Conflicts, cheats and credibility (with spoilers)

[Barry Arrowsmith]

SPOILER.........................................
SPACE.............................................
THE...................................................
BOUNDARY....................................
BETWEEN.......................................
INNOCENCE..................................
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DISILLUSIONMENT......................

A short rant that some may think is unfair.

OK, let's define our terms -
Roughly speaking:
Conflicts - the appearance in canon of information suddenly
dumped on the reader that's not congruent with what we already
accept; new, unexpected and possibly unwarranted properties of 
magical objects that we are familiar with from previous books.

Cheats: authorial special pleading; uncharacteristic behaviour or
a change of character of individuals for no good reason; 
introduction of a magical deus ex machina solely as a means of 
getting a character out of a hole or providing a minor or major 
resolution; key information, perhaps with-held deliberately, which
in hindsight one would reasonably have expected some hint of 
previously (AKA the Aggie Christie gambit).

(Basically, these two make up what was previously referred to as 
the "... 'ere, hang on a minute..." and the WTF!!! episodes.)

Credibility: what the previous two damage.

OK, off the top of my head:-

Kreacher - a few kind words can turn a psychopathic runt into a 
fawning sycophant? Really? And according to Hermione, the new 
canon is that Elves are loyal to anyone who's nice to them. 
Yeah, sure. Forget about masters or households (why didn't 
Kreacher nail Dung with a bit of Elvish magic when he raided the 
joint?) it's "let's be nice to little Big-Ears week", it'll solve all our 
problems.
So simple.

Might be just about believable that the threesome could sneak 
into the MoM - but to pull off a Schindler's List while they're in 
there - sorry, that's too much.

Snitches have flesh memory? Don't remember seeing that in QTTA, 
and if Ron and Harry the Quidditch fanatics don't know about it either....

Sevvy - a doe for a Patronus!?! What? This is a true reflection of his 
character? In that case he should have been teaching Flower Arranging. 
And he puts the sword in an ice-covered pond. 
Sevvy as the Lady of the Lake. Cool. 

Old Bagshot, dead for weeks - you'd think that a well known old 
trout like her, having just spilled the beans to the yellow press, would
have been inundated with owls, calls, visitors. Er, no. Believable?
Er, no.

Goblins on the run? With wizards? Given what we've been told about 
how fiercely independent and war-like they are, how likely is that? 
And guess what? One of 'em knows all about GG's sword and how to 
break into Gringott's. What a useful coincidence. But they wander off. 
Yet after zipping around the countryside for some weeks and having 
all sorts of fun in GH and the Lovegood pad, our threesome get caught
- by the same gang that has just picked up the oh-so-useful Goblin.
I tell you, Harry should buy Lottery tickets - he's so lucky he'd never 
lose.

Dobby. Gatecrashing Malfoy Towers. To rescue Harry. And he can 
Side-Apparate a whole bunch of wizards out of there. With a knife 
stuck in him. Of course. Obvious when you think about it. 
Does his blood spilt on the floor of Malfoy Manor count as splinching? 
Just asking.

Peter 'Dr Strangelove' Pettigrew. Say no more.

DD. I'm no DD cheerleader, but I can't get my head around him and
Grindelwald planning a New World Order in the intellectual hot-house
of Much Mouldering in the West Country. Does not compute. 
Maybe, just maybe, if they'd been in a college somewhere, it could 
have happened. It's not unknown in such places for the most level-
headed of students to succumb to the group enthusiasm for simple
political solutions to the world's problems. It's only later when they 
get battered by the real world that they (usually) come to the 
conclusion that their answers weren't simple but simplistic. 
And then they grow up.

But DD had to wake up every morning to the real world and to his 
responsibilities in it. I just cannot believe the back-story Jo has 
dumped on him. Sorry.

Oh - and Ariana. 
Where was the in-built protection that automatically shields 
wiz-kids from Muggle malice - or harm of almost any kind?

So they do the Huff cup with surplus Basilisk dentition - but wait, the
half is not yet told! There's a diadem. Diadem? Tiara? Who cares?
What the hell is a witch doing with a diadem anyway? They wear 
pointy hats, not diadems, as ane fule kno. Unlike the relics of the 
other founders it doesn't seem to have any distinguishing marks, 
either. No matter, any relic will do when you're galloping towards 
the finishing line. 
As to how Voldy got it in his sweaty mitts, that's a minor detail, 
apparently. Let's no waste time on that.

But Harry finds it! (Hooray!) 
But he doesn't have the Hx-stabbing sword! (Boo!) 
Nor any of the ophidian fangoid Hx-fixers! (Boo!) 
But all is not lost! (Hooray!) 
That idiot Goyle tries to kill him with Fiendfyre, one of the very few 
things that Hermy has learned can snuff a Hx! (Hooray!) 
And with one bound our hero is free and the be-jewelled nasty is 
neutralised! (Hooray!)
Pull the other one, Jo. It's got bells on.

Wands. It's all very simple really, whether it's the self-activating wand 
in chap 3 or the Elder whatsit later... 
Huh. No it's not. 'Get out of Jail Free' plot cards more like.

More may well become apparent on second reading.
Suggestions for additions to the list are welcome.

> Carolyn
>
> My verdict is that she has simply lost the plot big time as the story
> has rambled on. If there ever was an over-arching connecting theme,
> then somehow she has allowed her characters to screw it up at various
> points and simply has had no idea how to tie it all back together
> again except by introducing a new and preposterous plot device (the
> Deathly Hallows) at the very last minute.
>

If one wanted to be cruel, one could go further.
Lost it? 
Was it ever really there?

Consider - ever since HP hove into sight all those years ago, we've 
been kept warm and cosy by the thought  that Jo had already written
The End, the Final Chapter, the Final Words.

Many of us, naive and gullible that we are, foolishly believed that this 
Final Chapter had something to do with the denouement, the 'what it's 
all about' thingy.
Yet what is the final chapter?
19 years later, a fluffy, happy-ever-after, feel-good slush-fest.

Is it possible to argue that the tale has been a book-by-book series 
of ad-hoc manipulations of plot devices to squeeze a bunch of square
pegs into round holes, thus ensuring that the main characters survive to 
breed like rabbits?
I bloody hope not.

Supporting evidence -  why else would there be a need to employ 
multiple Potterologists to keep the continuity honest? If there was a clear, 
defined, continuing plot thread, would they be needed? 

By the way - what was the 'what it's all about'?
Answers on a postcard.

As for Carolyn's list of questions still unanswered, here's a few more.

Who was with Voldy at GH?

The Mirror in PS/SS - had DD nobbled it?

Did DD know that Peter was Scabbers?

Did DD know the fix was in at the name-drawing in GoF?

Did he know Crouch!Moody was a fake?

What about Bagman? C'mon, I want to know.

How did Sirius get Sevvy to go down the tunnel to the Shrieking Shack?

Voldy made Kreacher drink the potion in the cave, placed the locket
and then refilled with potion. RAB drank the potion, switched lockets
and went to Davy Jones' Inferii.
Who replenished the potion for DD to drink?

Kneasy
venting steam