Less than 1000 posts in a month - why now?

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 180211

Carol earlier:
> <snip> As I said, if you'd read the interviews, you'd know what  I'm
referring to. And I wouldn't call my own reaction a tizzy,  just
annoyance at her possessive attitude. She gave us the  books,
certainly, and I'm grateful to have had the experience of reading  and
discussing them. I just don't want to be told *how* to read them  by
the author or anyone else.
>
Julie responded:
> I'm curious if you, Carol, or anyone else can post the exact quotes
that reflect JKR's possessive attitude or where she tells us how to
read the books. I  am aware of her comment about Dumbledore being her
character, but I've taken that comment in the context it was
delivered, which I think was basically a defensive one because so many
fans were angry with her for saying she's always seen Dumbledore as
gay. I thought it very possible she felt attacked for intepreting a
character she created, and while readers have every right to interpret
 the characters as they see them, I could see where she might be
coming  from.
>  
> I feel leery of judging her so completely on that one comment, which
was in response to some heavy criticism. If there were others, I'd
like to know about them. And I add, I don't really count her answers
in interviews to specific questions about the books or characters as a
statement that she is telling us how we must read the books or see the
characters. Really, if she is being *asked* to reveal how she sees the
characters (who they married, what job they do for a living, etc, etc)
I can't see this as her forcing her views on us. Sharing them, because
 again she has been *asked* isn't the same to me as her saying
"Character A is such  and such, and if any fan sees him differently,
that fan is just plain wrong."  
> (Again, I give her leeway on the Dumbledore comment because of the
context of  the situation, as anyone can mispeak or overstate
defensively.)

Carol again:
I realize that she was speaking defensively, but she still sounds to
me as if she thinks her interpretation is the only right one. (This
from an author who can't figure out why readers keep saying that
there's 24 hours are missing from her first book.) Here are the
relevant quotes, at least the ones I know where to find. There may be
others that gave me a similar impression.
 
First, the Dumbledore one, from the Toronto October 22 press
conference, is sometimes misquoted as "He [Dumbledore] is my
character, and as my character I have the right to say what I say
about him." But what she actually said is, "It is what it is. He is my
character and as my character, I have the right to know what I know
about him and say what I say about him. There you go." ["As my
character, I" is a dangling modifier, but, oh, well.]

http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2007/1022-torontopressconf.html

Now, obviously, she has the right to say what she wants to say about
her characters, but the implication seems to be that she thinks DD's
gayness is in the books and if she says he's gay, he's gay, whether
canon supports that or not. She "knows what she knows." Her view is
definitive, and the fact that she first said, "I always *imagined* him
to be gay" has been replaced by the equivalent of "He's gay because I
say so." (Please don't get me wrong. I'm not dealing with his sexual
orientation here except as an example of her "he's my character; it's
my book" attitude. Evidently, we're supposed to see him as she always
imagined him even though very few readers saw any sexual orientation
in him at all until the question of DD's ever having loved someone
happened to come up in an interview, and when someone questioned her
bringing in that information after the fact, she became defensive and
we get, in essence, he's gay because I, the author, say he is, even
though I never said so in the books.)

Unfortunately, that's not the only instance. More recently, under no
pressure and talking with various supportive people in a phone
interview, she said of the contemplated encyclopedia, "I think the
only--The point of doing it, if I'm going to do it, it's about doing
the absolute definitive, giving-people-everything guide."
 
http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2007/12/23/transcript-of-part-1-of-pottercast-s-jk-rowling-interview

So even though she admits in the same interview to being confused as
to whether Hannah Abbott is a pure-blood or a Muggle-born and that she
may end up compromising by making Hannah a Half-Blood, and even though
she's still confused about the missing twenty-four hours ("I'm gonna
have to really go back through notes and either admit that I lost
twenty four hours or I don't know, hurriedly come up with some back
story to fill in"), she's going to give us the *definitive* book with
which no one can argue because she's the author and it's her world. I
just hope she figures out some way to explain how "We haven't won
since Charlie left" fits in with "we haven't won for seven years
(stated in both SS/PS and PoA) if "the legendary Charlie Weasley" is
really only three years older than Percy.

Can JKR (could any author) really write an encyclopedia that explains
*everything*, irons out all the inconsistencies, and provides
definitive information that makes her interpretation official? And do
we really want that, even if she can? If I can't interpret the books
myself, what, exactly, is the point of reading them?

And then there's this quote from the recent UK documentary, "A Year in
the Life of JK Rowling," which really confirmed my view that she sees
her own interpretation as definitive: "It gives me a certain
satisfaction to say what I thought happened [to the surviving
characters] and to tell other people that, because *I would like my
version to be the official version still,* even though I've not
written it in a book, *because it's my world*."
 http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/2007/12/29/second-generation-information-revealed-new-clip-from-j-k-rowling-documentary

Maybe she's only trying to discourage fanfic about Charlie getting
married or George marrying that Muggle girl from Ottery St. Catchpole,
but it sure sounds to me as if she's being protective of the contents
of her own mind, to make sure that her story isn't spoiled by people
not seeing it as she sees it. Why, when she hasn't actually written
the story, do we have to envision the future as she, at this
pre-encyclopedia moment, envisions it? Now *she's* committed to those
futures for those characters. Better to have left it open-ended.

Who knows? Maybe I'm reading in a possessiveness ("It's my book and my
interpretation is the only valid interpretation") that isn't there.
She does admit in the Pottercast interview that not everyone accepts
her explanations (but seems not to realize that some of those
explanations aren't well-thought out or logical and many are
off-the-cuff). And I do understand the hunger of other readers who
can't let go of the WW and want to know the fate of every character.
But if the marriages and family trees were so important, why not
include them in DH as a kind of appendix or give us an LOTR-style
what-happened-afterward instead of the little vignette with Harry's
children at the end? We could still see Albus Severus on the family
tree. But then I'd lose one of my favorite DH moments. Sigh. Yeah,
JKR, I do realize that you can't satisfy everybody. I just wish you'd
take time to really think about it, to understand what the problems
with the books really are, before trying to present your "definitive"
interpretations. 

It's a shame, IMO, that Rowling couldn't be left alone like Tolkien to
figure out "what really happened." The problem is, she's had too much
publicity and all of her inarticulate little impromptu answers are
part of the public record. Blame it on the Internet and the phenomenon
of super-celebrity, i suppose.

Carol, who would enjoy reading the discarded drafts and notes but
thinks that the encyclopedia itself will be useful only if it promotes
discussion and analysis rather than attempting to do the thinking and
interpreting for the reader