JKR's Vision and Mine

[Mike]

No: HPFGUIDX 182195

> Lesley
> <snip>
> I agree that as JKR is a christian herself may have used 
> her beliefs in her book's and that has determined how 
> the story's have played out, I just didn't see it.
> -<rearranging a little here>-
> There was a few week's ago, several pages of posts 
> about Kings Cross for example that bored me silly

Mike:
>From JKR's interview responses, I knew the Christain themes were in 
there and more were coming in DH. Though I wasn't going to let that 
stop me from reading the books, I too had no desire to be inundated 
with *any* religious themes. In fact, I actually groaned when I 
started reading the King's Cross chapter for the first time. 

But JKR, for the most part, kept those themes to a minimum, in my 
view. Partly because my view was to read a story about wizards and 
quests and magic and magical things and (what's that word, Carol?) 
the story of a boy growing to manhood. JKR kept me enthralled with 
those themes, that's what I concentrated on and that's what I liked 
to speculate on and still do to this day.


> Lesley
> When I read a book about wizards and giants etc I don't
> expect to be smothered by lot's of religious views and I
> wasn't, so I was suprised other people were.

Mike:
I don't think anyone was smothered, I just think different people 
want to explore different themes. Some may or may not be your cup of 
tea. The great thing about this list is not only the diversity of 
opinions and viewpoints, but also the disparate foci people bring 
when they choose to discuss what they choose to discuss.

I wanted and still want to know how the Fidelius Charm works, why or 
if one really can Apparate from or to inside the Hogwarts castle, 
what Dumbledore's other spindly, whirring, silver objects did and how 
they did it, can a wand think and feel or does it simply react to 
stimuli? That's me and my technical mind, YMMV.

The beauty of these books, to me, was that JKR laid the framework but 
didn't smother us with details. That allowed us to speculate and 
discuss the many varied things within her world with only the minimum 
amount of canon with which to frame our theories. And yet there were 
enough details to get a clear picture, even if that picture was only 
in your mind and nowhere else.

For instance, I have a picture in my mind of Dumbledore's office. For 
one, it's round, like it would be in a turret. I know where the 
spiral escalator let's you out, where the desk, fireplace, spindly 
tables, cabinets, Harry's chair, the window and where each of the 
portraits hang. I also know exactly what each of those look like, and 
even see another small staircase leading out of the office that goes 
up to DD's sleeping quarters (which have an attached bathroom, so 
what was he doing wandering the 7th floor in search of a loo? LOL).

I suppose one of the reasons I don't appreciate the HP movies as 
much, is that the set designer's and director's visions don't match 
mine, and I like mine. On another thread people were discussing the 
layout of Hogwarts and Hogsmeade. JKR and others have drawn cursory 
maps of their visions, which is fine and I like reviewing them, but I 
don't need them because I have my own map.

Tolkien inundates us with his descriptions and supplies a detailed 
map. There can really be no doubt about the way middle earth looks. 
JKR went the other route, she set her story up in modern times, 
albeit a slightly AU Britain. So we can each supply our own visions 
to fill in the details that she's left out, we have our own RL as a 
guide and our own imagination for the paint brush.

Mike, who's Dursley house resembles an old house my friend rented in 
the Boston suburbs but locates it in his childhood subdivision in 
suburban Detroit