A sandwich

[prep0strus]

No: HPFGUIDX 178716


> lizzyben:
> 
> I really, really don't want to get sucked into the Slyth issue again &
> I'm sure no one wants to hear it. Suffice it to say that JKR defines
> bigotry as the belief that "that which is different from me is
> necessarily evil." And in the end, we learn that the different House
> is necessarily evil, or at least horrible. The giants are evil brutes,
> the goblins are sneaky & untrustworthy. In this crazy world, the worst
> stereotypes about "the Other" are actually true. Just like, in this
> crazy world, the justifications that slave-owners give are actually
> correct. 
> 

Prep0strus:

See, I don't think that means she was writing a story with a bad
message.  When you say the stereotypes about 'the Other' are true, it
for me negates the idea of them being a true 'other'.  I don't think
the story has an evil message, so much as it's much less complex, and
much more surface than we thought.  There are a lot of things that
seemed complex, that seemed grey... that we would see the other side
of things we thought were one way, that there would be surprises and
nuances.  But, in the end, I think a lot of those did not exist.  The
story was more black and white than expected, and the message more
surface, more obvious.  Now, some amount of good storytelling (of
which JKR does have) kept her from making completely uninteresting,
bland characters.  She made these characters NOT grey, NOT flat... and
yet, which is what created the problem in the first place.  The lack
of followthrough, however, I see as a mistake and a general
inexperience and immaturity as a writer.  She wanted to make
interesting characters, but she doesn't appear as interested in
interesting themes.

One theme is that bigotry is wrong.  Slytherin represents bigotry,
therefore Slytherin is wrong.  The problem is that there are then
characters that make up Slytherin, and she gave those characters too
much depth, making us think that Slytherin itself also had depth...
while I think that it does not.  Ugh. I'm getting into the Slytherin
thing... but I mean it as an example.

And what you said - that these groups actually ARE what they say they
are... well, that doesn't mean something BAD.  It's just saying - a
person who seems like a bigot is a bigot.  She didn't make them one
group that would be associated with a real life group to which she was
assigning bigotry.  Like, if all Slytherins were Swedish, and they
were all bigots, and they were the villains.  If they seemed to have
depth, and then didn't, one might think that she was associating
bigots with Swedes, and while for six books we thought we'd find out,
they're not really, life is more complex than that, no one is that one
dimensional... instead, no, she was just using her pen to call Swedes
bigots. But what JKR did was create a group of people who were mean
bigots... and in the end, that's all the were, mean bigots.  She
thinks mean bigots are bad, and wants everyone else to think so, and
that's that.  That was a pretty convoluted explanation of what's going
on in my head, but if you follow it... I think it's an explanation for
how the story can still be one with a good moral, just a simplistic
one, as opposed to a complex good moral or a bad moral of any complexity.

The elves... that I have a harder time with, because I can't fit it
together any way - not the way you do, either.  I don't think the
message that 'slavery is ok as long as you treat them nice' makes
sense in the context of the story.  She gave too much sympathy to
Dobby, to the idea of freeing slaves, and talked about how slavery is
bad in her interviews.  Now, she did not follow up on that storyline
appropriately, but she also didn't go AGAINST it enough to make a
strong point that slavery is ok.  Dobby's death and the lack of any
forward momentum on the issue lean that way, but I don't think that
it's enough to support the idea that the books actually support slavery.

These groups were the 'other' to us (well, to some of us - Slytherin
was never 'the other' to me), but I think to JKR it's simpler. 
Muggleborns were the other.  Bigotry against them represents bigotry.
These other groups I feel just aren't as meaningful as we made them
out to be.

> 
> lizzyben:
> 
> So, what it boils down to is that you don't like thinking that the
> books sent this message, but can't contradict that viewpoint? I
> don't like it either, but that theory seems to best explain the way
> that these issues were eventually resolved. Like Sherlock Holmes said,
> "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however
> improbable, must be the truth." I find it highly improbable that JKR
> intended for Harry & co. to learn that prejudice is justified, slavery
> is proper, some classes are morally inferior, and the elite have a
> right to rule, but IMO that's exactly what she did.
> 

Prep0strus:
I can contradict the viewpoint, and I've tried to express how I'm able
to do so... what I can't do, is provide an adequate alternate
viewpoint, which is a different thing.  I agree with the Holmes
sentiment, or the idea that by by doubting things you can come to the
truth.  The problem is, I doubt your theory equally as much as the
real one - I find it certainly improbable, if not impossible. Maybe at
some point I'll come across a theory that makes more sense to me.  For
now, inconsistent incompetence is the one that makes the most sense. 
The arguments for a negative reading are, to me, weaker than those for
a positive reading... but the fact that they exist at all show me that
she did not accomplish what she wanted to do regardless.

~Adam (Prep0strus)