A Look Back was Re: 'Clue to his vulnerability' (Coming to a conclusion )

[severelysigune]

<snipping>

Potioncat wrote:
<See, this is what I meant. For you, it was expectations from OoP 
that seemed dashed in HBP. That makes sense. So, do you feel 
disappointed in the series, or just in HBP, or are you instead 
somewhat apprehensive about the next book?>


Sigune again:
The last option. I can't be disappointed in the series yet, simply 
because I can't form a final opinion before I've read the story's 
conclusion. I agree with Kneasy that the experience would have been 
entirely different if I had come to the books as a finished series - 
I'd have read them one after the other and I would probably not have 
taken the ime to form my own theories. 
As it is, I even have to suspend my judgement on HBP until I've read 
Book 7, because it seems to me that books six and seven are, more 
than the others, two halves of one whole. So far, I really don't know 
how I feel about HBP as a book.

The interesting thing about the Potterverse for me is the 
characterisation of the players. I like reading about human 
motivation, even in fantasy settings - HP is close enough to real 
life to be interesting in terms of real choices people make. I'm not 
saying that I take the books as a guide or anything; OotP gave me the 
idea that Rowling was someone whose vision on people and their 
choices might interest me, by way of entertainment.


You (Potioncat) wrote:
<snip> 
<One of my criticisms is that she fleshed out her minor characters 
too well. Marc Evans didn't need a name. Look at all the trouble it 
caused!>


Sigune again:
Yes, that was one mistake that surprised me. You'd think she would 
have remembered that *Harry's mother* was called Evans too - I 
thought her "Oh well, I didn't think the fans would be looking that 
closely" a bit lame. Surely it was obvious we'd jump to conclusions?

The fleshing out of minor characters is what first attracted me in 
the series. Pippin called JKR "a generous writer"; I don't know if 
she meant that the way I interpret it, but to me she is indeed that: 
her creation has the feel of a wonderful playground into which we are 
welcomed. As you well know, I perpetrate the much frowned-upon genre 
of fan fiction - that is only possible because there are so many 
corners to explore in JKR's world. But it becomes a fault, a kind of 
authorial dishonesty (to put is harshly), if there is too much of 
this that doesn't lead anywhere. I am beginning to wonder if she 
takes her readers at all seriously. I mean, it is one thing to say 
that she writes for herself and her own pleasure; but she *is* a 
published author, which means she has a certain responsibility 
towards her readers. There is much pressure upon her, but she owes it 
to us to do, say, decent editing. A few red herrings are all right, 
but too many of them is plain unfair. Or bad writing.

As I said above, I'm interested in characterisation. I am also 
greatly drawn to subversions of cliché and to all kinds of 
undermining and re-interpretation. I like Wilde's Mrs Erlynne, a 
woman who abandoned her child and husband and according to melodrama 
conventions should have caught consumption and died, preferably while 
repenting. She catches a rich husband instead. I like Sir Robert 
Chiltern, a corrupt politician who according to melodrama conventions 
should be exposed and shamed, but whose scandal is nicely hushed up 
and his way to Downing street certain. I like irony. 
Straightforwardness is uninteresting. I can read it wy way of 
diversion, but it doesn't fascinate.

When I first started reading HP I was, as I said in my earlier post, 
not impressed, because I couldn't find any significant subversion in 
the books. There was nothing to chew on. The house held up for all of 
us to admire throughout was Gryffindor, the house of the brave. That 
always rang false with me. It's - I don't know - sort of cheap and 
easy. If you read about the great, brave heroes of history, you 
nearly always find that they weren't really that brave and perfect in 
reality, and they often had other motives for their actions than 
selfless sacrifice. I'm not sure bravery is such an ideal; it stopped 
working for me when I was twelve.
Now, in PoA we were introduced to Peter Pettigrew, a Gryffindor who 
has betrayed his friends. Great, a subversion of Gryffindor's 
perfection! But look at how he is drawn: he is this ratty, watery-
eyed 'fat little lump' of a man - he just *looks* unreliable, and a 
large part of fandom is at a total loss as to how he could possibly 
have been the fourth part of the Marauders. I require a decent 
explanation for this.
And I'll share my first thought on reading the Spinner's End chapter, 
which puts Snape and Pettigrew in one house: my gut told me Wormtail 
was being set up as opposed to Snape, and because he was a Gryffindor 
(and the Sorting hat doesn't make mistakes), *he* is the traitor-spy 
who will be redeemed, and bad Slytherin Snape will burn in hell.
That's not what I want to read - not because Snape is my favourite 
character, but because it's plain stupid. I pray it doesn't turn out 
that way. But - hey, is that Pettigrew's life-debt to Harry looming 
at the horizon?

Then there is Slytherin. I really liked the fact that we finally got 
some backstory on Voldemort, but I was alarmed by the picture painted 
of the Gaunts. It reeked of cliché: the last descendants of Slytherin 
are degenerates. 
Here, again, I need some extra info. After the Chamber of Secrets, 
the Muggleborn bias, the degenerate family and the psychopath Heir, I 
strongly suspect that in JKR's mind, Salazar Slytherin was very 
simply the epitome of Evil. Then how come that for years he lived and 
worked together with the other founders as their friend? That jars.
Similarly with Snape. I'm not going to buy that Dumbledore was wrong 
to trust him. The man isn't a complete idiot, is he? Snape has 
everything against him, from his looks over his temper to his past. I 
want a rock solid argument for Dumbledore's trust. If that doesn't 
come, my judgement will be (yet again, not because I like Snape as a 
character, but for credibility's sake): plain stupid and 
unacceptable. And no, "Dumbledore likes to believe the best of 
people" won't do.

What troubles me about HBP is that, before reading this book, I 
didn't think the things I just named were among the options. Like 
some others, OotP gave me hopes for Slytherins like Theo Nott, who 
one supposed was named for a purpose. It gave an extra dimension to 
Snape - and it specifically showed him working against Umbridge. It 
introduced the DA and the possibility of House unity. I didn't like 
the prophecy, but I was hoping that it would receive an ironic twist 
and turn out to be 'much ado about nothing'.

Now in HBP the prophecy is dead serious; there was no DA; we had five 
apparently redundant seconds of Blaise Zabini and NO Theo Nott; Snape 
kills Dumbledore (no, I don't believe he faked it or didn't mean it) 
and it turns out nobody really trusted him anyway, only Dumbledore; 
and that RAB pops up out of nothing. Moreover, when asked if Snape is 
bad, JKR says she has to "leave us some hope" and Dumbledore "makes 
greater mistakes than other people". I now think there is a distinct 
possibility that yes, what we have seen is what we get. It wouldn't 
make sense to me because it does not, for me, follow logically from 
what we have been given so far, but well, we may just be going there, 
and it has never seemed more plausible than now. For me, it really 
all hinges on Snape. If he turns out to have been bad all along, 
there will have been enormous holes and inconsistencies in the 
narrative - and am I the only one who felt his explanations in 
Chapter 2 sounded too easy? Small wonder Bella didn't buy them. I 
wouldn't either. No, if that's true, I will feel throughly cheated, 
and I'll have totally misjudged JKR as a writer. I won't stand up and 
cry out that the series is bad; it just won't be my cup of tea, and I 
will have invested my enthusiasm in something I don't like after all.

To conclude:
Since HBP there is, to me, no middle way for the series. The last 
book is either going to prove it brilliant or totally disappointing. 
That's what frightens me.

Yours severely,
Sigune