Dumbledore/Voldemort (first thoughts)
Sometimes, fanfictions can make you understand bits of canon you hadn’t previously appreciated. Despite my openess toward slash, I’ve never given a damn about Dumbledore’s homosexuality, for example, or about his relationship with Grindelwald, probably because I found it so alien from HP’s main plot line, or because it was simply badly written. In ( Read more... )
Well, I've already told you that I have big troubles with Dumbledore's death, both from an internal and an external point of you. I don't want to convince you, just to state what I'm uneasy about:
1) The whole euthanasia/assisted suicide issue. Had he been really in pain with his hand, Dumbledore could have killed himself instead of asking Snape to do it. For me, asking Snape to kill him is one of the most cruel things (if not the most cruel at all) Dumbledore asked of Snape. You cannot ask someone to kill you as you would of buying you the newspaper. Dumbledore's request is brutal.
2) From a strategic point of view, there's no need to dispose Dumbledore so that Snape may ascend among the DE. That's only a consequence. In hypotesis, Dumbledore could have stood at his place during HP's seven year, and continued to fight until a real DE or Voldemort would kill him. IMHO, the "Dumbledore asked Snape to kill him so that Snape could protect Hogwarts during Voldemort's reign" is nonsense. Dumbledore had to protect Hogwarts until the end.
3) I would accept Snape killing Dumbledore in fulfillment of the Unbreakable Vow had not Dumbledore asked him to kill him. I mean, if the situation had just happened with Snape deciding between killing DD or having both Draco and himself to die, that would be reasonable. That would be a kind of last-minute strategy. To have it planned makes me gag.
4) I find the whole situation too immoral to stay in a children's book, with too little explanation about it. I don't accept the fact that JKR only dwells briefly about this aspect, with Snape's "Do you prefer me to write an epitaph first?" and "And my soul, Dumbledore?". That's too little in a 700 pages book. Because readers are always asked to believe in Dumbledore's righteousness (old argument - you know I'm with sigune in this), so it seems just normal to ask "Oh, Severus, would you kill me tomorrow? Yes? Thanks". This is not normal and it's not something a good person would ask. Snape got trapped in this evil scheme and I'm sorry for him, because it's disgusting.
Reply
A little bit too serious for a children's book... In a way, you're right and I agree. The book is not only for children, but it tries to remain in this frame, to initiate some questioning about life, values and death, without deepening them at length- and it is blamed/blamable(?) for it. Can't we write anything serious in children's books? Should have JKR stopped her story, lost her young readers and start a long debate, when she was just suggesting the serious matters for her teenage audience? She'd better have written only about Hagrid and his weird creatures like in book 1-2, probably... Well... Personally, I would not have appreciated that much a book without adult issues and it seems you don't want to accept them because they are not developed enough for you. I'm not sure I can say anything here, because it is not really debatable. In my ideal, I would have developed further certain points in the books, too, but it is not like I would reject the whole [colossal] project because of them - because I can see and agree with the general project...
And I'm not sure I can debate and convince you, because you disagree with the plot itself, rejecting the implications of this plot. To these interesting points you make, I'd quickly answer : it's not like Dumbledore would live further. He is wounded and is going to die. It's about using his own death and not just die in bed. And Snape is not that much forced to accept, again. He still has the -false- choice to die or let Draco die. Why not ask? Honestly, no matter how brutal and hard the request is, I wasn't shocked by this particular point, even if I can see now why you could have been. Dumbledore could die in his bed, so that euthanasia was not in the books and Snape not worried about it, but honestly, it would have been...flat, with no plot/point/climax/suspense in HBP and then forget the title and the whole trial and story for Severus, because the Half-blood Prince is morally to be spared. Now, the point in having DD dead in DH is that Harry, coming on age, can start wondering about Albus's righteousness and to deal with his destiny without Albus's heavy mentoring on his side. DH is the year of his maturation.
Because Dumbledore is not absolute moral righteousness, that's precisely the point made in DH, IMO. If you miss this point and the whole oedipal implication of it in Harry's (and Severus's) maturation, your and my own whole reading of the books are radically different. Nothing is that easy, perfect, simple, right and satisfying in our human decisions: JKR repeats it, explaining that even Albus has his shadows and wrong side. The books are asking many questions, showing that true life is not manichean and is no easy magic and no childhood. In DH, we go out of the lost paradise of Hogwarts, we leave childhood and its wonderful magic, and we can see that these great wizards and heroes are actually only imperfect human beings. They can be wrong and fail at some point. They can disappoint. Still, being wrong and mortal implies that in life, we nevertheless must fight ahead for the better. The HP series conclusion is contrary to Peter Pan : grow up and leave Neverland/Hogwarts, understand that life, people and yourself will not be perfect and try to find happiness in this imperfect horizon...
