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

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 185478

> 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.

Magpie:
Oh--well, yeah, I would agree. I don't think the "standard" ending is 
always bad. There's a reason that they become standard. Sometimes 
they're the natural way to go, too. It was cliche that Luke blew up 
the Death Star with Han Solo coming back at the last minute to help, 
but I don't think that made for a bad ending. I just don't think that 
this ending is always--or even usually--a serious attempt to look at 
the question of not killing. It's more a way to get satisfaction in 
the ending (and I admit that having your cake and eating it is very 
satisfying). The author's always trying to defeat the villain 
completely by having the characters stick to the moral code they're 
supposed to follow. So I would argue that this ending isn't a big 
risk or a new thing on JKR's part, but not that it's a bad ending 
because of that. To be honest, it was the ending that I expected--and 
not in a bad way. I didn't think Harry dying was necessary, or that 
Voldemort living was necessary.

Alla: 
> 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.

Magpie:
I didn't think the Slytherin's resolution was that new either. I 
mean, yeah, there are a lot of books where the houses would have come 
together, but once you realize that the Slytherins are just bad guys 
there's nothing new about them crawling away in defeat. There were no 
orcs that came to the side of the Fellowship, no storm troopers who 
switched sides in Star Wars. I believe the only Tellamarine who 
switched sides in Narnia was the Prince who rather did it Snape-style.

The Avatar ending too, I agree, wraps things up with the same kind of 
closures. They do it different ways (Ozai de-powered instead of dead; 
Azula locked up and insane instead of dead) but they're hitting the 
same points: the heroes triumph while being true to their better 
ideals as laid out in the text. 

-m