Epilogue (was Re: Ron and Parseltongue)/Slytherins are Bad

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 183397

> CJ:
> Now I think you're being unfairly judgmental toward those of us who 
find
> her work less than perfect.
> 
> Lynda:
> 
> I'm sorry if I am.  But I did not expect Rowling's work to be 
perfect. I
> think that's been a lot of my problem with some of the comments 
made on this
> list. 

Magpie:
As someone who didn't like DH, I think that's a strawman that's 
always thrown at people: You expected it to be perfect. I'm happy to 
deal with lots of imperfections. But I don't pretend to find 
something better than I did. I just give whatever my own honest 
reaction to the book was. I'm describing what I see in the books, not 
complaining that it didn't match up to some specific thing I thought 
it should be. 

Also, regarding predictions, all stories rely on giving some idea 
where the story is going. Of course readers can't know for sure, only 
the writer can. But there's a difference between saying you don't 
like a story because such-and-such specific thing didn't happen, and 
thinking the story was going to be more satisfying than it turned out 
to be. It's not always invalid to say that your hopes for some 
resolution were raised and then disappointed. Sometimes a story does 
raise expectations and then fail to fulfill them--it's not always on 
the level of, say, complaining that Harry didn't marry Hermione. 
Sometimes a reader's dissatisfaction points to something in the story.

In JKR's case, unfortunately for me, a lot of the stuff she 
ultimately was interested in and wanted to say was disappointing to 
me. I don't think she wrote her story wrong, since she went the way 
she was always going. But I didn't much care for what she was saying.

Lynda:
JKR wrote seven books, carried storylines through all seven of them.
> She wrote every single word. Told the story from beginning to end. 
So, some
> of the things she began as substorylines, etc. had to be dropped 
before the
> story became too cumbersome to handle.

Magpie:
Yes, she wrote seven books. I don't think anybody's not giving her 
credit for not doing that. She did write a lot of words and that's an 
acheivement. Some storylines didn't get resolved, but it's not my 
duty as a reader to pretend that something got resolved well if I 
don't think it did. Personally, I don't really have a problem with 
feelings things weren't "resolved." I think they were resolved in the 
way she wanted them resolved, and for me, many of those resolutions 
were facile or disappointing or just plain weird. Or even if I didn't 
have a problem with how they were resolved, I'm still going to talk 
about what they "say" to me. This is something that I had trouble 
with earlier as well--in certain earlier books I was disappointed in 
resolutions to things, and that was just repeated in a bigger way by 
the way the series resolved. This wasn't about arcane theories about 
how things would go, it was about actual issues raised in the story 
and how they were resolved.

Lynda:
> As to your comments about finding clues in hindsight and where are 
the clues
> throughout the books, I tend to see patterns in long lines of 
continuity and
> commonality, so when things start adding up, clues that there's 
something
> more going on with wands than a simple purchase of a  tool that a 
wizard
> uses, but an actual bonding with a magic user, which is implied 
throughout
> the series, or the more than every so often references to Harry's
> cloak--given to him by DD who had been given it by Harry's dad for 
a reason
> that was unknown but obviously more than slightly important to the 
series, I
> take notice.

Magpie:
That's not really what you said. You claimed that there were "clues" 
regarding the Hallows that would have created plotholes if she hadn't 
written that plot, and that's not true that I can see. I have a hard 
time believing that if the Hallows hadn't been introduced anyone 
would have been saying, "But wait, I'm sure it was suggested that 
there was something going on with Harry's cloak being particularly 
sturdy and that we needed to get some new information about wands 
bonding with people." In DH itself, obviously the Hallows was 
important for what it was important for: apparently the fact that 
Harry was using the wand he was using was important because he was 
the master of Voldemort's wand too. They were part of the device. 
(Unfortunately, as someone else said, that robbed a lot of meaning I 
thought I saw in the HBP plot because it turned out all that mattered 
was that device.)

What I would say about a lot of the way clues were read was that 
Rowling was fond of the reverse Chekov's gun. Iow, rather than the 
principle that if you introduce a gun in the first act it needs to go 
off in the fourth, she followed the principle that if a gun was going 
to go off in the fourth act she would introduce it in some way in the 
first. So careful reading and a memory for detail was rewarded. It 
wasn't always really a clue because there was nothing a reader could 
figure out, and it wasn't a gun set up that had to go off. It just 
meant that if you were a careful reader you'd remember an earlier 
reference to something that you only later found out. Ron mentioning, 
in an offhand way, that Harry's cloak is "in good shape" is that. If 
nothing had come of it it would have been exactly what it sounded 
like--Ron, having seen cloaks before, comments that Harry's is in 
good shape. Neville's mother's bubble gum wrappers seemed like the 
same thing, but that turned out to be nothing. It wasn't a plot hole 
that it turned out to be nothing.

Lynda:
> I don't mean to be unfairly judgmental, but I do think that some of 
the
> people on this list have been expecting something from JKR that 
practically
> no writer can deliver. A perfect book.

Magpie:
That's, imo, what's unfair in the way you're judging other people. 
Having a criticism or not particularly liking something in the book 
does not mean anybody expected it to be perfect. You can have a 
problem with one thing and not have a problem with another thing. And 
since, as you say, no writer can deliver a perfect book, the very 
fact that presumably all of us who didn't care for the ending of the 
series have liked at least some other books, obviously we don't 
demand all books be perfect. Disliking the Hallows plot or being 
bored with the camping or feeling like the heroes sat around until 
the next deus ex machina device fell into their laps doesn't sound to 
me like demanding perfection.

Also, besides thinking about the book might have been, there's also 
just looking at what it is and what that says to you. Iow, it's 
already in its "most perfect" form. Now you just have to look at what 
that form is. 

Alla:
 But Ravenclaws are sorted for intellect, are they not? Have no book
with me and I believe it can be intepreted as high academical
achievement. And I found out that the saying that talent is 99% work
and only 1% of gift has a lot of truth in it.

Magpie:
I've always thought it sorted more on values. Hermione, for instance, 
has perfect grades, but she values other things more. Her intellect 
is mostly only important for the kind of changes she wants to make in 
the world--her fighting for others, which is more about bravery.

But as a better example, there's Neville. Neville seems quite timid 
when he first comes to Hogwarts. His courage "grade" would be low. 
But he probably values bravery, and like many people, he eventually 
becomes what he admires. The fact that he's scared a lot at 11 
doesn't keep him from being a Gryffindor. Peter, too, must have 
valued bravery, even if he eventually failed at being brave. (I tend 
to think of Lockhart as a Gryffindor too.)

Alla:

Agreed and I also do not recall either one of them saying that
students who are cowardly or stupid should not be admitted to school,
only to their respective houses.

Magpie:
Right.

Marion:
No, they will merely lock a monster in a shed and lure people of the
'wrong House' in for 'just existing'. A totally *different* kind of 
thing,of course...

Magpie:
It is different in terms of the discussion being strictly about the 
Founder's criteria for the Hat. Even though many students over the 
years might have shared Salazar's ideas that students not like them 
shouldn't be at the school or should be killed for all we know. 

-m