To me, when I read you, your reading struggles against the books because you defend a certain vision of children literature (maybe a cultural vision?) or maybe the initial vision you personally had for it. Children literature, though, is generally not that criticized when it was written by other authors, as much cruel, morally debatable, quickly stating their harsh conclusions and strongly influenced by their own times and cultures - the Brothers Grimm, Andersen, our comtesse de Ségur etc.
...So. I can be wrong and as you know, it can be an endless debate. You can disagree with the plot and with these books. My own minus here is that it seems quite violent for you - probably as violent as the way you read it but you know, to me, the books don't deserve such a disgust, they are not that harmful, are they? They have their good points, too :)
Reply
I received a literary education and studied mainly literature at university, up to getting a PhD in Comparative Literatures. So you're right, I have my own ideas about what books "should" and "shouldn't" be, and I'm imbued with notions about narratology, literary theory and the like. I studied especially epic poetry, which is a genre which follows a lot of rules, and I may be particularly fond of some rules in my books. This is the way I am, of course, not some ideal point of view, just my own.
Literary theorist Hans Robert Jauss coined the term "horizon of expectations" to define the plot developments you come to expect from a certain book. In this sense, the first half of a book is very important, because it sets the "expectations" the author, in a certain sense, promises to fulfil in the second half of the book. Genres condition the expectation you have about the development of the plot: for examples, in detective stories you expect the detective to find the murdered, in romances the hero and heroine to fall in love with each other, in adventure the hero to win against his enemies, etc.
Under this aspect, the plot developments in HP don’t always follow the “rules” JKR planted in the first four books, and this is what makes me speak of shifts in the tone of the books and so on. From this point of view, the fact that the books are supposed to be read one for year from 11 years old to 17 years old is an crack from a narrative point of view, because it provokes an unbalance in tone, information, language and so on, and from my point of view this is not good, also because nobody actually has read or will read them one for year. Now that the series is finished, especially, readers will read it all in a row from book 1 to book 7, experimenting the tone shift even faster than we did.
Yes, I’m stuck with the expectations the first books set out for me, but this doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate some things from the later books. I didn’t call the books “disgusting”, it’s Dumbledore’s web that it’s disgusting, IMHO, and I - again, personally - can’t see the need for the change of perspective about Dumbledore’s character because it wasn’t in my “expectations”.
Yes, I’m obnoxious, but this is my nature, and I’m usually picky and overcritic about the books/comics/movies I read/watch. So, I don’t do this kind of criticism only about HP. It’s only that, with HP, I joined the fandom and shared many opinions that in other contexts remain only between me and me. In a certain sense, it’s a demonstration of love and interest ;)
Reply
I don't have a PhD in literature. I studied literature for 3 years, because initially I was meant to be a teacher (and I teach French Literature for High school students but it is not my diploma). Therefore, I won't enter into academic debates and analysis...
You know, personally, from the point of view of a simple but passionate reader, I do think that quite a good part of Rowling's books could have been written in a better way. For instance, I regret that the Deathly hallows are not present in the other books, earlier. The cloak is there, the ring comes late, but we don't see the sign, for example. Many things are like that, not well announced, information not optimally given, and it could have been done better. However, it's a complex project and story and ...a first book for the author. I'm not saying it justifies the flaws. It is just that overall, it has also some merit and good points. In particular, it could emotionally takes us very strongly. When my 75-year-old father, who's a big reader in life, read it, he was impressed by the range and strength of emotions that the author could create in the readers. The shifts and other "wrong" or weird narrative can be unbalanced and the whole series flawed and not so well written, but it did catch the readers' interest and did work on their ...nerves... and emotions.
And it did create a whole story, universe and characters that to me make sense. From my personal point of view, the incoherence you see in the books doesn't seem so incoherent and harmful to me. Basically, I guess I just don't see such a problematic crack between the first books and the last ones... (sorry, you gave me the link...I just need more time..). The first books and the last ones are a whole entity and their differences are not a problem to me : the complexity is getting bigger and the characters deeper with the years; the point of view, Harry's PoV, logically changes. The content is initially lighter and becomes more complex and heavier and the perspectives are reversed and volatiles, and here is precisely the deal. I mean, I read them being an adult and I'm more happy than disturbed by the evolution from the first to the last book. As you say, it'd be not good for you and it'd be not bad for me. :)
[I think it would not be exactly relevant here to say but I add that it's a general personal approach, finally. I read by preference the authors who broke the rules in their language and their composition; Dostoevsky's, Faulkner's or Rimbaud's readings (comparison being made only for the emotional impact they can have, not for the content or the writing style because I won't compare Rowling to them) strongly captivated me and you know that specialists in literature did not approve the ruptures when their books were published. Not that Rowling is an achieved author like the others...It is just that she's not that bad either, for me :)].
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
no, in truth, he was a little punk at the end of the Seventies, listening to the Pistols and the Clash. At the beginning of the Eighties he turned into a fan of the Smiths (Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now is Snape manifesto!)
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment