Naughty, Guilty! DD ( was Connecting the dots

[nrenka]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "Talisman" <talisman22457 at y...> 
wrote:

<snip>

>> Neri:
>> So maybe this is why JKR arranged for The Expert to debrief us 
>> early on regarding the pertinent facts. It's a thing that authors 
>> do, especially in fantasy books.
> 
> Talisman:
> I have an aced-out degree in English Literature, thanks,  and do 
> not require advice on reading from a mouse poop expert.  You might 
> read up on the linguistic philosophy of Pragmatics (Paul Grice's 
> term) which will explain to you how fiction writers violate the 
> Maxim of Quantity, especially mystery writers.  You may find that 
> you have to keep reading past the first pages.

Ah, academic credentials--ever the arbiter of truth.  Will you show 
me yours if I show you mine?

I suspect that neither Neri or I buy your ideas about the 'cross-
pollination' of Harry and Voldemort picked up on by the Sorting Hat, 
combined with the pairing of the wands being explicitly orchestrated 
by Dumbledore.  Fortunately, this is the sort of thing that is likely 
to, if it is true, be overtly supported.  If not it falls by the 
wayside, and the reader of that idea is left rather with Iser's 
conception of reading as a continual process of negation, where the 
set of potential patterns he had picked up on is not the one that's 
actualized.

Such are the dangers of playing with a work of fiction that is 
positing questions that it already knows the answers to.

> Talisman:
> Oh, you sure do expect them to be different, Neri. You expect wands 
> to be un-tamperable agents of fate. 
> 
> My point, which you seem set on missing, is that all of these 
> magical items were "programmed."  For instance, the mirrors you 
> referenced are bewitched to achieve the ends of the bewitcher.  The 
> Mirror of Erised doesn't say "tuck in your shirt scruffy" and the 
> mirror at the Leaky Cauldron doesn't show you your heart's desire.  
> These mirrors didn't decided for themselves what functions they 
> would have.  
> 
> Once you acknowledge that a wizard decides how magical objects will 
> function, you have to stop precluding DD's involvement with the 
> wands.  When you see, via Fleur, that wands can be custom-made, and 
> you look at DD's connection to certain wand cores and their 
> recipients, you have to agree that he could be tampering. 

There's a slight non sequitur there between "DD is able to determine 
what the core of the wand is" and "the wand chooses the wizard".  
Just because Dumbledore has Fawkes give two feathers (although Fawkes 
is not a mere pet, per FB) does not mean that Dumbledore has the 
power to explicitly determine the recipient of the wand.  It is 
questionable to consider wands in the same category of determination 
as the other magical objects listed above.
  
> Talisman:
> Wrong again.
> 1) If you can't see what a liar DD is by now, there is no hope.

Here's my small problem with this supposition.  Let's assume that 
right now we can argue either that DD is a liar or that he is not, or 
that he is in some cases and isn't in others.  The test of this will 
be what kind of problems and solutions each situation generates, and 
whether this matches up with the further revelation of information 
along the way.

Trying to work out things like "What did DD know and what didn't he" 
according to strict logical principles is an exercise in frustration, 
because all the outcomes become (at present) slightly ridiculous.  
It's enough to at times make one throw up one's hands and realize 
that fiction works upon its own rules.

> 2) What you can rely on in the books is the same thing you can rely 
> on in life--which can be rather a joke--but is not a smoked 
> kipper.  You can listen for inconsistencies in what people say.  
> You can evaluate what people say based on what actually happens.  
> You can decide they are lying when things don't match up.

The problem is that "doesn't match up" is a judgement which very 
strongly depends on the perspective on the text that one is taking, 
and which potential patterns one is choosing to regard as important.  
I get the impression that Rowling has very distinct ideas about what 
is going on and what is actually going to happen, and it's that 
latter factor that is going to retrospectively disqualify a number of 
readings that were valid at the time.

Dumbledore lies from your perspective, but there are potential 
perspectives from which he does not.  I will bet you that those are 
the ones that are going to be given support.

In fact, I'll bet you that most of the conspiracy theories will go 
down, the DISHWASHER for sure.  I'm probably wrong in an infinite 
number of aspects--speculation is not my metier--but we have to have 
something to do while waiting.

Oh, and one more thing.  The snide tone?  I think it would like to be 
funny, but at least from this perspective it comes off as 
patronizing, regarding which the last laugh will rest upon accuracy, 
the one area where none of us have much to stand on at the moment.  
Except for Faith.  She's the real survivor.

-Nora catalogs the saints, fortunately not into Three Acts