[the_old_crowd] Re: Whatever happened to nostalgia?

[ewe2]

On 5/16/06, Geoff Bannister <gbannister10 at ...> wrote:

> Since HBP, we have had thread after thread analysing Sanpe's
> behaviour; what are the other Horcruxes; can Harry be a Horcrux
> and such like.

Yes, I haven't had the heart to even read anything on Main for a long
long time. I had hoped the initial discussions would widen into a
similar delta of inquiry but the Horrucks fixation has been death to
such enthusiasm.

> Often, these have turned into "table tennis" matches between two
> or so people holding opposite views and hanging onto their theories
> like Dementors onto Barty Crouch Junior.
>
> Then, from time to time, a new poster appears writing "I have just
> had this great thought about X" . Everyone groans inwardly and
> thinks "Yes and Queen Anne's dead. You're the 32nd person to
> suggest that. Have you looked back two days on the group?"

This phenomenon goes back much further than you think; the penultimate
nature of the series has only foccused the dynamic much more narrowly.
You could throw fully half to three quarters of everything said about
Snape on the lists and not lose any information, just for example.

> Maybe, I'm a one-off in that respect; I suspect I'm not. I don't
> anticipate that everyone will agree with me anymore than many
> group members will agree with my Christian approach to the books
> but it is that gentle disagreement and interchange of ideas - both
> on the group and sometimes in off-group emails – which
> makes HPFGU a unique place.

Agreed, we just need more things to disagree about :) When I say
"disagree", I don't mean the kind of oddness I'll mention below.

> The Lord of the Rings
> is one of those things:
> if you like it you do:
> if you don't, then you boo!

This is true. I feel the argument is curiously slanted with a fear of
having one's worldview taken over, as if to like Narnia is proof that
you cannot like LOTR, for never the twain shall meet, like some
absolute dualism that cannot be questioned (Linux vs Windows for
instance). It's part of a more general cultural force that often seems
to be saying you must either be owned by state, church or corporation,
anything else is a tragic flaw in character. On such lists as these,
this kind of mentality turns up often, and that intrigues me.

-- 
Emacs is an alright OS, but it lacks a decent editor.