Ender vs. Harry SPOILERS for Ender's Game (WAS Re: JKR's Intent)

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 178890

> >>Betsy Hp:
> > It's probably kind of telling (and not so much a surprise <g>),   
> > but I saw Draco as reaching out to Harry for at least a good     
> > three books.
> > <snip>
 
> >>zgirnius:
> I don't know about three books, but Draco definitely did make      
> sincere attempts to be friends with Harry in the first book. He did 
> not go about it in a particularly good way, and I felt the whys and 
> wherefores of that were made quite clear in the series.
> <snip>
> As for how "deep" Draco is, I find him a well-drawn and interesting 
> character whose motivations are depicted believably, whom we see   
> grow and change, and whose arc fits into the greater themes and    
> story neatly.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
DH killed Draco's story for me.  He ceased to make any sense as a 
character and became a cardboard cut-out as far as I was concerned.  
No one can hang in the sort of limbo JKR had him (and his family, for 
that matter) hanging in without breaking.  And considering that Draco 
had *already* broken back in HBP, I didn't believe any of the actions 
taken by him in DH at all.  To me, he was a puppet JKR moved around 
to accomplish her plot desires.  That is all.

> >>Pippin:
> Draco was definitely reaching out to Harry in PS/SS, but he
> wanted Harry to be his kind of person. (As many, I suspect,
> hoped that Draco was really Harry's kind of person after all.)
> Once Draco realized there was no hope of that, he didn't
> want to be Harry's friend.

Betsy Hp:
I saw Draco trying to get Harry's attention ("be my friend!") up 
until the war bubbled up again and his family loyalties kicked in.  
He went about it in a very "pulling Harry's pigtails" kind of way, 
but he was pretty darn consistent, IMO.  Until his character ceased 
to be, of course. <g>

> >>BetsyHP:
> > But in the end, yes, the bad guys in Potterverse were no good to 
> > the bone, and in Enderverse there weren't really any "bad guys"   
> > after all.
> > <snip>

> >>zgirnius:
> In the end, Voldemort was the one bad guy who proved to be no good 
> to the bone.
> <snip>
> And he became, yes, a monster. But we have plenty of whys and      
> wherefores.

Betsy Hp:
I disagree.  Voldemort was a monster and that is all.  There was no 
misunderstanding to work through, there was just a monster to be 
destroyed.  (In the end I found Voldemort to be a very boring 
villain.)

> >>zgirnius:
> HP also has this class of non-villains mistaken for villains, about 
> whom we also get whys and wherefores (along with the information    
> that they are not actually villains at all). Snape and Regulus to a 
> lesser extent, fall into this group. 

Betsy Hp:
Huh.  I'd have said Snape and Regulus *were* that group.  And they 
were conveniently dead so Harry didn't have to deal with having 
someone he'd misjudged walking around and thinking him less than 
perfect. <g>  Other than that, I can't think of a person Harry 
thought was a bad guy that actually turned out to be full on good.

And of course, we've got Slytherin who are so unworthy they aren't 
considered a true part of Hogwarts.

> >>Pippin:
> Draco was no good to the bone? As bad as Crabbe, was he? Where
> do you get that?

Betsy Hp:
>From the books. They're both Slytherin in the end.

> >>BetsyHP:
> > JKR created these "bad guys" and seemed to give them 
> > depth and heart, but then in the end, figuring out the whys and 
> > wherefores was silly (or unrealistic, I guess?) and her          
> > protagonist just... won.

> >>zgirnius:
> I note that you seem not to object particularly to Voldemort in    
> your comments, yet he is the only character I recognize in your    
> broad-brush descriptions of what happened in the series.  If you    
> find the artistic choice of having Voldemort die unredeemed         
> unacceptable, you could save us a lot of time and effort and just   
> say so. 
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Oops, sorry!  There's been a lot of complaining about people 
repeating themselves so I assumed my views had been shared so often 
that it was best I went to short-hand. I wasn't talking about 
Voldemort so much as Slytherin as a whole.  Slytherin was the actual 
villain of the piece (hell would be Hogwarts without a Sorting Hat) 
and they were painted as bad to the bone, IMO.  When it came to 
defending Hogwarts, Slytherin left.  And no, I didn't see any reasons 
for them doing so, nor did I see our protagonist caring about why 
they did so.  It's what you'd expect of Slytherins apparently.

