Disappointment Was: Deaths in DH WAS: Re: Dumbledore (but more Snape)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 177511

Lealess:
> And maybe no progress had been made at all.  Maybe Ron's "Look who it
> is" was not supposed to echo James' comment before Snape's Worst
> Memory.

Pippin:

Of course it was.  But then why would it not matter that from that
point things unfold quite differently? instead of reacting like a 
hunted animal, Draco responds politely, nor is this politeness
treated as deceptive.

Why would it not matter that no one but James seems to be
spoiling for a fight? And he gets slapped down for it, not
told he's being a right-thinking Gryffindor and bully for you.

To insist that there are no more problems at all in the wizarding
world would be wish fulfillment, and I don't think the all is well
is supposed to indicate that. There are still problems, but 
there isn't a Voldemort around that Harry has to fight, and there 
hasn't so far arisen another one. As you say, it would
be obvious if the WW were at war. 

To interpret  that nothing has changed at all, so as to be able
to condemn JKR not only for disappointing some 
readers but for being false to her own storyline seems as 
wishful to me as saying that the book is flawless.

But why did she leave things so open to interpretation? To me that
seems obvious -- it's because in the real world that's the
way things are. You never have all the facts, except when it's
too late. 

To write a story that correlates with WWII and not have anything
that's comparable to the firebombing of Dresden or the internment
of  Japanese-Americans would be incredibly dishonest, IMO. At
the time those decisions had broad support. Twenty years 
after the fact, most of  the people who did those things  still 
felt that those were good decisions, and to deny that would be 
dishonest too. And sixty years later many people still 
think that they were good decisions, or at least the best that 
could have been made at the time.  The debate goes on, so
why should JKR treat it as settled? That'd be, um, wish fulfillment. 

Lealess:
> Please show me the data.  What are the virtues of Slytherin House that
> were revealed in Deathly Hallows that would be more persuasive?  

Pippin:
Friendship. Bravery. 
Are those not the things that make a great wizard?
A great human being?
Are they somehow poisoned by association with Harry?
Is there one kind of greatness for Gryffindors and another
kind for Slytherins?

I thought DH was showing very clearly that you don't have to be
a Gryffindor to be a great wizard, just as you don't have to be
a Slytherin to do things that are cowardly or hateful. They're
 all human, IMO, and if that makes them a moral mess at 
times, that's human too. 


Lealess:
> Suppose JKR is trying to reach people who are biased against
> Slytherins, or let's say, against non-white people, or against
> homosexuals, or little people, or just non-English people.  Do you
> think she's done a good job of reaching them and opening their minds?
>  Actually, I wonder if she was even aiming for an anti-prejudice message.

Pippin:
Suppose the minds she's trying to open are the minds of people who
think that because they're against prejudice they can't be prejudiced
themselves. What if she wants to show that she agrees with the
educated opinion is that  prejudice is universal and the only weapon 
we have is constant never-ending vigilance? 

In that case prejudice can't be eliminated, and to show it as totally
gone would be wish-fulfillment. I don't think anyone is saying that
they read the ending as prejudice  being eliminated anyway.

But to me it's clearly recognized that it's a problem if children
are being turned against each other by their parents.
Harry sees it more clearly than Ron, and Ron sees it more 
clearly than Draco, but they all see things more 
clearly than before, and more clearly than their parents did. 

> >Pippin:
> >Harry saw Snape as a coward in HBP. How is being able to
> >recognize Snape's bravery not seeing Snape more clearly?
> >
Lealess:
> To address this one point, bravery is one aspect of Snape's
> personality.  It happens to be one we know Harry values.  What else
> does Harry see about Snape that may be important to Snape but isn't
> important to Harry?  What about his work, the destroyed potions book,
> the knowledge that went with him?  What about the positions he held,
> the skills he showed in doing his jobs?  

Pippin:
"You are named for two Headmasters of Hogwarts." This, from the
guy who couldn't get his mouth around the word "Professor" !
In honoring Snape as Headmaster, Harry honors all that Snape 
did to get and keep that job, including being Head of Slytherin, 
a master of deception, a potions master who had a higher than usual
pass rate, the inventor of spells that kept Harry, Ron and Hermione
alive and out of the clutches of the DE's, protecting students from
the worst of what the Carrows were capable of, and all the other 
things that we know Snape did.

It's a very compact way of recognizing all that Snape did,
 and the honor is in Albus Severus's name. 

Lealess:
> "Of course Al's heard the story before..."  Said with such conviction!
> <g>  How do you know?  This is the Wizarding World, where people never
> tell anyone anything important, especially if it would avoid
> unnecessary strife!

Pippin:
Because everyone in the train is staring at Harry. He's still famous.
His story is told, and when Harry tells his story, once to Voldemort
and all people in the Great Hall, once to Ron and Hermione and once to
Al, three times in very few pages, Snape is part of it. 

Then there's the interview  about Harry trying to get Snape's
portrait into the Headmaster's office, (oooh, I wonder where it is
now? Harry's house?) and Rita Skeeter's book on Snape, which she
can't be stopped from writing. 

Lealess:
> Harry was wrong about Snape. 

Pippin:
If Harry realized he was wrong because he realized that Snape
loved his mother and followed Dumbledore, what difference 
does that make? He still realized that he was wrong. He 
never imagined that Snape was the sort of person who could
love his mother. He never imagined that Snape could be a
loyal follower of Dumbledore. He had to change his concept
of Snape to realize that Snape had done those things. 

Now I realize that in the view of some Dumbledore's ethics
are crappy, and so following Dumbledore is a bad thing,
therefore all that's happened is that Snape turned out to
be crappy when what should have happened is that Harry
should have seen the Slytherin light.

BTW, what *is* the Slytherin light? I'm asking this seriously,
what virtues did you hope to see revealed in Slytherin 
or what virtues did you see ignored, and what would you
have liked to see Harry do to recognize them? 

Aside from the missing funerals, I mean. It's my experience
that children squirm through funerals, if it isn't someone
they were really close to. Harry didn't even pay much 
attention to Dumbledore's.  I can't blame JKR for
not putting in another, which her  younger audience 
would probably skip or skim over. In which case Snape 
would not get his due. 


Pippin