a little HP and a lot of theory

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

Kneasy wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/4277>:

<< Jo reckons death is a main theme, but really, not all that many
have died in the timeline of the series. Quirrell (or so we're led to
believe), Frank Bryce, Cedric, Crouch Snr, Sirius, DD, perhaps one or
two more. >>

Amelia Bones, Emmeline Vance, the Montgomery sisters' little
brother... Muggles killed in a bridge collapse and a 'hurricane' ... 

Pippin wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/4226>;

<< quite happy that Jo has relinquished Vampire!Snape. He's all mine
now and I'm not giving him back. Let *her* write fanfic. Lessee, I
think I'll call him Panes... >>

'Panes' because his motivations are so transparent? Because he's such
a pain in the, excuse me, neck?

David wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/4253>:

<< it amazes me the number of people who have trouble understanding
that fiction contains propositional falsehoods.>>

In some ways a valid comment ... my friend's maid thought E.T. was a
documentary.

In other ways a misguided comment. Start with fiction set in the real
world. A mystery set in a chocolate candy factory *ought* to depict
the chocolate candy process accurately and a tale of sibling rivalry
unto death set in Cairo ought to be written by someone who lives in
Cairo. Science fiction is usually not set in the real world, but 'hard
sf' prides itself on explaining laws of physics correctly.

Sometimes the fictional 'story' (the plot) is only a thin excuse to
spread the background information

And there is the tradition of writing 'fiction' which is a real life
story with the names changed. It counts as fiction nowdays because,
like the history written by Thucydides, the words spoken and thoughts
thought by the characters were made up by the author to express what
the author figured the characters' motivations were, rather than each
one having a footnote about which witness told the writer that the
person actually said those words. 

I have read neither DVC nor Holy Blood, Holy Grail, but ten-some years
ago, people were going on and on about HBHG and I thought it was a
great deal of nonsense. When people starting going on about DVC, I
thought 'What's the big deal? All that was already published in HBHG.'
HBHG was non-fiction, which proves that non-fiction doesn't have to be
true, it only has to be claimed to be true. I was amazed at the
plagiarism lawsuit: if the authors of HBHG accuse someone of stealing
their idea that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and ancestored the French
royal family, doesn't that mean they're admitting that they invented
the idea, rather that it being a truth lying around reality for anyone
to discover?

Eileen wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/4259>:

<< Do you think that HP Book VII is the end of the Potterverse? >>

I think there is a real possibility that Book 7 will include the
destruction of Voldemort, the destruction of magic, the destruction of
all wizarding culture and geography, and the death of most wizards. I
used to expect that Hermione would be the only survivor, and go on to
write the history of Harry disguised as fiction, but now I think Harry
and Ginny might survive to live as Muggles.

<< I wouldn't be surprised if after Book VII is finished with, she
revisits this magical world from some other angle down the road. >>

I just wish she allows all her notes to be edited and published.

Mike Gray wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/4266>:

<<  I mean, would somebody please point out to all the authors intent
on doing SHOCKING!, STUNNING!!, SEXY!!! biblical fanfic that Mary M.
was probably not the only nubile woman in the ancient near east
between around 15 through 30 CE? >>

I have read such a story somewhere, in which the wedding at Cana was
his own wedding, at which he married both Mary and Martha.

Mike wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/4267>:

<<See the following article (by Eco himself), where he tells a whole
bunch of stories about how his own perceptions of his writing process
were out of sync with the texts he actually wrote. Whether this begs
the point (since he's correcting himself) is for you to judge. It's a
fasciniating read:

http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_author.html >>

I obeyed and found 

<< Two students from the Parisian Ecole des Beaux Arts recently came
to show me a photograph album in which they had reconstructed the
entire route taken by my character, having gone and photographed the
places I had mentioned, one by one, at the same time of night. Given
that at the end of the chapter Casaubon comes up out of the city
drains and enters through the cellar an oriental bar full of sweating
customers, beer-jugs and greasy spits, they succeeded in finding that
bar and took a photo of it. It goes without saying that that bar was
an invention of mine, even though I have designed it thinking of the
many bars of that kind in the area, but those two boys had undoubtedly
discovered the bar described in my book. >>

I laughed happily, recognizing us Potter fans finding and
photographing the location of the (invisible to us) Leaky Cauldron.

<< At a given point she remarks that there exists a book by Emile
Henriot (La rose de Bratislava, 1946) where it can be found the
hunting of a mysterious manuscript and a final fire of a library. The
story takes place in Prague, and at the beginning of my novel I
mention Prague. Moreover one of my librarians is named Berengar and
one of the librarians of Henriot was named Berngard Marre.
(snip)
However, Helena Costiucovich wrote something more to prove the analogy
between me and Henriot. She said that that in Henriot's novel the
coveted manuscript was the original copy of the Memorie of Casanova.
It happens that in my novel there is a minor character called Hugh of
Newcastle (and in the Italian version, Ugo di Novocastro). The
conclusion of Costiucovich is that "only by passing from a name to
another it is possible to conceive of the name of the rose". >>

See, this is why I think that all the Literature classes forced upon
students (i.e. me) from upper primary though freshman year of college
are a bunch of garbage. They start with forcing children of 10 or so
to make lists of 'Freudian symbols' in the story and get more creative
from there. They all consist of making up your own theory, the wilder
the better, and imposing it on the text by searching out words that
can, in isolation, be twisted to have some remote connection with your
theory. That might be good training for lawyers (it is my lay view of
what lawyers do, with the law codes as the text being twisted), but
for the rest of us, serve only to sort out the students who are
patient and obedient to nonsensical commands, therefore desireable
employees of nonsensical companies, from the students with minds of
their own, therefore undesireable employees.

<< But suddenly I realized that while writing I had under my eyes the
map of the abbey (as a matter of fact before writing I carefully
design the world where my story has to take place) >>

I recall that when reading TNOTR, I felt as if he had borrowed the map
of the alphageobetic library from some clever gamemaster's D&D dungeon.