The curious incident of the Felix Felicis in the nighttime

[nrenka]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "bluesqueak" <pip at e...> wrote:
> Pip Squeaked:
>
> I have to admit, Nora, I don't get what 'jump' is required. 
> Dumbledore dies within the timeline of Felix being in operation. 
> Therefore, either Dumbledore's death is a lucky result for the 
> subjects within that timeline (since it partly results from the 
> actions of the subjects under Felix's influence), or the actions 
> which indirectly resulted in Dumbledore's death were immediately 
> lucky for the subjects (in that case, Dumbledore's death is an 
> unforseen side-effect).

The jump is the first one--that Dumbledore's death, since it results 
from actions lucky to the subject, is also lucky for the subjects.  I 
don't see the two things as essentially related, and potentially even 
contradictory: the actions which are lucky for the people being 
affected by the potion could help contribute to something decidedly 
unlucky for another person, or even more them in the long run.

<snip>

> Instead, she deliberately chooses to write a scenario in which 
> three people are *supposed* to be lucky - but are apparently 
> simultaneously hit by the most appalling bad luck.
> 
> And the apparent bad luck results in both Snape and Dumbledore 
> reaching the Tower...

There's the ironic reading, if you want to take it.  All of that good 
luck--and some of it helps contribute to a decidedly negative 
outcome.  Just twists the knife at the end, don't it?

[At present, I'm also skeptical of theories which lessen the knife-
twisting at the end--including any variations of DD not being dead 
and it not having been an AK curse.]

<snip>

> The question of what was really going on in the Shrieking Shack 
> (which was the subject of the original DISHWASHER post, then called 
> the Spying Game) can't be answered until we know that. Book Seven 
> awaits.

I suspect it was far more WYSIWYG than the MD would have it, at 
least. :)
 
> Two things about Book Six really made this old MDDT member giggle 
> hysterically, though. One was the final canon proof of Oscar Winner!
> Snape. The other was finding out, after being told several times 
> that the books were called 'Harry Potter and...', not 'Severus 
> Snape and...' that the Half Blood Prince was Snape. 

I don't think Oscar!Winner Snape is completely and utterly canonical 
either, mind you.  It's partially because I distrust any theory which 
can explain everything (such as psychoanalysis)--it becomes 
meaningless.  Snape is acting when you need him to be and then 
telling the truth also when you need him to be, so it explains every 
facet of behavior in all circumstances.

Now, if you go and re-read some things and take the *genuinely* 
subversive approach of reading them straightforwardly, some things 
fall into line and concept of Character that don't require so much 
artifice to be strapped onto the text, at least at the present.  
Maybe we've all been really overreading Snape all of these years, 
assuming as matter of course that there *must* be so much more to it 
than a petty little grudge against a schooldays nemesis.  Maybe 
that's the base of it all, and the story is not "good but not nice" 
but rather "consumed by the past."

Snape gets a book title to himself; so did Sirius.  It was probably 
bound to happen eventually...

-Nora stands by her characterization of the FF reading as 
Panglossian, natch