Draco and Intent: Re: Snape and Harry’s Sadism (was: Lack of re-examination)

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 186787

jkoney wrote:
> Um, wasn't my original point that people didn't intrepret what she wrote correctly? 

Carol responds:

The problem is, there's no "right" reading, including JKR's own, which is often inconsistent with or unsupported by canon. She remembers her own books incorrectly, whether it's the Slytherins returning with Slughorn (maybe they did, but Harry didn't see them and so the narrator didn't report them) or Draco's already having a hand of Glory and Ron's knowing about it or skulls in the Slytherin Common Room.

Any reading, whether it matches JKR's stated intentions or not, is a "right" reading as long as it can be supported by the text. It's only "wrong" when the next book reveals it as wrong (as Betsy's reading of Draco as Harry's future best friend turned out to be). Until DH came out, both DDM!Snape and ESE!Snape were valid readings because the evidence for both was in the text. We just didn't know which were clues and which were red herrings till we found out in "The Prince's Tale."

But there are still many matters for which we have no official canon explanation, or for which the canon explanation is unclear or incomplete (the Elder Wand, for example, or the whole concept of "the Master of Death"). We're still debating character's motivations (and whether there's a rule against hair clips shaped like butterflies!).

There is not and can never be a single "right" reading of the books. If there were, this list would not exist.

Carol, who takes any author's stated intentions with a grain of salt, whether that author is JKR, Herman Melville, or Stephen King