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

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 185501

> Pippin:
> But there's a very significant difference between saying a group
> that's described as all Hufflepuffs must exclude Slytherins (which I
> accept), and saying that "friends of every Hogwarts student who had
> remained to fight" must exclude Slytherins. That implies that the
> categories "Slytherin" and "friends of every Hogwarts student" are
> mutually exclusive.
> 
> But if Harry (and the narrator)  meant that, then they ignored
> everything they'd learned about Lily and Snape.

Magpie:
I don't think there is a significant difference. The categories are 
distinct, if not in the case of Snape and Lily (for a while, until 
his being a Slytherin actually did come between them), but in the 
sense of how you put across an idea in the book. It's an incredibly 
deliberate misdirect to in this quick line use these words to reveal 
an actual turnaround. The Snape/Lily surprise itself depended on the 
fact that Slytherins had been isolated throughout the series and 
especially in this book, with their own friends and their own 
families, except in special cases that need explanations. Even if 
obviously I can't prove they're not there (nor can I prove Muggles 
weren't there) it doesn't turn this into a moment of "Look, 
Slytherins!" Or even less "Look at how your reader's biases about 
Slytherins are revealed!"

It goes beyond subtle, imo, to say that's what JKR wanted readers to 
see in this scene. And it also doesn't particularly fit her writing 
style elsewhere. It seems like the only place she's subtle to the 
point of invisible are the places where she's supposedly making her 
most important points. Other places she's quite happy to smack you in 
the face with how you were wrong or where Harry was wrong. She 
understands that's part of making it part of the story. That goes for 
interviews, too. Usually when someone gets anywhere close to 
something she was trying to say she openly admits it. From the few 
answers I've read along these lines this line of thinking doesn't get 
so close.

Pippin: 
> Of course that is what bias does to people -- it makes them ignore 
the
> truth and assume things which are, on evidence, either false or
> unproven. JKR set a trap for the biased reader, IMO, just as she did
> when she introduced the QWC players  in a way which made it possible
> to suppose they were all male. Only this time, she exposed her 
devices
> in an interview instead of  in the pronouns.

Magpie:
It's not bias to read a book and catch the way she characterized a 
fictional group of fantasy people. I'm not getting limited 
information about the Slytherins here, I'm getting all of it there 
is. It's not like she gains anything by uncovering a bias against 
Slytherins in readers, as if that indicates something about biases in 
real life. In fantasy you have to make generalizations. And why keep 
up the pretense outside the books by discouraging positive 
interpretations of Slytherin far more than encouraging them? She 
didn't claim, in her interview, that everybody missed the subtle 
allusion to Slytherin friendships all along in that line in DH. She 
made up a completely different scenario where the Slytherins we saw 
leaving returned because they went to get reinforcements from their 
own sources. Completely different idea that wasn't subtle at all. It 
was quite over the top, in fact.

Pippin:
> The general breakdown of the moral order affected everyone, even its
> defenders, which is the place where, IMO, JKR parts company with the
> standard fantasy narrative. The good folk of Narnia and Middle-earth
> may be lulled into complacency or tempted or tricked into folly, but
> they cannot be made to glory in doing wrong.> 
> But in Rowling's world the moral order of society must be restored 
or
> even the purest soul will not be able to guard its owner from
> corruption.

Magpie:
Not sure she's parted company there purposefully, if at all. I don't 
think she would agree that her good guys are glorying in doing wrong--
or doing wrong at all. They're not saints. Neither are the heroes of 
other fantasy novelists. I don't think that's the same as 
saying "Look at how my good guys glory in doing wrong." From things I 
hear her say I get the opposite impression. They do good. And they 
restore the moral order to society by being put in charge.

-m