Blogging The Deathly Hallows: Prelude and Chapter 1

[albalark]

 Today and for the next 36 posts, the subject of this space will be a chapter of, what is for me the most problematic book in the entire Harry Potter series:  The Deathly Hallows.  I am not going to write these posts pretending that I can un-know what I know, so on the remote chance that there are are any of my flisties who *haven't* read DH and

Comments

[accioslash]

I'll be interested to read your thoughts. True confession time, I never read DH. Well, not from beginning to end. I read the famed 'carpet book' as it was released, but that was not released in order and what I recall most is this first chapter, The Prince's Tale and the epilogue

[therealsnape]

I think, too, an important death like McGonagall (or Tonks) in the first chapter would have set the stage of the book in the way JKR kept telling us in interviews that no one would be exempt from potential death in this book. I can quite see what you mean, and in theory I fully agree. But in practice ... I'm so very glad it wasn't McGonagall. It's bad enough that we ardent lovers of the Old Ladies in Canon lost dear Amelia Bones ...

[accioslash]

Heh, well, I'm not much of a McGonagall fan, but I just recall some of the speculation at the time was that it was her and I really liked the in your face attitude that no one was safe by it being someone 'important' right from the get-go. Though, truly, my apologies to anyone who is a fan. I was thinking more in terms of drama than that the loss would have been significant to other fans.

[therealsnape]

No offense taken. I quite see what you mean in terms of the speculation, and you're right from a literary point of view. But McG is in about every fanfic I've written, so my first reaction was rather along the lines of 'Merlin, JKR could have done that, indeed!' What would I have written about?

[accioslash]

Heh. Idk. Snape's apparent death hasn't seemed to stop fic being written about him. I'm sure you would have thought of some way to work around it. Actually, I think I'd very much like to read something like that.

[albalark]

Snape's apparent death hasn't seemed to stop fic being written about him. I think the 'apparent' is the key. There's no doubt that Charity Burbage is snake food, where as Snape just gets left seemingly lifeless on the floor of the Shrieking Shack with no word of what becomes of him or his body afterwards. Lots of room left there for speculation. :-)

I've loved this whole discussion - it's exactly what I had hoped would happen when I got the idea to do this. <3

[therealsnape]

Lots of room left there for speculation. :-)
Exactly *points at icon* Can't see Charity being regurgitated or something ...

[albalark]

Why, you would have written Auntie Muriel fic instead! XD Seriously, I'm glad it wasn't Minerva. Severus was much closer to his fellow Heads of House than to the other staff, and I just can't imagine what it would have done to him to have to watch McGonagall die that way.

[albalark]

True confession time, I never read DH. I don't think you are alone, there. I know a lot of people who just skimmed it and only read the 'juicy' parts or who skipped it altogether and just relied on others' reports of what it contained. I really do think that this book could have been more 'tightly' written and JKR might have benefited from editors willing to wield the whips and chains, rather than ones who seemingly patted her on the head and said 'it's all good, now go make us some money!'

At this time in 2007 I was in Toronto, Canada at a HP con with a number of other Potter fen and we were dealing with the fallout of Strikethrough at LJ and the impact of DH on our favorite ships. I knew nothing then about LJ or online fandom, nor did I have any idea that there was a whole community of fan fiction writers out there. Didn't even know what a 'ship' was other than a conveyance which floats on water. :-) What was 'Strikethrough'?

I knew SWM had to do with Lily instead of James and I suspected that Snape loved Lily. Though I

[albalark]

I actually thought that the person JKR alluded to in her interviews that loved Lily was actually Peter. Oh, and I forgot to say that Rowling always made me see red when she talked about Snape in her many contradictory interviews, so I stopped reading them and never took anything I'd heard she'd said in them seriously. Which is why this is the first time that I've heard that she let that little detail drop. :-P Maybe if I had been paying attention, then the long-lost-love motivation wouldn't have come as such as a shock.