Spoiling the fun

[Jen Reese]

Kneasy:
> Usually it starts with a musing on a perceived oddity, progresses
> to a dawning realisation, followed by a text search and results in
> the cobbling together of a rationale backed by numerous quotes
> and extracts to show that - Yes, Harry will end book 7 with only
> one buttock, there's this obvious metaphor running through the
> books - he's been acting half-assed ever since the start. This
> epic epiphany is then staunchly defended against all-comers until
> the moment of truth arrives - in a new volume.

Jen: HAHAHA! I was reading along very seriously and burst out 
laughing here, Kneasy. There's still a chance we're going to see 
someone lose a buttock, you know, after Moody's grumble about the 
good ol' days when elementary wand safety was taught. When have we 
seen Harry pay attention to this? And Ron, splitting his wand almost 
in *half* in COS--shouldn't he have thrown his wand to the 
floorboard of the vehicle when he saw they were headed toward the 
Whomping Willow? ;)

We can still have fun, damn the interviews. I'm bummed about the 
Longbottoms, RAB. The worst for me came several weeks ago when I 
happened upon a post saying the mystery of Lily's eyes was already 
solved when Harry used those eyes to get the memory from Slughorn. 
Say what?!? Thank god no one asked JKR about the eyes in the TLC/MN 
interview. I'm still holding out hope for more there. 

There's still good stuff there to pick over, once Snape gets his 
fandom due. I read an interesting post on the connection of Snape's 
family to Hawthorne's characters the other day that got NO response. 
The sum total of my Hawthorne knowledge is reading Scarlet Letter 20 
years ago, so I didn't add anything myself, but I excepted someone 
would seize on it. Nope. 

Speculation about DD's family is nil so far, in part because there's 
not much to go on. The perfect place for fertile imagination to 
grow, eh Kneasy? 

Personally I'm torn between loving the interviews and hating the 
information we get. Sort of a moth to the flame problem there. I 
desperately want to know where JKR is going and fear it's a place I 
won't like, all at the same time. (Shouldn't I be exploding about 
now with all those different feelings at once? <g>). There's no way 
around it now, she's steering us to closure whether we like it or 
not. Personally I'm strapping myself in for the ride, can't give up 
on it now.

Kneasy:
> It's not just that miserable old git Kneasy that's feeling  
> disgruntled; it's commented on in the majority of the HP-related  
> mails that come my way. Indeed, the word 'cheat' has appeared more 
than once, usually from those who expect the worst to result from  
> Jo's admiration of A. Christie. It may be something restricted to
> the  low circles I inhabit, but there seems to be a growing
> apprehension that the plot structure isn't as robust as it might
> be, that inconvenient inconsistencies are becoming evident and 
> that hurried on- the-hoof canon revisions/explications are the
> order of the day. One  would hope that the books would be able to
> speak for themselves ....  but.... one begins to wonder.

Jen: A little niggle started in my brain pretty soon after that huge 
interview--is this all there is? Is what you see what you get? My 9 
y.o. nephew thinks so. I asked him about Snape at the end of HBP and 
he told me: "Well, I knew he was a bad guy before, but after he 
killed Dumbledore, then I knew he was *really* a bad guy." He may 
well be right, and the twists and turns of my mind are futile 
speculation, but I can't turn them off. 

Remember what you used to say Kneasy, about spinning theories and 
intellectual stimulation? That it's fun and engaging? I never quite 
got that when I first started on the board, everything was supposed 
to be *serious* and important in my mind then. But now I get it, 
after a couple of years of being told my theories have holes, or my 
speculation is wildly innaccurate, or just being completely ignored. 
If I can't be right, and won't, at the very least I can still give 
my mind a whirl and have some fun while doing it. 

Jen