Realistic Resolutions - WAS: Slytherins come back

[Mike]

No: HPFGUIDX 180715

> > Pippin:
> > I don't get it. Somehow Voldemort isn't getting credit for
> > finding a way to take over the WW without a fight.
> > <snip>
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> The reason I'm not giving Voldemort much credit for it was that DH
> made it appear so insultingly easy.(Insulting for the WW, anyway.)

Mike:
Goddlefrood has experienced a coup in the RW, he convinced me that
it can happen just that easily. Still, that's fine by me. I wasn't 
reading these books to inform me on the RW. So read on, please.


> Betsy Hp: 
> I never got the sense that Voldemort could have succeeded as he
> did in the RW, so it wasn't even creepy in an "informing on real
> life" kind of way.  Instead I found myself rolling my eyes at how
> easily lead the citizens of the WW were.

>> Pippin:
In real life he wouldn't have the Imperius curse so he wouldn't
be able to make people obey him without training them. <<

Mike:
But as Fudge and Scrimgeour allowed in "The Other Minister", the 
other side can do magic too. Unless the DEs Imperiused the entire 
ministry staff, and that's not the way I read that, there sure 
seemed to be a lot of timid sheep in the WW. 

Harry sees a dozen witches and wizards stuffing envelopes for the 
Muggle-Born Registration Commission. So they can't plead ignorance
at what's going on under their noses, unlike some of the scenarios 
Alla painted for us with Stalinist Russia. Even if they're not 
particularly adept at fighting, they outnumber Dolores 12:1. Surely 
they could overpower her. 

And from the looks of things, these same odds exist throughout the 
Ministry. Adding to that, most likely not all of the department heads 
are in favor of the new regime or have been Imperiused. Do you think 
the DEs bothered to Imperiuse the head of maintenance, or any of the 
maintenance workers. I doesn't look like Reg Cattermole was a 
Voldemort supporter. How do these people continue doing their jobs 
as if nothing has changed while their family members are being 
persecuted?

Scrimgeour was killed for crissakes! Are they that blind and stupid 
that they can't figure out what's happening around them? But no, they 
just continue using their wands for stuffing envelopes. It's not Real 
Life, they have magic. That's why this whole takeover/downfall felt 
wrong for me. Authorial choice that I didn't like. I can only think 
that time constraints caused this to happen faster than what made 
sense. She needed the Ministry to fall and didn't have time to show 
all the people being indoctrinated to the other side.


> > Betsy Hp:
> > Seriously, for me, Draco and Snape were the "face" of Slytherin.

>> Betsy Hp:
That JKR chose to not have Harry deal with the antagonists the 
series *had* been setting up, <snip>

For six books, I'd say the Slytherin question was just that: the
question. <<

Mike:
That's the thing for me too. Voldemort was set up as the ultimate 
monster to be defeated, but he was in the background for too much of 
the series. Snape, and eventually Draco, took center stage as Harry's 
main antagonists. 

Even though I was convinced Snape was ultimately on the good side, 
Harry had issues to resolve with him. Resolution through Pensieve 
memories after the man was dead was unfair and a cheat, like Betsy 
said and imo too. This character deserved better.

Draco was Harry's generation. Draco was the face of the Voldemort 
supporter for his age bracket. Don't we need something more than him 
making distasteful faces and hemming and hawing over identifying the 
Trio to know that he was wrong to support Voldy and had learned that? 
Especially since his last spoken words to a DE were "I'm on your 
side"? Redeemed? I don't know and didn't really care. But resolved? 
Not in my mind. I don't know that Draco learned anything other than 
fear for your family and yourself sucks.


> > Pippin:
> > Change into what? A useful citizen? An honored hero of the
> > past?  Oh wait, they did that.
> > <snip>
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> Change into fully formed human beings. Which, granted, would have 
> put them ahead of the rest of the cast.  But I'd been hoping for 
> more from the rest of the gang, too. <g>

Mike:
I will disagree with Betsy regarding Snape here. I think he was fully 
formed before DH. I think he was resolved too. I didn't like either 
the way he was resolved nor his ultimate reason for that resolution, 
but that's personal taste as opposed to a failure of the author.

But Draco, nope! His cardboard cut-out was finally filled with air in 
HBP. But that air squeed out throughout DH so that he finished as a 
cardboard cut-out again. But since his stand was removed after that 
year of living like a live character, when he was deflated again he 
couldn't even be stood up any more. Draco was an authorial failure, 
imo.



