Themes and theories

[nkafkafi]

> David:
> My own feeling is that the 'big themes' and the 'central mystery' 
> are the same thing.
> 

Neri:
I agree that the big theme and the big mystery will be very closely
connected. JKR already hinted as much, when she said that she is glad
no one ever asked her about her beliefs, because if she told us about
them it would then be easy to guess the outcome (I can't find the
exact quote now. Pippin had it). 


> David:
> My impression of JKR is that, despite the many elaborate 
> speculations that have arisen in fandom, she just doesn't do 
> complexity.  She also, IMO, mostly sucks at tight plot construction.

Neri:
I definitely don't agree that JKR sucks at tight plot construction. I
think she's extremely good at it. However, her plot IS extremely
complex, and she also took upon herself a very strict limitation –
that (almost) everything must be described from Harry's POV. Under
these very difficult conditions JKR sometimes performs less than
perfect, but IMO she has never bungled significantly.

BTW, I once set a challenge to the HPfGU members, to find any series
that has more characters than HP, but is still written mostly from the
POV of a single character. I don't think there were any serious
takers, although this was in part because I was immediately banished
to the OT list. Any takers now? 

> Pippin: 
>  In order to resist that manipulation one must  choose what is 
> right over what is easy. But according to Dumbledore AKA Jo,  we 
> should have sympathy for those  who are too weak to do so, for 
> they are what the cruelty and indifference of others has made 
> them. So Dumbledore has sympathy for Kreacher, and IMO, Jo 
> has sympathy for ESE!Lupin, too.
> 
> Does that make sense?

Neri:
To describe both Dumbledore's feelings for Kreacher and JKR's feeling
for Lupin as "sympathy" is a bit of a stretch, IMO. The exact words are:

OotP, p. 832 US:
'She was quite right, Harry,' said Dumbledore. 'I warned Sirius when
we adopted twelve Grimmauld Place as our Headquarters that Kreacher
must be treated with kindness and respect
.'

But this clearly relates to the Kreacher that didn't yet make the
choice to trick Harry (who had never hurt him) to his death. I doubt
DD thinks that Kreacher deserves kindness and respect now. Two
paragraphs later DD refers to the post-choice Kreacher as follows:

OotP, p. 832 US:
'Kreacher is what he has been made by wizards, Harry,' said
Dumbledore. 'Yes, he is to be pitied. His existence has been as
miserable as your friend Dobby's. He was forced to do Sirius's
bidding, because Sirius was the last of the family to which he was
enslaved, but he felt no true loyalty to him. And whatever Kreacher's
faults, it must be admitted that Sirius did nothing to make Kreacher's
lot easier — '

So Kreacher is now only to be pitied, as opposed to "love" that JKR
feels for Lupin. In addition, Kreacher's fault is perhaps somewhat
alleviated by the fact that he was not entirely in his right mind and
was under a split geis – he was magically enslaved to Sirius but also,
in less but significant amount, to Narcissa and to the memory of Mrs.
Black.  

> >Nora:
> > But now I have to ask Pippin; let me give you a hypothetic, that 
> the  factual postulations (Lupin did X, Y, and Z) completely fail to 
> fall  out as you say they will.  Does that screw your particular 
> reading of  theme as well, if/when it happens?

> 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.
> 

Neri:
We are back again to a question that was recently asked here: is it
possible to identify the big themes before the series is over? I've
pointed out in the past that Betrayal is much less of a theme than
many fans think it is. In particular, betrayal has had a surprisingly
low bang quotient in books 1-5. Actually, can anybody recall a single
big bang in the series that was produced by betrayal? The BIG bangs
are produced by possession (Voldy->Quirrell, Riddle->Ginny) and fake
identity (Peter!Scabbers and Crouch!Moody). Personally I find it
difficult to understand why so many members take it as a given that
we'll have a super bangy betrayal of the Light side in books 6-7. I
won't be surprised if we'll have a Podmor-size character betraying the
Order, but more likely some bangy trick of the metamorphmagus/imperius
sort. 

Neri