Themes and theories

[nrenka]

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

> Pippin:
> Hmmm....well, I expect *some* genuinely sympathetic character 
> to betray/have betrayed the Light. If that doesn't happen at all, 
> then yeah, I'll have to change my ideas about the theme.

What also makes this scenario so much fun is that there are such good 
literary arguments for either the yes or the no.

Yes argues that betrayal is so thematically important and practically 
inevitable that it would be a weak conclusion to not have it happen.

No argues that betrayal is really rather passe, JKR worked it pretty 
hard in terms of events in the First War and we still don't know 
enough about it, so the repercussions/revelations of the first one 
(restricting it factually to Peter; a past Lupin betrayal of the ESE! 
sort actually falls into the 'yes' category because it would be a 
revelation of a previously unovertly disclosed event--no, it's not 
overt enough in the text right now to count) are more than enough to 
keep us busy.

As always, I'm professionally agnostic on such...minute plot points, 
but I'm rather inclined more towards numbah two myself.  Betrayal's 
been done, and there are other ways to accomplish catastrophe if 
that's what's desired, although we may end up with a distinctly un-
BANG-y story, in the long run.  (I like Diana, after all.)  My own 
sense of literary economy tells me it's not going to be Harry 
screwing up either, but one of the adults.  Funny, whose turn is it 
to have some real dirt dug up and show the bad side...

-Nora indulges in a few hypothetics, for once