Apparate to Possess

[nkafkafi]

Lyn wrote:
Ah Neri, I was hoping you would invite more discussion on the
Edinburgh interview. You appear to have a much more benevolent view of
JKR's motivations than I do. I believe JKR's first loyalty with
respect to the HP story is to protect the integrity of
her works, for herself, her fans and those who have financially
invested in her works (like WB and the publishers). This, includes,
along with less lofty tasks such as enforcing copyrights,etc.,
ensuring that it is her version of the story that is the final one,
that it cannot be seen as plagiarized from some fan site, and that it
is not revealed until the last volume is published and in the hands of
the readers. On the important matters that relate
to how the story will end and the mysteries that underlie the
individual events, I believe she will go to some trouble to distract
if not deceive the theorizing fans if they get too
close to discerning that which she needs to keep secret.

Sure she is happy to toss out little inconsequential things like
birthdays and Middle names, if for no reason than it keeps the level
of fervor high. But no, I am very skeptical of her statements when it
comes to the big themes and future events, if for no other reason that
that she cares about her fan's enjoyment of each and every book and
chapter (not to mention the little matter that if the ending were to
be discerned in advance, it might well reduce the sales of the final
book by millions of dollars/pounds).
<snip>

Neri:
Hmmm. This is probably my own naiveté, but I have a much more benign
image of JKR. Sure, she can be devilishly tricky with her writing, but
my impression is that, as with (I suspect) most of us, this is a
fantasy hobby. In her case it became a profession, but in RL she is
generally a nice good little citizen and even (lets face it) a boring
person. I mean, she's the richest woman in the world, and what does
she do with all that money? Yachts? Penthouses? Gigolos? Not as far as
we know. She has a house, a doctor husband, three kids and a dog, and
she spends her days working hard writing a fantasy series and
answering nagging questions from fans, many of them children. My
impression is that she doesn't care much how many millions Book 7 will
make. She cares more about the opinions of her fans. If there's is
something she can't tell us, she just says "this would be telling",
"this is restricted information" and the like, and when she's giving
several answers of this kind in a row she feels she's letting us down,
so she comes up with something interesting that she CAN tell us
(because, as she said in Edinburgh, it would be very hard to answer
this question anyway). In all her history of interviews and chats, was
there even one proven case of her tricking us about the story? 

Lyn:
Now the statements around the first question seem fairly clear,
basically coming down to why didn't he die since the killing curse
rebounded? The specific section of most interest to me is "The killing
curse rebounded, so he should have died. Why didn't he? At the end of
Goblet of Fire he says that one or more of the steps that he took
enabled him to survive. You should be wondering what he did to make
sure that he did not die—I will put it that way." Read on the face of
things, this does seem to clearly indicate that a killing curse was
delivered, but I'm not so confident that the truth is conveyed at this
level. Three alternate possibilites come to mind that are still
conguent with the PI scene at the graveyard. <snip>

Neri:
You're still ignoring my main point: if the truth isn't "conveyed at
this level", this is not just a case of certain details being
inconsistent with the books. It means that this whole mystery of "why
is Voldy death-proof?" which is hinted also in the books, doesn't
exist at all. There's just no point asking what were Voldy's
"experiments" and what was he talking about in the graveyard. Voldy
didn't die because it was not an AK, period. All the rest is simply
JKR's smoke screen. 

Lyn:
But the really striking thing in that Edinburgh interview was this
"why Dumbledore did not kill or try to kill Voldemort in the scene in
the ministry. .... Although Dumbledore gives a kind of reason to
Voldemort, it is not the real reason..... That is not the answer;
Dumbledore knows something slightly more profound than that." WOW! JKR
has just admitted that DD has lied, and thus, that even her supposedly
most trustworthy characters might not tell the truth (or the whole
truth) in the novels. 


Neri:
DD was lying only by omission here, and I really never understood why
the conspiracy theorists make such a fuss about DD omitting things. Of
course he doesn't tells us everything. Personally it was obvious to me
that he doesn't since... now let me think...  since the first chapter
of the first book. It would have been a much shorter and boring series
if he told us is all he knows. BTW, when I first read these words of
DD in OotP it was already obvious to me (and to most readers, I
suspect) that he is hiding here something from Voldy and us. JKR's
"admitting" this was hardly a revelation. Her questions were important
because they made the "why didn't Voldy die and why didn't DD try to
kill him?" an official main mystery of the series.

Why are we still playing this game if everything and everyone is
suspicious? DD lies, other characters pretend, the narrator is
unreliable and JKR lies to us in her website. So does the concept of
"canon" have any meaning anymore?


Lyn at the end:
Neri, and I don't mean this confrontationally, but aren't you just
exhibiting what you have been accusing others of doing? :-) 


Neri:
No. I was doing exactly what I preach. I was modifying my theory (or
yours, which is really very similar to mine) so it would fit better
with more canon sources, including (but not only) JKR's words in
Edinburgh.


Neri