HBP: First Read Rant (Neri's disappointment)

[davewitley]

Dudley
is
spoilt.
He 
must
have
been
reading
bootleg
chapters
of
HBP
on
the
internet.

> Pippin:
> It's a thriller plot, not a mystery. 

> Neri:
> > The horcuxes: it's a nice plot device, similar to several ideas
> that  came up here. The problem is: 95% of it is based on 
completely 
> new  information. It couldn't have been deduced in any way from 
what 
> we   knew before. So what's the point in having any theories at 
all?
> And the secrets of the remaining horcruxes' identities and places? 
Can
> it  be deuced from what we know now? I wouldn't bet money on it. 
> > 

> Pippin:
> Herself *said* she didn't think it was guessable. It doesn't need 
to 
> be, it's pure  McGuffin of the first order. The mystery is the
> identity of  the traitor (the real traitor), and that is eminently 
> guessable. Poor Tonks!

I must say that, emotionally I'm with Neri on this one (though I 
think I enjoyed the book more than he did), but intellectually with 
Pippin.

It is something of a disappointment to me that the things that seem 
to me to be the really important mysteries - the power that 
Voldemort knows not, why he didn't die, etc are either slipped in 
casually or, as you say, McGuffins.  (Though to be fair, the Horcrux 
idea does have some coherence - it's not just a sonic screwdriver of 
immortality.)

Whereas the identity of a traitor, while of course great fun and 
interesting and an integral part of the plot and all that, always 
seemed secondary.

I think the metaphysical mysteries are more or less solved (though I 
still wonder about the gleam), and either there is now no real 
mystery (what Nora called Fantasy Treasure Quest in HPFGU chat on 
Sunday) or there are only mundane mysteries (what is Snape up to?).

While I'm not qualified to comment on any supposed alchemical 
structure of the series, I do feel that these books are not 
fundamentally alchemical in nature - there is nothing hermetic here, 
it seems.

Non-Christians (and those Christians who don't want to be preached 
at), too, can probably breathe a sigh of relief.

David