[HPforGrownups] Re: Further Notes on Literary Uses of Magic and Anti-Globalization( VERY LONG )

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 168267

 Alla:
>
> See, that is something I would never be able to see - meaning how
> you can see Draco more sympathetically when he was cooking up a
> murder than the girl who tries to protects her friends against
> traitor. My opinion obviously.

Magpie:
I think I had sympathetic to him for the same reason JKR did. I saw the 
situation through his point of view. He's a very flawed character trying to 
step up and be a man within his own family's framework. His father's been 
dishonored and he wants to make it right. He's doing it in a way that's 
objectively immoral and wrong--and runs up against all of that in the story. 
Based on the place he started out, this character is suffering and growing 
up and learning some hard truths and becoming better than when he started, 
even if he's not becoming great compared to other people. Why wouldn't I be 
able to enter into a story of a kid in this situation? If I wasn't there 
with Draco in his story there wouldn't actually be much to HBP. Bad 
protagonists can be sympathetic and tragic. This set up has loads of 
potential for sympathy. I don't even have to adopt different values to get 
into it, because of the nature of the story arc.

In terms of *how they're written,* (which was what I was talking about) yes 
I think that Draco's story is written more sympathetically that the minor 
business of the hex. My point was just that it's not like JKR is going out 
of her way to make us feel for Hermione and her hex. Hermone just promises 
revenge on anybody who rats on her and then it happens and we don't see her 
reaction to Marietta, who doesn't even have any lines so we don't have any 
reason to dislike personally. Hermione's doing fine.

 Alla:
>
> Eh, NO. **We** really do not mean that - I at least do not. I
> thought I gave an example of what to me good Slytherin would look
> like and really I would require no or very little communication with
> Harry. I guess just the minimum to notice or even his friends
> telling him about that with great surprise. Let me restate my
> examples again. For example, good Slytherin would have asked for
> rematch of the Quidditch match when Harry was injured because it
> would have not been fair like Cedric did OR good Slytherin in TWT
> would have done something similar to what Harry did - meaning saving
> somebody else's hostages.

Magpie:
Yes, I understood what you meant--though I think that would also translate 
to "cool by Harry and on his side."


 Magpie:
> because the point for me is that the Slytherins that we already see
>> are not all "bad" any more than the Gryffindors are just "good."
>
> Alla:
>
> I understand, and the point for me that Slytherins that we see -
> Draco Malfoy and ..... who? Among kids, I mean are really really
> horrible. I want to see somebody better than that, but I am guessing
> that I probably be stuck with redemption of Malfoy. Am afraid for me
> it is not good enough to change the opinion of Slytherin, hehe.

Magpie:
And that's where I disagree. They are all the things they seem to be. 
They're still not all bad and need to be brought back into the school and 
rehabilitated. The challenge, imo, isn't to just find some kids who fit the 
mould of our heroes and slap a green tie on them. There's no challenge in 
that, and it just avoids the problem that's set up. It avoids the whole 
conflict the story seems to run on. JKR has centered her problem in 
Slytherin and, imo, it's the problem that needs to be dealt with. It doesn't 
change anything to just isolate the bad element further by coming up with a 
Slytherin within Slytherin. It's not the physical section of the castle that 
needs rehabilitation, or the name. Some people think Hufflepuff is a house 
full o' duffers and that's unfair, but it's not a major conflict.

> Alla:
>
> I have no doubts that she is moving towards the unity of the houses.
> I do believe though that she should have given hints of the
> Slytherins in general earlier to make it persuasive.
>
> So far, even her choice of words about Slytherins in the interview
> is very telling to me. When asked by Mellissa and Emerson about
> Slytherins in general, she did not even say that they are **just as
> good as any other house". She said, that they are not all bad.
>
> I think that despite trying to give a message that all houses are
> equal at the end on the emotional level Slytherin will also be a
> secondary house for her, sort of House of former evil that reformed
> and therefore it reflects in her writing about them.

Magpie:
I'm not sure what you mean by Slytherin being a secondary house. I'm sure 
she'll always arbitrarily consider Gryffindor the best, but
I think she also loves Slytherin and that's why so much of the heart of her 
story is there--*because* it's a house of former evil reformed. That can be 
far more meaningful and more dramatically won. I think that's why when JKR 
for the first time actually centered the story of an HP book on somebody not 
HP, and made a character besides HP change, it was a Slytherin and a bad 
guy. And why everything keeps leading back to Snape.

-m