Now Rowling's control, was Less than 1000 posts

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 180298

Carol earlier:
> > " I just wish she would realize that her characters and the WW are
no longer within her control. She's like a person who gives a
Christmas present and then claims it as her own because she bought or
made it. Wrong. The books belong to the readers, to interpret as they
will (preferably in accordance with what's on the page)."
> > 
k12listmomma wrote:
> > That's how I feel. We own Dumbledore as we read him through 7
books. He became ours in our heads. But I feel like she still wants to
write about him, to finish creating him as a character, as if she was
planning another book when she intends to show a gay Dumbledore.  
> 
colebiancardi responded:
> 
> I am sorry, but JKR OWNS Dumbledore.   Others may feel that DD is
"theirs" but that is, as you stated, in your head.  And JKR has every
right to finish creating her characters as she sees fit.
> 
> Even if I disagree with it.  I don't understand this "we own the
characters because we love the books" stuff.   We've been blessed, for
good and for bad, with these characters because of the writer, not
because of us.
> 
> If JKR wants to come out and state that Lupin was really ESE, I may
not agree with that, but that is her right.  She can shape HER
characters, which she gave birth to and formed, not us, any old way
she wishes to.
> 
> Trust me, JKR has upset me with some of her statements, but I would
never go as far as stating her characters are MINE.
>
Carol responds:
Nor did I (call them mine). I'm merely saying that the way she
*imagined* Dumbledore and what she put on the page are not the same
thing, and I reserve the right to interpret the characters and events
based on what she really wrote, what appeared on the printed page, as
opposed to the off-the-cuff and sometimes contradictory or inaccurate
statements and often garbled statements she makes in interviews.
Whatever she "intended," it's what's on the page that counts, and
what's on the page is subject to varying interpretations, as this list
shows. ALL I'm asking is that JKR respect the right of her readers to
interpret the books consistently with what's on the page throughout
the series (with perhaps a greater awareness of the flaws and gaps and
contradictions than the author of the books is likely to have) rather
than telling us that what she imagined as she wrote, or what she
thinks she imagined ten years ago (given her memory of what she
actually wrote, I don't trust her memory of what she only thought--I
certainly can't remember my thoughts from ten hours ago, much less ten
years) is definitive. Once she writes that encyclopedia, it will be
canon, and that's fine. But until then, her thought process is subject
to change, many of her explanations are impromptu, and we are free to
disregard them as improbable, illogical, contradictory, inconsistent
with canon, or whatever appears to be the case.

Reading, like it or not, is a creative process, an imaginative
recreation of what's on the page, and no two readers envision the
characters and events, or interpret their significance, or read
between the lines, in exactly the same way, as this list repeatedly
demonstrates. And until gay DD or Luna Lovegood Scamander (or
whatever) is in print, it remains just what JKR imagines happened or
will happen to her characters, subject to change like the discarded
scenes and characters she's told us about (the Slytherin Weasley
cousin, Hermione's little sister, etc.). As for gay DD, we are at
least free to imagine for ourselves whether two brilliant teenage boys
kept their enthusiasm for one another on an intellectual plain or
expressed their affection for one another openly in words or actions.
And the text supports a purely intellectual infatuation. That is, in
fact, the explanation that DD himself gives. (And I, for one, have a
hard time imagining the reserved and secretive Albus Dumbledore
whispering "I love you," even at seventeen.)

BTW, if JKR were to state that Lupin is evil or that she "always
imagined" him as evil, we, as readers, would have every right to point
out canon that contradicts her perception of him and interpret him for
ourselves, just as Shelley has every right to see Snape as unredeemed,
though, IMO, canon supports JKR's view that he's redeemed. I'm sure
Shelley could produce canon evidence that she interprets differently
than I do to support that interpretation, and what matters in both
cases is what's on the printed page and not what JKR has said in
interviews. (DD is "the epitome of goodness"? Really? Still? Wonder
what that makes Harry, whom DD calls a "better man" than himself.)

Carol, noting that Melville, Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen and many
other authors (and poets and playwrights) are interpreted differently
by different critics and merely desiring (okay, demanding ;-) ) the
same freedom of interpretation of JKR's works