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

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 177922


> 
> > >>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. 

Pippin:
Ah, but the reader of Genesis is supposed  to know that the Edomites 
(the descendants of Esau) and the Hebrews were traditional enemies, 
so the love and forgiveness did not last, though Jacob and Esau came 
together to bury their father just as the Houses came together to 
entomb Dumbledore. 

Nor does the story  draw any explicit parallel between Jacob 
cheating Esau of his blessing  and Laban cheating Jacob of 
Rachel. So while you may read it as Jacob facing the consequences,
I've also read plaster saint interpretations  in which Jacob gets the 
blessing because he was the good brother and deserved it, and 
then was cheated by the uncle he so innocently trusted. 

JKR gives her readers the same freedom. The story I had
in mind was actually the sacrifice of Isaac. We aren't told how
Abraham feels about what he's asked to do, or how Isaac
reacted to being laid on the altar. The result is that
it can be told to children as a consolation story, while adults
almost uniformly find it extremely disturbing.

It takes some work for an adult not to see it as the story of a 
cruel god who makes a senseless demand of his follower.  
This dichotomy is echoed in the story itself, where Isaac's 
innocent trust is contrasted with Abraham's knowledge of 
what he has been asked to do. So one of the things the story 
is about is the different ways that adults and children look at 
faith. The adult is given the freedom to abandon his faith, but
if he does, then the story has no meaning and no reason
to be told.

It doesn't seem to me that the existence of plot holes has 
anything to do with whether the author expects you to search
for emotional or moral meanings. Genesis has some
of the most famous plot holes in history. (Who *did* Cain
marry?) Many people question the events in 
a realistic or historic sense but still consider the 
stories emotionally and morally  valid.

Betsy HP:
 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).
<snip>
> 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. 

Pippin:
I guess that's it. I can relate to the characters, and it doesn't
bother me that Hermione can eat dubious mushrooms and
only get a bit sick. Wizards can drink potions full of aconite,
too. The point of the whole camping bit, IMO, was to show that 
Gryffindors no more than Slytherins are trapped by the central
problem of human existence: if the group is too small, it
cannot secure resources, but every additional member is
a competitor for resources and a possible betrayer. 

The plot made sense to me as a way of getting Harry to understand
about the uses and limitations of power and trust in a way that just
sending him off to destroy the horcruxes wouldn't have done. 

I do agree we are shown to the door in DH, a bit like
Harry being told that the Mirror of Erised will be taken to a new
hiding place and he must not look for it again. 

Pippin