is. It's set in a huge edifice, both castle and
school, with wise old men, Dark Lords, mythological beasts and names,
teachers with weird backstories, magic, nation-shattering warfare, and
so on everywhere. In a setting like this, JKR doesn't need a
mile-a-minute plot. The Mirror of Erised chapter in PS/SS adds nothing
to the plot, but it's an amazingly moving scene; for my money, the
best in the series. That's the most important reason most of us read
HP, in my opinion.

Magpie:
I'm still confused as to why you want to have this narrow definition of
plot so that stories with heroes who react to a crisis (all of what Orson
Scott Card would call Event stories) can't have plots, so that JKR's books
don't. The Mirror of Erised does add to the plot. Not only does it
introduce Harry to it so that he'll know how it works later in the climax,
it's helping with Harry's development so that he makes different choices
later.Why not just say that JKR's books are plotted--quite tightly so, with
characters often pulled into line to give us information and set things
up--but that Harry is a passive hero? 

Recently there was a great essay on lj about The Agents of Desire which,
among other things, compares HP to Oliver Twist and Great
Expectations--also books about characters drawn into the plots of
others--and it makes similar points in a different way. Kayen is I think
the author, and he points out how Harry is plotted in GoF and is very
passive about it, then in OotP he tries to take control of his own plot,
and Voldemort uses that against him, tempting him with an "easy" heroic
rescue. Then in HBP Harry becomes addicted to shortcuts for the same
reason, not wanting to follow Dumbledore's orders and preferring more
exciting things to solve.

Ann:
Something I think most people inferred is that I think plotlessness is
a bad thing. That's not necessarily so. Plot is a surface thing, as
far as I'm concerned, and if there's something else going on I'll
happily stick around.

Magpie:
I didn't think you meant it was a bad thing, I just got stuck at saying the
HP books have no plot because the plot doesn't come from Harry doing
things. There were interesting things in what you were saying that I agreed
with, I just wound up wanting to stick to the standard definition of plot
which includes stories like Oliver Twist and Jane Austen and mystery novels
and Gulliver's Travels.

Betsy Hp:
For me it's that Draco is a total spaz and he's *seen* as a total 
spaz. No one ever tries to talk me into agreeing that Draco behaving 
badly is Draco behaving well. Which happens too often with the Trio, 
IMO.

Magpie:
You know I agree.:-) I think JKR is genuinely drawn to people behaving like
losers, being petty and mean and stupid and thinking they're great while
they do it.

BetsyHp:
 An example: I *love* the part in OotP where Draco is randomly taking 
points from the Trio because Umbridge is crazy and so he can. 

Magpie:
LOL! Easily one of my favorite scenes in OotP, Draco's such a goof in it.
And nobody tries to tell me how he HAD to take points because it's totally
war. 


Betsy Hp:
I think this is why I think of JKR as better at character than I 
think she usually gets credit for. Think about how much information 
is packed into Snape's worst memory. Or Draco's interaction with his 
father in CoS. Blaise *springs* to life in the train scene in HBP in 
a magnificent way especially considering we didn't even know if he 
were a boy or girl for several books. With one tiny little scene, 
JKR is able to breath life into characters that seem like they should 
be stuck in flat caricature or be nameless red-shirts of no 
significance.

Magpie:
Oh, she's great at creating characters, I agree--dynamic ones. She doesn't
do character *development,* usually, which I think people sometimes think
has to be there for a book to be good, but it doesn't. A lot of the most
memorable characters aren't in character-driven stories where they have to
develop. People talk about Neville "developing" in OotP, but really he does
just what he did in PS, just taking it to the next level. The two
characters that do develop within canon are I'd say Harry, because he
changes, and I think Draco now that she put him through a story where she
attacked everything about what the character was about before. Now we don't
know what Draco will do, where as before we pretty much did. Other
characters probably have changed (Snape) but it was before this story
started.

BetsyHp:
Think of all the things you have to ignore for 
GoF to make sense (Fake!Moody not handing Harry a port-key, no one 
looking into *who* entered Harry into the contest, etc.), or need 
neat-o explanations JKR doesn't provide. And then there's PoA which 
includes both enough exposition to choke a horse *and* fun with time-
travel. I love PoA for the introduction of the Marauders (character, 
again) I'm not a fan of the plot.

Magpie:
I think that's why I can't get into the idea that HP doesn't have a
plot...where would we put all the plot holes?:-)  There is lots of plotting
going on in HP, Harry's just the one being plotted and reacting to it.

BetsyHp:
I'm not too knowledgable when it comes to the mystery genre but it 
seems to me that JKR isn't too strong in that area either. She's 
more about the twist (she's *amazing* with the twist, IMO), which I 
think is something different. Pippin? <bg>

Magpie:
I think it's that she doesn't do classic mysteries because they aren't
solved by Harry and they really can't be solved by the reader. They're
recognition dramas like Jane Austen, where stuff is happening and then when
Harry gets info it all looks different upon re-reading--which is a good
thing, because people generally don't re-read mysteries. There's little
point once you know who done it. There is reason to re-read this kind of
thing.

-m