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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2010 18:01:14 GMT -4
The money in Harry's vault was from James, who was sort of like Draco in his day, the spoiled only child of wealthy parents, though not as evil since the Potters were Gryffindors  To add to this, James appeared to be the only child of only children who were, per Rowling, older parents, which is why he was as adored as he was. |
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Post by GoldenFleece on Dec 30, 2010 19:02:00 GMT -4
I don't see young!James as being quite like Draco. Don't get me wrong, James was an ass, but he wasn't the wizarding version of a racist/supremacist the way Draco was. To my knowledge he didn't select his targets by blood purity status... which doesn't make his bullying any better, but I do see a fundamental difference there. (Not that you were saying they were 100% alike, I'm just sort of rambling) Personally, my read on James was that he was like a darker, uglier version of the Weasley twins - like a crueler version of their idea of "mischief." I was being a bit facetious about Young James being like Draco, but it was disappointing not to see an example of what made Lily think James wasn't so bad after all, in the books themselves. I guess I'm supposed to assume it because he did die for his family and Lily, who seemed like a decent person, did marry him, but I felt like Rowling was sort of lazy there. Also, if someone had done to Harry what James and Sirius did to Snape in that worst memory (and seemingly happened after the narrative was cut off), I don't think the fans ever be expected to forgive them or think they were good people deep down. And the Weasley twins...ugh, a lot of times I didn't find their brand of pranking to be particularly merry or harmless. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2010 19:13:08 GMT -4
See, that's why I think the books work as Young Adult fiction: no one is perfect. I think it's realistic that Harry never gets the full story on his parents. Who could have adequately explained why James and Lily fell in love, since most people's woo pitching doesn't happen with an audience. James and Sirius bullied Snape but the reader is expected to understand that that doesn't make them bad people forever. Draco is a horrid kid who, at least in the epilogue, goes on to lead a non-evil adult life and has a family of his own. The Weasely twins are often total jerks to Ron and sell the black-out powder that allows the Death Eaters to enter Hogwarts unseen. Oliver Wood leads the quidditch team through brutal practice sessions that would get him thrown out of most schools. Hagrid regularly puts students in danger with his "pets". And when you get right down to it, Harry is spectacularly lazy about learning magic, considering he'll need it to fight Voldemort and save everyone.
Children's lit fills in all the blanks for the reader; good Young Adult fiction lets the audience draw some of their own conclusions.
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Post by GoldenFleece on Dec 30, 2010 23:10:34 GMT -4
Except I often got the feeling that in the HP world that while everyone can be bad or good at certain moments, but the sketchy behavior of the good guys, especially Gryffindors, is really excused or minimized somehow. Sometimes it's in Rowling's narrative choices (like how in the flashback from OotP we learn that James goes around hexing people just because he could and that's a bad thing, but when Ginny hexes that kid on the train in HBP after he keeps asking her what happened at the Department of Mysteries we're supposed to see it as a positive sign that she's a feisty and amazing witch). Other times it's fans arguing that Dumbledore didn't know how bad off Harry was with the Dursleys all those years because otherwise, he would've told them to back off sooner, or it's that he couldn't have intervened without tipping off someone to Harry's location, or else it's that the Dursleys were just being children's book villains so you can't take the descriptions of their actions back then too literally. Or it's that doing memory charms is a necessary evil (the whole morality of memory modification is never really addressed, which one might expect in a such a nuanced work of young adult fiction) and well, how can you expect Ron to pass a driving test without magic? So what if Marietta Edgecombe is walking around with permanent scars on her face and doesn't remember why, that snitch had to be punished! So what if her mother could have lost her job if Marietta hadn't given into Umbridge's pressure tactics? Rowling called her a traitor in some chat somewhere and it's her story, so that's that. Oh, wait, after seven books and umpteen deaths, the wizarding world's prejudiced haven't really changed, even in the epilogue? Well, Harry married Ginny and named some kids after his parents. What else matters?
I know HP is an ambiguous story with ambiguous characters, much more so than is ever generally acknowledged. Sometimes it seems like the story is regarded as being deeper than a typical children's book but when an issue about it is brought up that doesn't have an easy answer, suddenly it's just for children again and Rowling wasn't really trying to make a point about _____ and you're reading way too much into it.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 31, 2010 0:16:57 GMT -4
Except I often got the feeling that in the HP world that while everyone can be bad or good at certain moments, but the sketchy behavior of the good guys, especially Gryffindors, is really excused or minimized somehow. Well, I guess every story has good guys and bad guys and good guys that are sort of bad sometimes and bad guys that are sort of not terrible sometimes. Most adults I know who've read the books are able to see the characters in shades of gray. Draco, to me, comes across as a very sympathetic character in the end. He's basically psychologically tortured to commit murder while still a child! Dumbledore's pretty much called out in Deathly Hallows as a bit of a prick for sending Harry on this unwinnable quest with almost no clues or help. The ambiguity is what's going to keep HP interpreted for decades to come. You could really film these books again, 40 years from now, with a different but no less accurate spin on almost all the characters. |
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Post by kostgard on Jun 15, 2011 20:37:43 GMT -4
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NappingAthena
Sloane Ranger
Posts: 2,104
Mar 6, 2005 18:35:49 GMT -4
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Post by NappingAthena on Jun 16, 2011 8:59:24 GMT -4
I wonder if she's putting the "encyclopedia" up online. I can totally get behind that. The coordinates look like a train station in Manchester. Beyond that, I got nothin'. I have a feeling its going to be something online-only, interactive maybe. Which would actually be kind of fun. |
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Post by kostgard on Jun 17, 2011 12:04:00 GMT -4
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Nov 28, 2024 9:34:20 GMT -4
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2011 15:30:47 GMT -4
Argh! I cannot stand the suspense! What is Pottermore?
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Post by kostgard on Jun 17, 2011 16:46:29 GMT -4
All we know for sure (so I've heard) is that it isn't another book. It could be her complete encyclopedia, as baignoire mentioned, or it could be some sort of online interactive thing.
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