'Clue to his vulnerability' (Coming to a conclusion )

[carolynwhite2]

Nora:
It's an individual reading choice which of these two aspects the 
reader wants to emphasize, but the reader who doesn't follow the 
author's balance is probably going to end up a little lost. 

And if you pay attention to interviews (I do) and don't think she's 
grossly lying to us (I don't), she's really very interested in us-the-
readers realizing her utter sincerity and picking up on it.

Carolyn:
I am always curious at this Faith line you take, Nora, of an utterly 
simplistic face value reading, not only of the books but of the 
interviews. Without even digressing into the entertainment value of 
alternative readings, frankly I think you are more familiar than most 
people as to the many, many layers of meaning that can be buried in 
text. Conscious or unconscious authorial intent is a pleasant 
minefield that can lead to endless, profitable and fascinating re-
evalutions of books as more information comes to light - whether that 
derives from one's own more developed understanding of things, or 
plain new hard facts.

Yes, as Kneasy pondered on at length earlier this week, JKR seems 
keen to close off some avenues of investigation, seems anxious for a 
particular view to prevail, but so what? So she wants us to take 
Sirius' declaration as sincere, or DD to be the epitome of goodness, 
or Harry to be a plucky teenager doing his best? I would take JKR's 
public view on things as only a piece of the jigsaw puzzle. Without 
even suggesting she is telling porkies, it really is impossible for 
her ever to be objective really. In 20 years time when it is all 
over, she could easily write a frank re-evaluation of what she 
thought she was doing, whether she achieved it, and acknowledge the 
justice - even truth - of many fandom interpretations. Or she may 
never actually 'understand' how her simple little morality tale could 
have been so misunderstood..

Like the furore that greeted new installments of Dickens, mass reader 
response is way out of mere author's control. Only this evening, we 
came to the end of a week's gripping installments of a British radio 
soap, The Archers [I heard those collective groans, you at the back]. 
A simple tale of country folk, ha ha. A girl finally declares her 
love for her man. Only snaggette is that she is married to his 
brother and has also foisted a child of the man she loves on said 
brother. But the actors played it dead straight, true luurve will out 
etc. Snap to the online chat boards and it's a different story. 
Raging essays from gloriously-named posters such as Dame Celia 
Molestrangler: the public beg to differ - what a selfish little 
strumpet etc etc. Reader involvement in the story is a new 
international past-time.

Pippin:
Harry often errs, especially when he doesn't consider the consequences
of what he's doing. But he has never considered a moral consequence
and thought, "I don't care, I'm going to do it anyway" or "Serve them
right" or "It doesn't matter as long as it's not (fill in the blank) 
who gets hurt."

<snip>
Along with the fear expressed by some that Jo is going to
turn all insipid, sacharine and preachy is there a fear that 
she might have something to say, in a non-preachy
unsacharine fashion, that will compel the invested reader to take
it seriously?

I wonder about that --I don't think her ideas coincide about the
soul or religion are going to coincide with mine at all, at all, and
I thoroughly expect to encounter some cognitive dissonance when 
Everything Is Explained.

Carolyn:
Well, my interpretation of his attempts to use Crucio is that he 
meant them as much as he was able to at the time, and would 
definitely have been very glad to have caused some serious hurt to 
Bella and Snape. There is no doubt he wanted to avenge Sirius's 
death, and I think it unlikely he would have felt sorry if he had 
managed to kill her. Undoubtedly he now thinks the same way about 
Snape. The sectum sempra incident is a bit different, in that he 
stupidly had no idea what the curse would do, and not unreasonably 
assumed it to be another schoolboy jinx - yes, he intended to hurt 
Draco, but certainly not fatally.

I'm not sure I know what you mean by 'the invested reader'. If you 
mean a child absorbed in the series might take away some 
understanding that it's a good idea to think before you act, 
generally a bad thing to kill people and as a principle for life, try 
your best to do the right thing, well..duh.. ..but probably adults 
might have worked those things out for themselves, no? 

Without really wanting to revisit all the tiresome adult/child 
readership arguments that have raged backwards and forwards over the 
years, what exactly would the 'invested' adult reader find compelling 
about these sorts of simplistic moral messages? 

Neri:
While I find Snape interesting enough, I really don't see why many
readers think he's a more interesting character than Harry. Does Snape
ask himself if he has to do something because it's fated or because
it's his own choice? Does he ever wonder if he's still himself? Does
he search his memory for blank periods? Does he have to be told by
others that he had just spoke a language that he didn't know even
existed? Snape is interesting because he keeps secrets from us. Harry
tells us everything he knows, and still he has dark secrets even from
himself.

Carolyn:
You don't know he doesn't do any of these things, Neri. The evidence 
from some of his anguished outcries at different points in the books 
is that he spends a great deal of his time in black thought about a 
whole range of such things. Harry's lack of thought about anything is 
dull by comparison. Going back to my replies to Pippin and Nora, 
surely it's these adult stories that provide the character interest 
(such as it is), and which makes JKR's apparent state of denial about 
them very curious indeed.

Silmariel:
My mind tends to disconnect when confronted to accepting Harry as an 
untarnished soul and pure of heart. 
<snip>
I see shades of grey and quite an standar hero, that I find likable 
precisely because he is a predictable adolescent mess, but not my 
image of a pure of heart hero.

Pip:
because the series is really about 'who claims the grey people'? Do 
they belong to Evil? Or can Good redeem them? Is this series about 
Justice? Or Mercy?

Do you only belong to the side of Good if your heart is pure, you 
have the strength of ten and any sins are only minor ones? 

Or is Good a side that anyone can join (or rejoin)? Whatever they've 
done?

Carolyn:
I'd personally prefer some of these sorts of more complex messages, 
though (naturally) ignoring their religious connotations. However, 
they seem at odds with WYSIWYG approach advocated by Neri and Nora.

Carolyn
Thinking what a satisfying word 'codswallop' is..