To kill or not to kill and resolutions of the storylineWAS :Re: Disarming spell

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 185476

Pippin:>
> JKR certainly didn't take the easy way out with the Slytherins -- it
> would have been a cliche to have them prove themselves by letting
them
> do something gallant and impressive to save Harry, but that hasn't
> kept a lot of people from complaining bitterly that it didn't
happen.
> Not that the Slyths can't be heroic, but if they're gallant and
> impressive, it's never for Harry's sake, and if they do something
for
> Harry, it's not gallant and impressive.

Magpie:
I'm not sure what the Slytherins have to do with anything. Whether or
not having the Slytherins do anything gallant or whether or not
people are bitter or complain about it doesn't say anything about
whether or not the kill/don't kill issue is side-stepped or not with
Voldemort.

Not that I'm agreeing that the decision not to have the Slytherins or
a Slytherin do anything other than what they did in canon was
particularly easy or not either. The fact that some readers
were "bitter" at the way they were handled doesn't prove to me that
the author thought she was doing something all that daring or
difficult, there. In fact when pressed about it a bit she threw in
some Slytherins in an interview as if she'd actually done that to a
limited extent--doesn't get much easier than that.


Alla:

I will be the first one to say that I sometimes think that 
connections that Pippin makes are a big stretchy(sorry Pippin), but I 
totally understand why she brought the Slytherins' resolution in here.

Not sure if that is what she meant to say, but I read it that she was 
arguing against the ending being a cliche as being bad.

I mean, yes you did not say the words it was bad, but you said it was 
used many times and you said that author was trying to have her cake 
and eat it, to me it bears negative connotations, not that there is 
anything wrong with expressing negative connotations of course. 
Anyways I think Pippin is arguing ( and she will correct me if I am 
wrong) by association that whether author is using a cliche or NOT 
using a cliche, it does not really matter per se and not going to 
make everybody happy? 

So, I think the example of Slytherins' resolution as being NOT 
something that often done, because I do agree with Pippin that the 
standard way of resolve that would be redeem at least some of them 
and show them to fight for Harry or do something, I think the example 
shows that even if it is not cliche, it can still be held against the 
author. Sorry, it makes sense in my head, not sure if it makes sense 
on paper.

So yes hero being able to have clean hands and villain is dead was 
absolutely being used many times before, just to me it works 
perfectly well here.

Same thing as in Avatar, redemption of each and every bad guy (except 
Azula and her daddy, and even Azula, I mean she is not really bad, 
she is just crazy, and her daddy just needed his firebending being 
taken from him and he won't hurt anybody anymore) I find cliche that 
does not work for me at all. Sorry, I know Magpie knows that I love 
the show, I do not want to make it sound that I do not. I have some 
issues with the ending, that's all. Zuco's redemption I find lovely 
and poignantly done, but Mai's and especially Ty Lee redemption makes 
me cringe. Especially Ty Lee, since I found her battle tactics to be 
more than a little sadistic. So, I am glad that JKR did not go that 
way with Slytherins.

JMO,
Alla