Apparate to Possess (verging on OT)

[Lyn J. Mangiameli]

Lot's of snipping below, but I assume anyone still staying with this knows the background

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "nkafkafi" <nkafkafi at y...> wrote:
> 
> 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.
>snip<
>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.
> 
> snip<
 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
> <snip>
> 
> Neri:
> snip<
> 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. 

Lyn now, 
So? I'm not aware anyone is arguing this one way or another, nor see how it is pertinent to 
the whether she might be willing to distract theorists who are getting close too close to 
the "truth."

>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.

Lyn now:

Of course she cares how many millions Book 7 will make. Perhaps not for personal gain, 
but JKR has a responsibility to those who have invested in her stories and brought her 
books to the world (and later the story to film). Personally, I suspect JKR is not so very 
thrilled with each and every film as she lets on, but does so out of responsibility to her 
investors (can you imagine the decline is film receipts if JKR panned a movie like POA). HP 
is big business, and JKR has been very successful at negotiating those waters, in part 
because of her agent (who she also feels a responsibility toward) and others she has 
surrounded herself with.  

As for fans, of course JKR has done a lot for her fans, but she has also repeatedly stated 
she will not have the fans wishes and desires interfere with how she will write her story. As 
I said, maintaining the integrity of her story, and the story being hers, is going to be one 
of her highest priorities.

There is nothing in this that for me takes away from my regard for JKR  both personally 
and as the author of the HP story, rather it is just what I consider to be a reaistic 
understanding of the multiple responsibilities and motivations she has. 

 Back to Neri:
>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:
My personal take, and obviously it is not shared by all, is that this is naive for the reasons 
I've expressed previously. Your latter question is not naive, however, as you have been 
careful to limit it to interviews and chates, and set the level of deceit and distraction to 
one of "tricking." I shall answer more broadly, because I think it more pertient to the larger 
issue of whether we can rely on all of her statements.  JKR, as I presented, has already 
admitted that she has deceived us in the books by her statement about DD at the 
Edinburgh interview. She has regularly given us ambiguous answers and selective truths 
(not to mention errors). I don't fault her for any of that, but in my assessment she has 
demonstrated she will be evasive, distracting, and yes, deceitful, to maintain the integrity 
of her writing project. Of course others are free to assess the situation otherwise, and of 
course we are unlikely to have a sense of the extent to which she has engaged in such 
things until the end of the book 7 (and then I'm sure we still won't know, or recognize, it 
all).   
> 
> 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? 
 <snip>
> 
> Neri:
> You're still ignoring my main point: if the truth isn't "conveyed at
> this level", 

Lyn now:
Neri, this is a discussion, not an interrogation. Not to mention how would I know what is 
meant to be your main point? I have countered nearly a dozen of your points, which you 
merrily then ignore to seize on any limitations I acknowledge. 

>this is not just a case of certain details being
> inconsistent with the books.

Lyn again,
I don't see an omission of any spell against the young Harry in a climactic passage that has 
been one revised in print to be a "detail." Some might consider it a significant clue.
 
> 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 now:
I don't see it that way. LV's "experiments"  could well have defended him against death 
from a possession that went bad, or a protective curse, as much as from an AK. I think it is 
all too easy to get overly focused about the only way for a Wizard to die (and thus LV) is by 
AK. Indeed, some folks have posited ways LV might be killed relative to the prophesy that 
would not involve an AK. LV is seeking immortality as well as defense agains a specific 
mechanism of death. 
> 
> 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. 

Lyn now: 
But this wasn't just an ommission, readers were given a reason, and for those who don't 
do anymore than read the books, they still are left with that as THE reason. To give a 
reason that "is not the real reason" is to lie. That is an act of commission. Doesn't bother 
me morally, but it does alert me to be skeptical not only of what DD says, but of the 
person who puts words into his mouth. 
 
>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.

Lyn here:
The significance is in the deceit and intentional distraction, not in him not telling us 
everything. It is one thing to accept that we can be told everything, it is another to learn 
that what we are told may not be true. The former was known and expected, the 
admission  was the revelation. 

 
 Back to Neri:
>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.

Lyn now:
Did they? It may take a while for us to know. And isn't it odd that the "official main mystery 
of the series" would be announced in an interview and not made unambigously indicated 
as such in the story itself.


> 
> 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 now,
Can't speak for others, but I play because it's fun and mentally stimulating. Guess the 
truth be told, I can't help myself, I just thing about this stuff. Been playing for years and 
until recently never even bothered to do so publicly (pestered Kneasy a lot, though).

As to the concept of "canon" having meaning, that's all a little too  post modern for me. 
Actually, I approach the HP story in the same way I approach a neuropsych or forensic 
assessment. I try to gather the best available data sources (ideally including my own 
testing and interview, but that's not possible with a fictional work), look for areas of 
consistency and inconsistency, look to resolve inconsistencies where they occur, compare 
against known syndromes and patterns of behavior, posit a hypothesis based on the 
above, consider alternate explanations, and then test the hypothesis for best fit to the 
data. With people (and I'd suggest ficition as well) one never has unimpeachable data.
> 
> 
> 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.

Lyn ending now:
I said what I said because it appears that way to me. Specifically, you stated to Kneasy that 
you objected to theories that: "Explain away or simply ignore whatever doesn't fit." You 
both attempt to explain away and ignore the evidence in the graveyard PI. I meant it when 
I indicated I did not mean my response to be confrontational, what I was trying to point 
out is that it is very hard for us not to look for explanations that selectively emphasize 
some data over other. That's not necessarily a matter of stubborness or blindness, but just 
a legitimate struggle to consider alternatives in a world (fictional or otherwise) that is 
imperfect as a source of data. 

The only thing I shall be stubborn about is to continue to disclaim the possession theory 
as my theory. I am not trying to defend something that I consider mine, I am only 
exploring various speculations for best fit and for amusement. I do have one theory 
(unrelated to this discussion) I may share some day, and I have to claim it only because I 
can't get anyone else to take it from me. 
 
Lyn