That Bloody Man Again WAS Re: The curious incident of the Felix Felicis

[nrenka]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:

<snip>

> Pippin:
> Why a cop-out? 

Because you have a way to soft-pedal absolutely every devastating 
event in the book.

Emmeline Vance's murder?  Faked.
Dumbledore snookered by the locket?  He realizes it, and acts 
accordingly to set another plan in motion.
Snape kills Dumbledore?  Well, it was originally another plan, and 
it's not actually the Avada Kedavra the text says, it's something 
else that keeps that particular sin off of Snape's conscience.

Not the actions of a 'ruthless' author, those.

IMO, it takes a lot of emotional punch out of what are, in many ways, 
genuinely earnest and somewhat naive books.  Does anyone here think 
that Rowling didn't intend us to take Dumbledore's exegesis upon love 
and choice really seriously?  [Interesting to note: in interview, she 
stated that Sirius' "You should have died!" was completely honest on 
his part, and he would indeed-y have done the same.]  We're asked to 
buy straightforwardly something that could easily merit a deep amount 
of scorn and derision for how it's put and phrased.  But then, by 
this theory, we're asked to complicate and find ways to mitigate the 
emotional impact of any number of events.

I suppose that could be where she's going.  Pity we have 2+ years to 
wait and find out.

-Nora thinks about works that do not 'work' when not read in good 
faith: Gounod's _Faust_ is way up there...