Storytelling in Harry Potter (long)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 170931

> 
> 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? 

Pippin:
I have to agree with Magpie. According to the classic example,  "The 
King died and then the Queen died"  is a story, "The King died and 
then the Queen died of grief" is a plot. Connections of any kind are
what give a story its plot, and if we're not going to call that 
plotting, what are we going to call it? "George" is taken. <vbg>

The action of a mystery story is the protagonist trying to figure out 
how events are connected, something the reader generally doesn't
know until the end. In contrast to classic sleuths like Sherlock 
Holmes, Harry's efforts to solve the mysteries before him are generally
sporadic and unsuccessful. But that's what makes re-reading the
books such fun: Harry  misses or misinterprets almost all the clues, 
so they're still there for the reader to discover once we know what's 
supposed to have been going on. 

> 
> 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.

Pippin:
Alfred Hitchcock used to talk about The Plausibles, that group of
people who couldn't take any pleasure in a story that didn't follow
its own internal rules. But I think JKR is a Plausible herself, or as
plausible as someone a bit maths challenged can be. Logistical
plausibility doesn't matter to her, but logical and psychological
plausibility do. I think the plot of PoA will make sense (aside
from the fact that all theories of time travel have internal 
contradictions) once the missing pieces of the puzzle are
produced. My guess is there are things in DH that will cause
us to re-evaluate the plots of all the books.

But GoF makes sense now given the character of Voldemort and
Barty Jr. You might as well ask why Voldie and Bella didn't just AK 
Draco on the spot. The psychopath experiences life as
a constant series of people who make him feel important
and special, and then disappoint him drastically. Voldemort
forces others to re-enact this drama for his amusement,
over and over again.

As for trying to find out who put Harry's name in the goblet,
it would be pointless. Anyone who could confund the goblet 
could confund the investigators too. As we saw in HBP,
Dumbledore solves wzarding crimes by asking the old
 question *cui bono*  -- who benefits.

Unfortunately for Harry, the answer was not clear until
Fake!Moody tried to snatch him away.

> 
> 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>

Pippin:
Mostly, the mysteries aren't "fair" , a term of art which means that the
reader can deduce the identity of the villain and the method by
which his crime was committed from internal clues. They're
almost fair: there are enough clues that you could guess the
answer, but not enough to logically eliminate all the other
possibilities. But that's not poor plotting, it's just a different style
of mystery story. 

The mysteries that Hermione solves are "fair" -- when she says
"Tuh!" or "I've just remembered something" and scurries off to
the library, that's like Nero Wolfe pushing his lips in and out.
It's your cue that you have enough information to try to solve 
the puzzle if you wish, using the clues you've been given and
perhaps some facts from the (Muggle) library, for example 
that "skeeter" is North American slang for an insect.

Pippin