Linkage

[kalquessa]

Aaand the award for Written Work Currently Kicking My Ass goes to "Who is Snape?" by Orson Scott Card. I nearly always enjoy Card's non-fictional musings, even when I don't entirely agree with his position on the topic of discussion, and this incredibly insightful essay is a shining example of why. Quite long but very worth it

Comments

[narniadear]

http://blog.beliefnet.com/blogalogue/2007/07/harry-potter-reaches-the-end.html

Another Card essay, all about the end of Potter. There are even more insightful and educated predictions in this one, and it makes a whole lot of sense. :) Follow it up by reading Pat Rothfuss' essay on the same site. They're in a blog debate about the end of Harry Potter, it's very cool.

[kalquessa]

I saw you link to that earlier today and was intrigued...haven't had time to read them yet, but I'm definitely bookmarking them!

[izhilzha]

You're welcome. :-) It's rather awesome, even where I disagree with him. (You can be petty and emotionally crippled and still on the side of good, Card; yes, you can. Which applies equally to Snape and Sirius, kaithxbai.)

[kalquessa]

What surprised me was not that Card holds Sirius's actions as a teen against him but that I didn't. Generally I have a really hard time forgiving characters for bad behavior. I'm currently taking a break from The Far Pavilions because the main character was a huge jerk and made some very poor decisions and I need some time away from him so i can stop being mad. It took me at least three of the seven Dark Tower books to forgive Roland Deschain for something he did in the first volume. So I'm kind of surprised that I have no trouble forgiving Sirius for being a jerk when he was a teenager. Maybe I'm growing as a person.

[izhilzha]

I think, for me, it was hard to hold Sirius' schoolboy past against him when we'd just found out that he wasn't the bad guy we'd been told he was for the entire book. :-) I remember being shocked, but it didn't do much to mar my view of Sirius, at least not at that point.

[ithildyn]

Thank you for the link! That was really a wonderful read.

[maxwellgrant]

I enjoyed reading this as I love Orson Scott Card's mindset/work, I think I will enjoy the Potter books once I read them (yikes, I revealed I'm one of those who hasn't), I have been fascinated somewhat by Snape's character as portrayed by Alan Rickman - and as a Tolkien fiend/fan I enjoyed the comparison he made of who Strider and Gollum were in serving the Lord of The Rings. I'm one of baron's friends and thanks for posting this!!!

[kalquessa]

Hi, there! Glad you enjoyed!

I didn't read the Potter books until the fourth book was already out since they were a craze, and I am opposed to crazes on principle. I finally came around because the first book, as Card says, is very light and silly and fun and doesn't require you to take it very seriously. Little did I know that I was being roped into a series that would eat my brain with seriousness before the end! *laughs*

I, too, liked how Card pointed up Gollum and Strider as they served the story for Tolkien. Tolkien's writing process is fascinating and a little terrifying in its frequent lack of direction or conscious purpose. It's nice to know that LOTR didn't spring fully-formed from his mind ala Athena, though. *grin*

Gollum...

[thomas_a_kempis]

The struggle of the heart and mind is not apparent to the external observer except over long periods of time; throw in an imaginary world and characters and the need to keep a series going, add a pinch of self mixed with others one has known, and away we go. I watched a presentation of RC doctrine recently which indicated that the official position on Judas' fate was that the church doesn't know for certain that Judas is doomed to the Lake of Fire, for example.

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