Epilogue (was Re: Ron and Parseltongue)

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 183504

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" <justcarol67 at ...> wrote:
>
eoff:
> > I think the whole point is that the perfect book cannot exist.
 
> > Why?

> > Because the concept of perfection is different to everyone on this
> list. <snip> I would have felt very let down and even betrayed if JKR
> had allowed Harry to be killed. And yet, there were many for whom the
> boot was on the other foot and were in their turn disappointed.
> > 
> > For every person who thought that DH was a cop out and full of plot
> holes, there was one who was reasonably well satisfied by the
> outcomes.  Personally, I belonged to the latter group - except for the
> epilogue. 
> <snip>
 
Carol:
 
> I agree that JKR could not possibly have met the expectations or
> fulfilled the hopes of every reader. In fact, I'd wager that the
> majority of readers were surprised by many aspects of the book and
> more than half were disappointed in some way. (Yes, we knew that
> characters, a lot more than the two mistakenly predicted by reporters
> who misread her comment about two *unplanned* deaths, but why our
> favorite character?) Themes and subplots that we thought were
> important were left unresolved, etc., or characters whose development
> we hoped for seemed to regress. (I'm generalizing, and I'm sure that I
> haven't mentioned all the ways in which various readers were
> disappointed.)
> 
> However, a book or series *can* be judged by more objective criteria,
> one of which is consistency. The HP books, and DH in particular,
> contain many inconsistencies, ranging from the relatively minor (such
> as the number of students at Hogwarts) to the thematically important
> (the treatment of Unforgiveable Curses). Puzzles like the presence of
> Lily's letter to Sirius in the Black family home are left for the
> reader to figure out--JKR herself seems not even to notice the
> problem. Nor does she realize that the date of the letter, just after
> Harry's first birthday, conflicts with the statement in GoF that
> Wormtail was made SK only a week before the Potters' deaths. JKR seems
> not even to check her own fictional facts.
> 
> There also minor stylistic flaws, such as dangling modifiers and even
> an occasional grammatical error ("myself" for "me") that a copyeditor
> should have caught and corrected, but I doubt that most readers notice
> such things.

Geoff:
Anyone who knows me will probably have noticed that I have been 
posting very rarely on Main; I have written just 17 messages in the 
last two and a half months which is far less than what I would consider 
my usual rate. This is partly due to the fact that I have been finding the 
current threads are not "grabbing"  me. Some of them are settling down 
into long running "tennis matches" where various contributors have 
established well-entrenched positions from which they bombard the 
other side of no-mans-land with the same arguments couched in 
different words. The results are, to me at least, are uninspiring at best 
and, at worst, boring. So I tend to refrain from replying and often skip 
over them at my 07:30 daily reading time.

However, I have felt an urge to come out from behind my battlements 
to add my two pennyworth to some of the comments which have 
recently been made in the hope that one or two others might join me 
in trying to widen the discussion.

Looking at Carol's comments, I must first say that the reason I read 
any fiction is to enjoy it. So with Harry Potter and his story. I read the 
books for pleasure; I am prepared to apply the willing suspension of 
disbelief, enjoy the worlds of the characters and not agonise over 
inconsistencies. I am not by nature a nitpicker in this sense although 
being a member of HPFGU for very nearly five years has drawn me 
into this behaviour on occasions.

Perhaps some of the group – maybe even most of the group – prefer 
to indulge in inspecting the structure of books with a fine toothcomb 
and checking to see if the nuts and bolts are the right size but, to my 
way of thinking, this can destroy the pleasure, freshness and charm of 
a book. Inconsistencies do creep in. At the time of his death, Tolkien 
had been working for  a long time trying to tie up loose ends between 
"The Silmarillion" and LOTR, and some problems internally on the former 
volume. Christopher Tolkien who edited the book for its posthumous 
publication admitted that he had not managed to iron out all the 
anomalies. 

One of my favourite books is "To Serve Them All My Days" by R. F. 
Delderfield which is a book about a young teacher coming to a public 
school on Exmoor. I like it because I have come to know Exmoor 
intimately as a holidaymaker and, latterly, as a resident - and as a 
former teacher, I can empathise with the leasing character. And yet, 
Delderfield has been very cavalier with his time lines and often I sigh 
because the dates do not tie in. Does this detract from my enjoyment? 
Not really. I can live with a faulty date or a split infinitive or a hung 
preposition because a grammatical error does not destroy the 
author's world.

In general, I like the HP series of books, some better than others. 
There are some parts which I prefer to skip but, let's face, there are  
parts of LOTR which I find equally as heavy to get through as some 
of the camping scenes in DH. Whatever the shortcomings of some 
of the action of the last book, I still never fail to feel uplifted by the 
last book from about the chapter on "The Forest Again" to the end 
of "The Flaw in the Plan".

As I have previously written, if I do have a serious grouse, it is with 
the Epilogue. It leaves a lot of unconnected dots and also closes a 
number of avenues where we can speculate in the privacy of our own 
imaginations about the future activities of our heroes (and anti-heroes). 
I want to know about the relationship between Harry and Draco after 
their end of schooling. What has brought them to the point of at least 
acknowledging each other at the railway station? Draco has obviously 
married and fathered a son; what happened about his connections with 
Voldemort and the dark side after the war? Was he brought before the 
Wizengamot? Did Harry speak up for him? After all, the two of them 
owe each other life debts. Harry was saved by Draco willingness to 
hide the truth - and also by Narcissa's similar action. Draco was 
saved by Harry. Did this come into play? What has Draco actually 
been doing over the years? It is this area where the vagueness and 
possible options can lead to misunderstandings. It reminds me of 
Daphne du Maurier's novel "My Cousin Rachel", which was described 
by an erstwhile English teaching colleague of mine as the most 
annoying and frustrating book he had ever read because of the 
various interpretations which can be drawn because of what is left 
unanswered up in the air at the end of the book.

I have always wanted to see a measure of rapprochement and 
redemption between Harry and Draco and I would like to think 
that it happened. I have read a number of fanfics which attempt to
join the dots on this, some good. some not. I can live with time 
problems and the fact that JKR's Maths leaves much to be desired 
and other inconsistencies; what really bugs me is the lack of detail 
between 1998 and 2017 and the stumbling blocks placed in the 
path of private speculation.

There, I feel much better for writing all that. My apologies to those 
of you who don't!
:-)