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

[jkoney65]

No: HPFGUIDX 185532

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "sistermagpie" 
<sistermagpie at ...> wrote:
>
> Magpie:
> As Carol pointed out, Harry is not the narrator.

jkoney
My mistake. I was thinking one thing and typed a combination that 
wasn't true. Sorry about that.

Magpie:
 The line about 
> Quidditch actually isn't one of the ones that suggest he doesn't 
know 
> many people (though it's true that often he knows a lot fewer 
people 
> than someone else would in his situation). It just tells us that a 
> bunch of Hufflepuffs showed up to try out. 

jkoney:
When Harry says "If there's anyone else here who's not from 
Gryffindor, leave now, please." I read it, that he didn't know who 
was who and was giving a general get the hell out of here and quit 
wasting my time. I think if he knew the people he would have pointed 
them out directly and told them to leave.


 
> 
> jkoney: 
> > So when he sees the people coming to the fight he calls them 
> friends 
> > and family memebers because he doesn't know who they are (as in 
> what 
> > house) but he knows they are coming as support for his side.
> 
> Magpie:
> The narrator called them friends and family members so that's what 
> they are. If they're supposed to be Slytherins--particularly 
> Slytherins that both the narrator and Harry have never had any 
> trouble identifying as such--call them that. After thousands of 
pages 
> of this series I have every reason as a reader to not read friends 
of 
> family of the students left at Hogwarts (who are from all the 
houses 
> except that house) as including Slytherins. 

jkoney:
I don't think Harry had the opportunity at the time to recognize the 
people other than Slughorn and Charlie. If Slughorn is leading them, 
then there is good chance(which is what I thought at the time) that 
it included some of the slytherin's that he left with.

I also think that during the battle there were no houses. There is us 
and them. Those with us are friends & family. 

Besides being led by two people he knew, he didn't see any more DE 
masks on the people. For a quick glance and that is all the time he 
had, I think calling those helping his side friends and family is 
descriptive enough.


> 
> jkoney: 
> > So if he had spent the time to recognize that there were 
slytherins 
> > in the group I think we would be discussing how inconsistent JKR 
> was 
> > by naming the slytherins when he doesn't usually recognize anyone 
> > outside his groups.
> 
> Magpie:
> We don't know what we'd be discussing if the scene had been written 
> differently, but I don't see why it's inconsistent for JKR to have 
> the narrator identify people as Slytherins. The narrator does so 
> throughout the series. There's plenty of times the narrator reveals 
> that Harry knows names of people whose names we don't, and is able 
to 
> identify people by house even if he's not friends with them. JKR 
> writes in the straightforward way most people speak throughout the 
> rest of the series. 

jkoney:
Again I think it's a timing thing. Harry doesn't spend much time 
looking at the group. He's rather busy and having the narrator give 
us too many details would have broken the intense mood that had 
developed.

I guess its a matter of preference. I didn't need the extra detail at 
that time. Having it said later that Slytherin did there part was 
enough confirmation for me.