CHAPTER DISCUSSION PS/SS 10, THE HALLOWEEN LONG

[Geoff]

No: HPFGUIDX 188452



--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "rtbthw_mom" <thedossetts at ...> wrote:

Bart:
> > Also, we don't know how 
> > much the headmaster has to do with the choices; it is still my 
> > contention that the fact that Harry becoming friends with exactly the 
> > people he needed to get to the Stone was either such an unbelievable 
> > coincidence as to be considered incredibly bad writing, or Dumbledore 
> > manipulated events to ensure that the three would become friends. I'd 
> > like to think that JKR is, or was, not THAT bad a writer.

Pat: 
> I always understood that the friendship was supposed to be chance - it was chance that Ron and Harry met on the train, and chance that the whole troll incident led to them saving Hermione and the trio becoming The Trio.   DD was certainly manipulative, in many things, but to think that he had THIS much control is making him to be, literally, God.  I think that at least this much of the story is meant to be coincidence, not the result of manipulation.  Otherwise, I agree, the story becomes unpalatable.

Geoff:
To an extent, you are taking a diametrically opposite view to Bart who 
considers that going down the coincidence route makes JKR a bad writer.
I suggested in my last post that perhaps it is a combination of both.

Speaking from my experience as a Christian, I have had occasions when 
things have seemingly just happened casually or concidentally but have 
then had quite major effects on  my life and others around me. I tend to 
call these "divine coincidences".

Mark you, that doesn't mean that I subscribe to the "Dumbledore is God" 
line of thinking. Far from it. Just that, in real life, coincidence is a funny thing, 
divine or secular.

Tolkien also uses the idea of apparently unrelated events having a bearing 
on major events. This could easily lead us to a big "What if..?" debate.
:-)