Comments | hp_essays: Neville, a Remembrall, bublle gum wrappers, Snape, and Bella: a theory

goldenmoonrose in hp_essays

Neville, a Remembrall, bublle gum wrappers, Snape, and Bella: a theory

Jul 11, 2007 18:33

We are in the final hour for last minute crack pot theories to take shape.

Occulm's Razor has no place in literature in general and Harry Potter in particular. End of story.

JKR not only loves crack pot theories, she is a creator of them. And I don't mean just because she peppers her books with misbehaving sneakascopes and flying motorcycles. I'm ( Read more... )

characters:longbottom family:neville

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hylarn July 12 2007, 00:05:25 UTC

JKR specifically said that the bubble gum wrappers have no significance on her website.

goldenmoonrose July 12 2007, 03:17:32 UTC

JKR is such a killjoy. :)

I'm sure that they have some signifficance, otherwise they wouldn't be there. In the very least, the signifficance is a connection between mother and son.

Which is what I said in my theory, anyway.

straussmonster July 12 2007, 03:19:37 UTC

I'm sure that they have some signifficance, otherwise they wouldn't be there.

Assuming that Everything Is Meaningful is inevitably a route to overcomplication compared to what actually happens--assuming that your primary goal involves what actually happens in the text.

slythwolf July 12 2007, 06:32:01 UTC

The thing about that, though, is that when you're writing fiction you can't afford to waste your words and your readers' time on things that are completely insignificant. It's why we don't know, for example, what brand of shampoo Harry uses, and won't find out unless it's significant to the plot.

straussmonster July 12 2007, 13:16:13 UTC

We haven't been given that detail, no, but there are always superfluous details in fiction, in the sense that they're not the key to something down the road, they're not a hint, but they're essential to building up our perception that we're reading about an actual world and not just the bare bones.

You should have seen the theories constructed around the mention of 'Florence' in GoF, and unless there's suddenly a link in the last book, they've all come to absolutely nothing.

jaelle_n_gilla July 12 2007, 15:21:19 UTC

The point is that you never know which tiny piece of information is significant and which is not.

I re-read OotP recently and noticed to my surprise when Harry and Sirius clean out Gimmauld Place, they throw away a ton of things that are described in short, amongst them a "locket they could not open".
When first reading it, I did not know what a "locket" was and didn't bother to look it up. When I read HBP I knew it was an important word and drew up a dictionary. I had long forgotten it had been mentioned in the pile of rubbish in OotP.
I know - everybody and their cousin knew about this before I did, but it just shows me that you never know which tiny detail is of relevance for the plot before the plot is actually over.

straussmonster July 12 2007, 15:51:01 UTC

True, but it's amazing what results when you try to account for everything. The baroque contraptions theorists come up with are interesting in and of themselves, but having watched theories of this sort since before OotP came out, none of the very complex ones have taken any notable steps forward. Which means you get the amusing spectacle of "Next book! Next book, you'll all see!", which may well be true, but...

jaelle_n_gilla July 12 2007, 18:18:01 UTC

Well, you won't have that "next book" thing this time around ;-)

Of course, if you have enough theories around, one is bound to be true. It may not be the most complicated, but I am amazed with every books that comes how JKR has woven the net from the very first chapter to the end.

goldenmoonrose July 12 2007, 19:24:51 UTC

none of the very complex ones have taken any notable steps forward

which is exactly why they will in the final book. The last two books were so without stunners or reveals that I can't help but imagine that we're being lead to something big.

straussmonster July 12 2007, 19:47:09 UTC

Hope springs eternal...

There was a theory on HPfGU that went by the name of 'MAGIC DISHWASHER'. I think there are still a few devotees out there, but I think the "wait until next book" finally killed most of the interest.

I'm wary of assuming the big bang, but I may well be wrong.

goldenmoonrose July 12 2007, 19:22:58 UTC

You should have seen the theories constructed around the mention of 'Florence' in GoF, and unless there's suddenly a link in the last book, they've all come to absolutely nothing.

Just because the theories don't turn out to be right nor to be significant as to be in the text doesn't mean that they came to nothing. Within the Potterverse, these elements are something and mean something. To be right is not the only reason to speculate about them.

straussmonster July 12 2007, 19:52:44 UTC

No, it's not the only reason to speculate--it's a lot of fun, etc.--but many people who come up with theories do so in hopes of making guesses and predictions that will be fully or partially actualized in the text itself.

The problem (as I've seen it) when theories get built on and up without canon corroboration, correct predictions, is that you get a parallel construct to the books themselves, but one only lightly linked to the text. And then it becomes hard to have a discussion about these things with someone who doesn't buy the theory, in my experience.

goldenmoonrose July 14 2007, 01:31:54 UTC

many people who come up with theories do so in hopes of making guesses and predictions that will be fully or partially actualized in the text itself.

Yes, I guess there are people like that. Not me, though. In fact, I really hope that I'm *not* right because I want to be surprised, I want JKR to be smarter than me, and sometimes I don't like the theories that I come up with.

The problem (as I've seen it) when theories get built on and up without canon corroboration, correct predictions, is that you get a parallel construct to the books themselves, but one only lightly linked to the text. And then it becomes hard to have a discussion about these things with someone who doesn't buy the theory, in my experience.
I suppose. But in some aspects, "failed" theories can bring a richness and depth to the text (as long as they have some sort of foundation) because they ass to the variety, possibilities, enigma, and complications of the plot, history, and characters.

goldenmoonrose July 12 2007, 19:20:22 UTC

Exactly. Potter is something created by an author. It's not real life. The author creates all those things for a purpose. The purpose might have some high meaning (i.e. manfunctioning sneakascopes) or the purpose might simply be a tearjerker. But to say that it has no purpose at all doesn't make sense. It wouldn't be there otherwise.

goldenmoonrose July 12 2007, 19:17:18 UTC

No, my goal isn't always involving what happens in the text. Theories can be about what's going on under the surface or behind the curtain.

Yes, thinking that everything is meaningful is going to drive a theorist nuts. But that doesn't meaning that many things--particularly in the Potterverse--don't have meaning. Even if they don't have a conspiracy meaning, they have literary or symbolic meaning. And the bubblegum wrappers do have that.

orpheus_samhain July 12 2007, 19:54:40 UTC

JKR doesn't lie. If she said it's not important then it's not.

The wrappers tells us that even though Alice is mentally impaired and doesn't (fully) realise that Neville is her son she has some warm feelings towards him. She wanted to give him something and the only thing she had were those wrappers.

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