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

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 185529

> Pippin:
> Hmmm... my copy definitely says "had remained to fight." 

Magpie:
That's what I get for being too lazy to take the book off the shelf. 
No wonder it seemed to read to me even more clearly before this 
conversation. "Remained to fight" would kind of leave out those 
Slytherins who very ostentatiously did not remain. Which is why imo 
this is not about me or Harry or anybody else having biases against 
good people who are Slytherins. It's just the obvious conclusion to 
draw from the words on the page.

Pippin:
> 
> Certainly if JKR had wanted  the text to make it obvious that there
> were Slytherins in the group, she could have. But that doesn't mean
> she wanted to make it crystal clear that there weren't any.
 She could
> have done that too, as easily as she did in describing the Room of
> Requirement or the empty Slytherin table.

Magpie:
That seems to imply that if the author didn't say it it means it can 
be true...which is totally not the way to write. The RoR draws 
attention to the fact that Slytherins are missing from the group. The 
table draws attention to the fact that the Slytherins aren't there. 
That doesn't mean that any time she doesn't happen to stick in a "and 
no Slytherins!" note they're actually there. I mean...who would ever 
write like that? Are there Slytherins in the DA now? At the Weasley 
house for Christmas? The books would be ten times longer if the 
author has to specifically say things that aren't in scenes as well 
as things that are.

Pippin: 
> What she wanted the text to do, IMO, is be open to interpretation. 
If
> you divide the world into good people and Slytherins, as Harry used 
to
> do, then you'll never conceive of  the Slytherins coming back to
> fight for Hogwarts. 

Magpie:
Except it's not much. I mean yes, obviously people have read the 
lines differently and I'm not denying that. But it's not a 
particularly ambiguous line on its surface. I didn't opt for the 
interpretation I had, I read it as obviously that and then later--
after JKR made reference to Slytherins coming back to fight--read 
interpretations that said those Slytherins were mentioned here. I 
can't choose the way I read something based on what's more 
interesting unless I believe it.

And what's even the point of making it ambiguous if it's supposed to 
be? There's no advantage to playing on readers alleged splitting of 
the world between good people and Slytherins since Slytherins don't 
actually exist in the world and thus the world can't be split into 
them. All it does is not get across something that's supposed to be 
happening in the scene for no good reason that I can see. Why's it 
better for somebody to be confused (in ways the characters wouldn't 
be) about who showed up? It's not like it's JKR's style anywhere else 
or adds anything to the scene to be unclear here. 

Pippin:
> But if the Slytherins are assumed to be capable of learning from 
their
> mistakes, why would they  reject a popular leader, Slughorn, and 
join
> instead what everyone now knows is a  monster who massacres his own
> people and makes war on children?
> 
> Only Crabbe is that much of an idiot, IMO.

Magpie:
Oh, I think there's plenty of idiots in Slytherin. But they didn't 
have to join Voldemort (although he says at least some did). They 
could just leave.

-m