Slytherins come back WAS: Re: My Most Annoying Character

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 180195

Alla:
> BUT when the crowd lead by Slytherin head of the house described
> VAGUELY, it is not Okay to assume that narrator left staff out?????

Magpie:
It's not described vaguely at all! If it's left out it's not there.
<SNIP>

Alla:

Really? Okay, then could you please name every person who belongs to 
that crowd. That to me would mean that it is not described vaguely. 
I think it described quite vaguely considering the fact that Harry 
would not even know the parents at all.

Magpie:
All the woman had to do to make this happen is actually say it
happens, if it's not there it's not there-it IS THERE in her
interview question. It is not there in canon anywhere. <SNIP>This is 
going beyond
expecting me to interpret characters or situations the way they work
for me--this is telling me that my basic language skills don't count.

Alla:

No, it is me saying that I consider the description of that crowd to 
be vague enough to imagine that some Slytherins returned.  Of course 
she does not tell us explicitly the names of Slytherins who 
returned, but to me what she described is enough to fill in that. If 
I feel like it of course.

Alla:
> Why is that? Harry never had been known for remembering many names,
> he sees Slughorn already, so many other things are on his mind -
> finding diadema, etc. You think he will be oh so very concerned
with
> whether Blaise and Theo and others returned to fight?

Magpie:
Yeah, I bloody well do. He's telling me shopkeepers and families of
students already there just came in, not to mention Slughorn and
Charlie. It has nothing to do with what Harry cares about, this is
the narrator telling us what's there. <SNIP>

Alla:

And do I have  to start naming the occurrences when narrator tells 
us what it is is NOT what it is at all?

How  about "Severus, please", which turned out to be quite different 
from what narrator thought it is ( and me LOL)?

There are plenty of occurrences where narrator is describing 
something and it turns out to be something completely different.


Magpie:
He doesn't have to mention any names, but anyway that doesn't matter.
I don't have to defend my interpretation against extreme positions
for Harry in this scene for my interpretation. My interpretation is
what's actually on the page. The sentence says Slughorn has appeared
with shopkeepers and people connected to non-Slytherin students who
stayed. That's what it says, that's what happened. Harry's mindset
only comes into it when you start with the proposition that there are
actually Slytherins there that are not in the text and then have to
find a reason why they're not actually in the text, which there's no
reason to do.


Alla:

You do not have to defend your interpretation? Sure you don't.  But 
even if in your mind your interpretation is the only possible one, 
in mine it is not. Your interpretation is that what is on page has 
no ambiguity whatsoever, is it not? That is what I disagree with.


Carol responds:
<SNIP>
 How much
clearer can she get that "what looked like" or "seemed" is not
necessarily what *is*? <SNIP>

Alla:

Just wanted to say me too. I often argued myself that narrator is 
reliable more often than not, but um, certainly not always.