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

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 185549

> 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.
> 

Magpie:
Or he could just do it much more efficiently by saying if you're not 
from Gryffindor go home. But regardless, the way it relates to the 
line in DH is that the narrator can say "the next group was 
Hufflepuffs" and mean the next group was Hufflepuffs.

> > 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.

Magpie:
Again, Harry does not need to have time to recongnize anyone. This is 
the narrator speaking, and the narrator isn't claiming that Harry has 
personally identified everyone in the crowd. S/he is just telling us 
what's going on in mildly detailed brushstrokes: Charlie, Slughorn, 
friends and family of students who remained to fight, shopkeepers 
from Hogsmeade. Not the Slytherins who left earlier. If the 
Slytherins who left earlier had returned the narrator would have no 
reason s/he couldn't include them. 

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

Magpie:
Houses were identified earlier clearly. It's not a case of it not 
being us vs. them, it's that we know who's there because the narrator 
has given us an idea.

jokoney: 
> 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.

Magpie:
I agree it's descriptive enough. It just doesn't describe the 
Slytherins previously set apart.

 
> > 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.


Magpie:
Harry doesn't need any extra time to do anything--and frankly, even 
if he did it wouldn't take him any extra time to note the returning 
Slytherins. If anything that would take him less time than coming up 
with these other people being shopkeepers from Hogsmeade. But Harry 
isn't being asked to name people here. The narrator is just telling 
us what's going on in the scene, and the narrator gives us details 
that do not include the Slytherins who left earlier. I can't believe  
it would break an intense mood to say "the Slytherins who left 
earlier" in a way it doesn't break the mood to say "shopkeepers from 
Hogsmeade." Hell, the Slytherins would be far more important to the 
mood here. Their return would be far more important than these 
peoples' entrance--to Harry, to the reader, and to the story. 

Carol responds:
Oops. Yes. It's "remained to fight." But the first "returned" is
correct. Look again at the quotation, quoted correctly this time:

"They [Charlie and Slughorn] seemed to have *returned* at the head of
what looked like the families and friends of every Hogwarts student
who had remained to fight, along with the shopkeepers and homeowners
of Hogwarts."

Charlie, of course, is not returning despite the wording of the
quotation. It's Slughorn who's returning. Where has he gone? To the
Hog's head with the Slytherins (and presumably from there to
Hogsmeade.) Can he and Charlie possibly have recruited all those
people by themselves if they includea anyone other than the students
of Hogsmeade? Can you imagine Slughorn and Charlie somehow knowing how
to find the friends and families of all the students who had remained
at Hogwarts to fight? It makes no sense. 

Magpie:
It does makes sense. You don't have to figure out everybody's 
carpooling arrangemtents to read what's going on. It's just a simple 
line from the narrator. S/he doesn't have to prove to me that these 
people are who s/he says they are. We saw Slughorn leave, and now 
he's returned with more people. Those people include Charlie, friends 
and family of the students who remained to fight and the shopkeepers 
from Hogsmeade. There's plenty of ways they could show up with these 
people for the big finish. Slughorn doesn't have to know all these 
people personally. Word's getting around and people are showing up at 
Hogwarts to help. It's not that complicated--and questioning how the 
narrator knows these things doesn't make any sort of case for the 
Slytherins being there. 

Carol:
You yourself have argued that Harry wouldn't know who those people
were. He can't tell a Ravenclaw from a Slytherin out of context
(especially when they're in their pajamas--which would pretty much
distinguish them from Death Eaters and made any students stand out
clearly had any joined Voldemort's little party in the forest), nor
can he distinguish the parent of a kid he doesn't know from a
Hogsmeade shopkeeper.

Magpie:
No, I haven't argued that Harry doesn't know these people, I've 
argued that the narrator is telling me who I should see coming 
through the door so that's what I see. I think the whole discussion 
about who Harry knows personally is completely irrelevent to reading 
this line.


Carol responds:

I agree. And if the Slytherins' popular and likeable Head of House
makes it clear that he's going back into battle to fight He Who Must
Not Be Named, wouldn't some of them follow? Who knows. Maybe the
Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs had second thoughts, too. They wouldn't
want to be outdone in bravery by Slytherins!

Magpie:
We don't actually know if Slughorn is popular with Slytherins. But 
the fact remains that whether or not we think any of them would 
follow, we're not told that they did. The narrator simply tells us 
that they left and then later describes a different group of people 
as following. 

Carol, who still thinks that if we trust JKR's statement about DD's
sexuality, we should trust her statement that the Slytherins followed
Slughorn

-m, who thinks what JKR says off the cuff in an interview sometimes 
indicates what she was really thinking at the time, and sometimes is 
just creating stuff on the fly without remembering what's in the 
book. It's not like we haven't seen her do this. She's got a lot to 
remember, and sometimes and interviewer's question can guide her 
imagination--especially if a question puts her on the defensive.