> Betsy Hp:
> Hm, I'd say Snape died a slave, honestly.  He certainly wasn't his 
> own man.  And I don't think Draco was ever really freed either.

Mike:
No, Snape was Lily's man, which was creepy and disappointing at the 
same time. But I don't think that made him a slave to anyone, just 
stunted emotionally, and unrealistically committed to Lily's son.

Draco, yeah, nor argument here. ;)


> Betsy Hp:
> But, in a deeper sense, the WW is still embroiled in evil and 
> slavery.  Voldemort was the manifestation of the sickness the WW
> is suffering from, but killing him didn't effect a cure.  Heck,
> Harry didn't even address the issue.  And so the WW is still
> horribly stratified and bigoted, ripe for another Dark Lord to
> appear.  Oh, and slavery still very much exists.

Mike:
I know this is pointless to debate, but that never stopped me before. 
<rbg> JKR began the WW rift (sickness?) with the founders. It has 
proceeded to this point having the last and ultimate decendant of the 
one founder versus the epitome of the other founder in a final duel. 
I don't see how she could have made it more clear that this is it, 
either the the good guys (Harry/Godric) win or the bad guys 
(Tom/Salazar) win. But in either case the rift is over. One side is 
going to win and consolidate the WW under their influence, their 
credo, their way the world should work. According to that reading, my 
reading, killing Voldemort was the cure. The rift has finally been 
solved by removing one side of the equation.

Where does that leave Slytherin house? It's now up to them to realize 
that their founder and his decendant shaped a false credo for their 
followers and house. That pure-bloodism is a hateful and destructive 
dogma undeserving of holding status in their house. They have to see 
how Voldemort exploited them by feeding this false credo to his 
followers to their and his destruction. 

I don't know how JKR could have made this more obvious. It's now up 
to the Slytherins to understand this most obvious conclusion and self-
correct. You may not like that Slytherins are the only ones to have 
to change, but that's definitely the way JKR wrote the story, imo.

You may also not like that house elves are still slaves. But a few 
points here: Did any other elf besides the oddball Dobby refer to the 
condition as slavery? Dumbledore spoke to this issue, but wasn't he 
specifically addressing one elf? He spoke in platitudes about their 
condition, but he not only didn't raise a finger to change their 
condition, he employed hundreds of them as headmaster. Hermione 
raised the issue, but wasn't she shown to be wrongheaded in her 
original assessment and goal? 

The point being, JKR created these enchanted characters to be what 
they are. And instead of the object lesson being something about 
slavery, it was how not to impose your beliefs on others without 
consulting those others to see what they want. They're not humans, 
they are magical creatures with no parallel in the real world. The 
same thing goes for goblins. You might as well condemn the WW for 
keeping the merpeople in the lake. They can't survive outside of 
that lake, however unfair that is for their freedom.

And if you tell me these things don't inform one on real life, I'll 
say again, you're right. But I didn't read this series for 
instruction on real life, and I don't think JKR wrote it for that 
purpose either. I wanted to be transported into her world, and I was. 
I wanted to care about the characters, and I did. I wanted to believe 
the story, solve the many riddles, have the characters act 
consistantly within their painted personalities, and follow the story 
to a logical conclusion. Even though none of these scored 100%, they 
scored high enough for me to consider it a success. So, yeah, I do 
think JKR succeeded with her story.

Were there unresolved story lines, unsolved mysteries, plot holes 
left open? Sure! You want a big one that I just thought of? Why 
didn't Quirrell just "Accio Philosphers Stone" when he knew it was in 
Harry's pocket? Because we would have completely different books 2-4, 
that's why. But I didn't know about Accio until GoF, so it isn't a 
big deal. Most of the mistakes weren't a big deal, and none of them 
were deal breakers. YMMV.

Mike

-----------------------
Quick canon correction:
Betsy Hp:
I'm suspecting this is a Kingsly reference?  That's not really canon
is it?  I thought this was just an interview bone JKR threw out at
one point.

Mike:
Kingsley was announced as interim Minister after the final battle was 
over, while they're all still in the Great Hall. So, yeah, that much 
is canon. I suppose we're encouraged to think that it was made 
permanent at some time.