DH review from CSM (SPOILERS): A Story is About Moral Struggle & Change

[slashpine]

Hmmm. Is this reviewer a fan, or just a very astute reader who should be? And a Snape-centric one, at that.

Snape: the authentic protagonist

Comments

[slashpine]

Oh, you are so right! When I first led a recitation section in Ethics, that distinction was hard to get across: there were a lot of students who thought that Moral Choice is, Does Movie Hero Kill The Dude or Not? (It doesn't help that most ethics books give life-or-death examples too.)

It's those little choices that are the real moral killers - when your BFF cackled with glee about how she just changed the headers and turned in her same paper from last year to this year's history class, do you say anything? How about when you were in the same class, and you spent 5 days on it and got a C while she got an A? (Or you both got A's, but others didn't ...)

Or the whole "con-crit" vs. "mindless squee" debate.

One of the first things in DH that bugged me was Ron boasting to Harry about his "How To Get Girls In Bed" book. "And Rule 4 says tell them lots of lies! Chicks love that!" And I thought, if Hermione Granger falls for this, I'm gonna roll my eyes at her and Ron both. And Harry, for buying into it.

Unless this is just setting them up to realize that an authentically satisfying relationship requires sincerity, not BS; that what Ron needs to learn is not "101 Lines Any Bimbo Will Fall For," but tact and sensitivity along with more confidence in himself.

So does he learn? Um ... Without going back to reread The Camping Trip That Dragged On For A Hundredy-Jillion Hungry Months Until they Stumbled Back Across the Storyline, I think the answer is --- sorta. I dunno. I have to give Ron a bye because the plot went off in some different directions after The Bitchfight of, er, Reconciliation. I think we're meant to believe that the R/H snogging during the final battles is meant to show us that Ron finally got Real. And Hermione grew up by learning to accept Ron ... but wait, didn't she always, all along? Mmph. If the moral is "Love Means Never Asking Your Friends to Grow Up, B/c Gryffindors are Perfect Already" ... well, I do get the feel that the Trio are Marauders redux, no growth (i.e. morality, or if you prefer, thoughtfulness) required. But then I stopped expecting that after book 2.

I'm with you - story is about something happening, and if that isn't some kinda logical and visible change & development, it falls flat or is at best, fuzzy. Because it takes "growth" (which can be loss, not just happy endings) for the characters and story-world to be real, and lifelike. And/or growth type 2, external to the story, that is, the reader's growth as she comes to see more deeply into the character or situation.

I think a LOT of fanfic is going for growth type 2, because the evidence for growth/change inside the story is so weak, or erratic. And that's as good or better, because it develops us.

But this may be more than the reviewer said.

(I was also thinking about suggesting we just skip that loaded word "moral" completely and instead say "unpacking of ideology." Heh.)

[quivo]

It's those little choices that are the real moral killers
Exactly! And really, societies usually ignore those in favour of bigging up the life/death, love/not love crap because the latter seem to matter more. Which is silly, because I can't count how many times the little things someone says or does turns me completely off them, or how I still remember the small things, cruel or kind, that people have done to me and to others I know.

And about the suddenly-supposedly-suave!Ron, I just tried to ignore the blatant stupidity there. X(

... well, I do get the feel that the Trio are Marauders redux, no growth (i.e. morality, or if you prefer, thoughtfulness) required
Exactly, again. I think she may have tried to go for growth- just not the type of growth that we as readers find laudable or even truly credible. That the Marautrio was where she wanted the Trio to end up, sort of.

I think a LOT of fanfic is going for growth type 2, because the evidence for growth/change inside the story is so weak, or erratic.
That makes a huge amount of sense, definitely. E.g., in the Vorkosigan fandom, most of the fic I've seen tends to be shippy or about character introspection. I haven't found any so far that do major, major reinventing of the plot of canon in that fandom (that don't start from the premise of shipping two main characters together XD. My fave fics in the fandom do reinvent a lot to slash two characters, but it's mostly stuff that comes after one of the characters speaks out to the other one about his feelings). Why? Because the Vorkosigan books are bloody strong in that regard. Plotting is something their author is really good at, and there are enough dramatic premises floating around in the universe to interest anybody.

In comparison, the supposed reason for the entire plot, the Hallows, are only introduced in the last book. There are numerous plot holes in the timeline, and the conversation and action of most of the 'good' characters give off strong whiffs of various unsavoury isms. So everyone falls over themselves to try and correct or emphasize or say how they think it really happened before they play with anything else.

But this may be more than the reviewer said.
Yeah. I think she was pretty much going for the 'moral journey' thing. I wholeheartedly agree about skipping that word, too - it's essentially meaningless unless you use it specifically to mean "to do with the mores" (of the character). Because a story about someone's mores changing for the worse can be about as interesting as the reverse :)

PS: Thinking about the fanfic thing and why HP attracts the kind it does, I wonder if there's any way to write a well-plotted, interesting story that is not LOTR and still attract mounds of really interesting plot-based fanfic...