Subverting the genre?

[pippin_999]

> > 
> > Dungrollin:
> > Indeed. So either JKR was out and out lying in the subverting the 
> > genre quote, or we are waiting for book 7 to shatter one or more of 
> > your carefully catalogued stereotypes. Is the prophecy is a load of 
> > nonsense? Are the Weasleys magically mediocre? Or is it simply that 
> > (*licks lips in anticipation*) she's going to kill off the hero?
> > 
Kneasy:
> Only two ways to subvert the fantasy genre that I can see. Either:
> a) prove it's all fact
> or
> b) show that it causes mental illness.
> 
> Killing off the hero isn't anything new, Arthur and practically all the
> Round Table Knights copped it in the neck (or other squidgy spots)
> and Lancelot (true blue hero) had been playing 'hide the sausage'
> with the saintly Guinevere anyway. In fact it's quite common for
> a fallibility or two to mar the otherwise spotless perfection of the
> righteous, death then equals atonement. Very moral.
> 

Pippin:
Ee-yes, but generally the author telegraphs the fatal (or redeemable) flaw
from a mile off. Maybe two miles. Did anyone think Boromir wasn't going to 
pull something? Lando? Edmund? Ganelon? Mordred? Not to mention
Anakin, Doomed with a capital Darth, I mean D. Lance/Gwen is no
secret to the reader, or even to Arthur, really. Whereas try to convince the
average HP reader that Lupin might be a traitor and you'll generally get
a spluttering "But he's a good guy!" in response. Along with a politely 
tolerant look that suggests the speaker thinks you  have a screw loose
but is too fond of you to say so.

Rowling's  earlier comment from 2000:
http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/2000/0700-newsweek-jones.html
It didn't occur to me for quite a while that I was writing fantasy when
 I'd started "Harry Potter," because I'm a bit slow on the uptake 
about those things. I was so caught up in it. And I was about two thirds
 of the way through, and I suddenly thought, This has got unicorns in it. 
I'm writing fantasy!
--

I think what she meant was that the story was meant to be set in the
real world, not long ago and far, far away, and she didn't realize that it
wasn't, exactly,  until the unicorns entered stage right.

I think there's a difference between subverting a genre and sending it up,
which is what Pratchett does so well. Pratchett is mostly a matter of 
humorous juxtaposition -- what if Tolkien's serious minded dwarves 
were named like Disney's silly ones to give a minor example. It makes
fun of the cliches.  It's an inside joke and you need to have some knowledge
to invent it, although actually you don't need to have any deep familiarity 
with a genre to know what the cliches are. People who've never been to 
an opera in their lives know about fat ladies with horns on, and people 
who never read fantasy know about unicorns

Send ups make fun of the genre. IMO, subversion makes fun of the reader--
it's a different kettle of newts. Subversion is Shylock's speech, it's
Shakespeare making you like the old Kate better, it's Cervantes
driving his lance so firmly into the fantasy reader's posterior that 
no one dared to take the genre seriously again for hundreds of years.

Pippin
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