> >>Pippin:
> Harry could only win because he had the whys and wherefores figured
> out. He had magic that Voldemort didn't have, but the only reason he
> was able to use it was because he understood Voldemort.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Harry defeated Voldemort in the end because he'd lucked his way into 
the Elder Wand.  (Heh.  In the end, it really *is* the size of your 
wand that matters.)

Sure, there was some minimum "figuring out how Voldemort's mind 
works" so that Harry could *finally* get his hands on the horcruxes.  
But even there JKR had to cheat and write in Harry getting literally 
(and horribly unrealistically, IMO) into Voldemort's head.  So it did 
not feel like Harry was actually "getting" Voldemort to finally beat 
him.  (Though in the end, Voldemort was a twisted monster so there 
wasn't really much there to get, IMO.)

> >>Betsy Hp:
> > <snip>
> > But no, a middle name after a guy his kid's never heard of, and   
> > an assurance that little Al can *choose* his house isn't my idea 
> > of Harry delving deep into the Slytherin mind, seeing they're not 
> > that alien after all, and sharing that news with his people.

> >>zgirnius:
> How do you know that Albus knew nothing about his namesakes?
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Heh, I went back to reread that scene because I thought it would be 
apparent Al was hearing the story for the first time.  I'll admit 
it's not, though it's not apparent that the story is old hat, either.

"[Y]ou were named for two headmasters of Hogwarts.  One of them was a 
Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew." [DH 
scholastic p.758]

Harry's not talking like he's said this before, IMO, but it's by no 
means definitive.

However, this was something I'd not picked up on before:

"'What if I'm in Slytherin?'
"The whisper was for his father alone, and Harry knew that only the 
moment of departure could have forced Albus to reveal how great and 
sincere that fear was." [ibid]

*Great* and *sincere*.  This isn't a kid worried he's going to end up 
in the lame house.  It's a child terrified he's going to end up in 
the *bad* house.  And how does Harry comfort him?  First he explains 
that even a Slytherin can express Gryffindor virtues (bravery).  But 
then he says that if it matters to Al (and obviously it does), Al can 
choose his house.  And he doesn't just leave it at "choose".

"But if it matters to you, you'll be able to CHOOSE Gryffindor OVER 
Slytherin." [ibid - emphasis mine]

So yeah, I don't care that Al's middle name comes from the brave 
Slytherin Harry knew.  It's very apparent, IMO, that the best house 
is still Gryffindor, and Al's fear of Slytherin was not unfounded nor 
from outside sources.

> >>Pippin:
> <snip>
> Children pick up attitudes from all over, and blithely embrace     
> opinions that completely contradict what they learned from their   
> parents, not always with awareness that they've done so. We see    
> Dudley doing this at the beginning of DH.
 
Betsy Hp:
Dudley was 17 at the time of DH, and Slytherins are all condemned 
with a choice they make (or don't make) at the age of eleven.  In the 
Potterverse it doesn't matter where a child's opinion comes from (JKR 
all but wrote a big sign saying Draco was parroting his father in the 
first two books) it's still enough to determine that child's worth.  
After all, it was his childish views that made Draco being repeatedly 
dropped on a stone floor a hilarious scene of good old fashioned 
revenge. 

> >>zgirnius:
> In my opinion, the suggestion that there *is* a Slytherin mind in 
> which to delve is the mistake (and if it were not a mistake, *that* 
> idea might get me to consider that Rowling has written a deeply     
> scary work). The whole point is that there is no "Slytherin mind"   
> any more than there is a "Gryffindor mind". This is a misconception 
> Harry may or may not have harbored at some point, of which I       
> believe him fully cured.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
And yet, the Slytherins all acted en masse.  None of them joined the 
DA, none of them fought for Hogwarts.  So, in the end, I think JKR 
*does* suggest that there's a "Slytherin mind" and it's a dark and 
scary place that's best just thrown out or stuffed on a luggage rack 
and just not thought about.  Which I agree is scary.  And disturbing, 
IMO.

> >>Pippin
> who isn't sure what marrying your high school sweetheart
> has to do with the nineteen-fifties

Betsy Hp:
Playing house.  Which was a big thing, I think, in the 1950's because 
of the horrors of WWII and the Great Depression.  So everyone tried 
to get that "perfect" cookie-cutter life style.  (I'm broad-brushing 
here, and I'm fully aware a lot more was going on in the '50's.  But 
this was the ideal for a lot of folks.)

And there's nothing wrong with JKR wanting to end her series with her 
protagonists all happily playing house.  It just means that, again, I 
don't see much in the way of social justice being addressed.  
(Honestly, I doubt JKR thought there was anything *to* address.)

Betsy Hp