Dark Book

[nitalynx]

No: HPFGUIDX 177034

> Jen: Hehe, that's pretty good.  It works for me except the part about 
> drawing wands *on Pansy*.  More about that part below.

Nita:
Thanks! :)

> Jen: I don't read it as Pansy being a threat so much as her words 
> having meaning for the story.  Voldemort's basically said 'turn over 
> Harry or I'll kill you all' ("your efforts are futile. You cannot 
> fight me.  I do not want to kill you.")  Pansy says 'we should turn 
> over Harry.'  The other kids stand up in front of Harry and pull 
> wands which read to me as: 'nope, we're not turning over Harry, we're 
> choosing to fight.'  It's not literally about Pansy in that moment so 
> much as her representing a choice.  
<snip>
> Jen:  That *is* how the scene reads to me though, drawing wands to 
> fight Voldemort.  I mean, they can't even tell where his voice is 
> coming from, it sounds like it's almost issuing from the 'walls 
> themselves,' so it's not like they are literally drawing wands and 
> pointing them at Voldemort, but they aren't pointing them at Pansy 
> either.  The text doesn't say the students drew wands and held them 
> in attack position pointed at Pansy's face.  All the students stand, 
> table by table, with their backs to Harry, facing the Slytherin table 
> and looking toward Pansy.  Only after every student at every table is 
> standing do wands start to emerge 'pulled from beneath cloaks and 
> from under sleeves.'  I read that part as symbolic of the intent to 
> fight rather than surrender, a non-verbal choice to Voldemort's 
> ultimatum.  There was nothing in that scene to make me think the 
> point was to attack Pansy since she's one person standing there 
> screaming and not acting.

Nita:

Ohh, that's interesting. I hadn't even considered not seeing the
Decent People vs Pansy (+ the Slyths) angle as important, and now I
wonder why. Perhaps just because it's such a powerful visual that
somehow reminds me of impending mob justice?

But still, JKR's choice to demonstrate the good kids' willingness to
fight Voldemort using Pansy as a catalyst and symbol disturbs me. Like
Lizzyben said, in real life such situations often end very badly, even
if the people involved are perfectly decent. And the frightening
potential of the scene goes completely unacknowledged, as usual...

I mean, I don't demand sociopsychological realism from every fantasy
coming-of-age story, but the HP books *do* touch real social issues,
don't they? The Nazi allusions were rather blatant, I'd say. But
sometimes it seems like they were just a convenient shorthand for
extreme badness in a wish-fulfilment story.

Meh. I don't know what to think anymore.


Nita, still confused about JKR's intentions and methods, but happy to
see less depressing interpretations