Reacting to DH (was:Snape Reduced LONG(was: Re: Villain!Dumbledore...

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 177920

Betsy Hp:
I've started and stopped a couple of different replies to this.  But 
they've mostly boiled down to "she said; she said" which is, IMO, 
kind of boring. <g>  So instead I'm going to try and see *why* our 
readings are so vastly different. (Obviously, I'm not a mind-reader 
and so this is all my opinion.)

For example:

> >>Pippin:
> "Lily gave herself away by half glancing towards where Snape stood,
> nearby."  --DH ch 33
> She didn't mean to expose Snape. But she hadn't got his aptitude
> for sneakery. 
> <snip>
> Dumbledore didn't even know that Snape was still mourning Lily.  He 
> was shocked.
> "After all this time?" – DH ch 33

Betsy Hp:
For me, Lily is being passive-aggressive and Dumbledore is a liar.

And I think part of the difference comes down to this:

> >>Pippin:
> <snip>
> There's no one to take responsibility for the adult Trio,
> to punish them or grant them forgiveness. They have
> to live with what they did.
> <snip>
>  I'm reading that into the text. But it's a fairy tale.
> That's what you're supposed to do. It makes more sense
> than having to read  the humanity of one quarter of  wizard
> kind *out* of the story after JKR went to such lengths to
> put it there.

Betsy Hp:
You have more faith in JKR than I do.  You're putting what I think is 
the best possible spin on things, while I'm putting the worst because 
I don't trust JKR anymore.  If she told me water is wet, I'd have to 
dip in a toe. <g>  I honestly think JKR *did* right off the humanity 
of a quarter of the school.  And yes, it's deeply disturbing and 
shocking to me to think someone who gave such life to both Draco and 
Snape would treat them (and "their kind") so poorly.

> >>Pippin:
> It's a style of story-telling reminiscent of the Book of Genesis,   
> IMO, where we're seldom told what the characters are thinking, and 
> parallel story lines are not made explicit, yet for thousands of   
> years people have connected emotionally with the characters and    
> found the parallels themselves.

Betsy Hp:
Ah, but part of the beauty and timelessness of the stories of the 
Patriarchs is their very humanity.  None of them were plaster saints, 
and when they did wrong (and boy, did they do wrong) they faced the 
consequences.  The story of Jacob and Esau for example: we *are* told 
of Jacob's fear when he went back to face the brother he'd so sorely 
wronged. And we saw it expressed in the way he positioned his 
family.  And while we're not told explicitly the feelings occurring 
when Esau ran to meet Jacob, when the brothers wept together, I think 
it's pretty easy to see the love and relief and forgiveness there.  

For me, the story of Jacob and Esau has a much more explicit and 
concrete reuniting of two opposing forces than the supposed reuniting 
of those dear friends, Gryffindor and Slytherin, that I'm told is in 
DH.  I think it's because I can relate to both Jacob and Esau 
(depending on what I'm going through <g>) in a way I just cannot 
relate to the Trio (or any of the Potterverse characters, quite 
frankly).

So perhaps our disagreement comes down to this:

> >>Pippin:
> What I see is that they became more realistic in the end.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
And I just cannot see that.  Neither the plot, nor the quest, nor the 
characters struck me as at all real.  Heck, as soon as the Trio 
*didn't* die in writhing pain from eating Hermione's wild mushrooms, 
I realized JKR wasn't inviting me to sink into her story.  Instead I 
kind of got the impression she was rushing me to the door. 

The story only seems to work (or at least, that's my impression) if 
questions aren't asked. Which is in direct opposition to fairy-tales, 
the story of the Patriarchs, a "realistic" tale, or any well told 
story, IMO.  Rather than questions leading me deeper in, I've found 
questions pull me right out.  So rather than being a story that 
teaches, or even entertains, it's a story that disappoints and, if I 
do attempt to look deeper, actually repulses.

Betsy Hp