HBP Spoilers - Tonks

[Barry Arrowsmith]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Aberforths Goat / Mike Gray" 
<aberforthsgoat at h...> wrote:
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> 
> Nnngh. Don't buy. I'm following your Pippin here.
> snip 
> 
> With love, I'm not so sure, but it just doesn't sound right. I think it
> was important to her to show Tonks pining away for love - to some degree
> to show a more serious kind of love than the teenagers understand yet.
> It seemed like a counterbalance of sorts.
> 
> It also touches on some other issues that are important to her, like
> racial stuff (here connected to Lupin's werewolfism).
> 
> Finally: She used Tonk's odd behavior to wave red herrings at us all
> book long. When she ended it all by identifying Lupin as the true source
> of Tonks troubles - well, I'd like to put it this way: she cashed in her
> narrative chips. I think that game is over now, and to drdge up the
> thing with a whole new interpretation would be tiresome - or at least
> just doesn't feel to me like the way Jo writes.
> 
> Just my two Knuts - and it's mostly a touchy-feely-instinctive thing
> that has a lot to do with my intuitions about the way Jo plays her
> narrative hand than good, hard argument.
> 

Oh, you (and Pippin and others) must stick to your convictions.
If you don't I'm going to have no-one to contend with, and that
would be frustrating. Can't have everyone going round agreeing
with each other, it'd be unbearable.

Anyway, I've done a bit more of my re-read this afternoon - and
has anyone else noticed? Tonks get called Nyphadora more often
than one would expect for a person who dislikes the name and
insists that she should be just 'Tonks'.

This gives me an idea - 'Tonks' is indeed Tonks - but not *the*
Tonks - she's Andromeda Tonks - Nympho's mother, member of
the Order, married to a Muggle, another disgraced Black - and 
Nyphadora is used as a reminder to her of just which Tonks she's 
supposed to be.
Cunning, eh?

Kneasy