Further thoughts on Deathly Hallows
Jul. 27th, 2007 07:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jlhThis collection of thoughts on DH has been started about 5000 times, not because I keep changing my mind about how I feel, but because I keep changing my mind about what I'm willing to say. So I've decided to put down my honest thoughts about the book without editing to please anyone, and say some other thoughts in another post.
I've realized that I can't really speak to the plot of the book without rereading the first six in the light of the seventh, which I know I'll do at some point that isn't right now. I will say that being a mystery and a puzzle fan, I'm a sucker for the whole "there are seven things and we have to find seven ways to kill them" sort of plot. There was indeed a lot of time spent camping but I didn't notice it dragging as a reader; more, at one point JKR mentioned that it was March and I thought, holy shit, kids, let's get on the stick here. That said, I really liked that Harry really didn't know what he was doing, and that Ron and Hermione had to come to terms with how much Dumbledore hadn't told him. I'm not one for action scenes, but those who are tell me they were very satisfied with them, so I'm glad they were good.
What pulled me into HP in the first place, and kept me here, other than the mystery parts of the plots, was the characters. They seemed so real, so flawed but also lovable, and full of possibility. I think a lot of my reaction to OotP, specifically Sirius's character arc, was realizing that JKR was not only not going to fulfill it but wasn't interested in fulfilling it and maybe didn't even think that anyone saw those possibilities in the first place. After that I radically changed my expectations of the books and of JKR as a writer which meant that I enjoyed HBP and DH for what they were, but there was a lot of joy in canon that really went away, for me, after that.
I'm a character-driven consumer of culture. People interest me. Plots, unless they're mystery plots which are really puzzles, are mostly just what the people are doing while I get to spend time with them. So in light of that, I tend to think about the canon as a list of characters. My disappointment, the one I faced four years ago, is that no one changed, no one even had the opportunity to change, even that the author was implying that no one actually does change—that obnoxious kid is going to be that obnoxious adult. I don't believe that in life, and what I like about fiction is watching a character's journey, and I'll even say that I find it to be somewhat irresponsible to say, in a children's book, that a school is entirely right to dismiss a quarter of its population because of something a magical hat worked out when they were eleven.
The Harry and Hermione moments reminded me of why I love their friendship in the book so much; they're fantastic partners who understand each other on a ridiculously deep level and I'm so pleased that JKR testified to that. I adored the glimpses of Seamus and Dean and of course that growly hug. I was so pleased that we saw bits of Dean on the run and that JKR cared to get him to safety at Bill and Fleur's and show Seamus fighting alongside Neville with his usual boyish exuberance. I was so pleased to see Ron grow into the man I always knew was in there someplace.
I've never been a Snape fan, and the Snape/Lily I found to be, in the end, shockingly selfish. To me, that's not love. I've known guys like Snape—hell, I've even been in the position of Lily, standing there telling them that I simply cannot deal with them anymore because they don't know how to stop being an asshole, and it's heartbreaking, when you get to that point with a friend, where you've been there and been there and they just can't get their head out of their ass long enough to understand that there are other people in the world. That Snape's motivation all this time was not a real change in understanding but an obsessive and selfish love is a big let down, and pretty much closes the book on him for me, anyway.
But I will say that what Lily says to him—in effect, that being an asshole isn't the same as being evil—is pretty much the theme of these books. I just wish that more characters had had the opportunity to stop being assholes.
Posts that resonated with me include Cassie's, Maya's, and Magpie's (particularly the insightful discussion in the comments).
I've realized that I can't really speak to the plot of the book without rereading the first six in the light of the seventh, which I know I'll do at some point that isn't right now. I will say that being a mystery and a puzzle fan, I'm a sucker for the whole "there are seven things and we have to find seven ways to kill them" sort of plot. There was indeed a lot of time spent camping but I didn't notice it dragging as a reader; more, at one point JKR mentioned that it was March and I thought, holy shit, kids, let's get on the stick here. That said, I really liked that Harry really didn't know what he was doing, and that Ron and Hermione had to come to terms with how much Dumbledore hadn't told him. I'm not one for action scenes, but those who are tell me they were very satisfied with them, so I'm glad they were good.
What pulled me into HP in the first place, and kept me here, other than the mystery parts of the plots, was the characters. They seemed so real, so flawed but also lovable, and full of possibility. I think a lot of my reaction to OotP, specifically Sirius's character arc, was realizing that JKR was not only not going to fulfill it but wasn't interested in fulfilling it and maybe didn't even think that anyone saw those possibilities in the first place. After that I radically changed my expectations of the books and of JKR as a writer which meant that I enjoyed HBP and DH for what they were, but there was a lot of joy in canon that really went away, for me, after that.
I'm a character-driven consumer of culture. People interest me. Plots, unless they're mystery plots which are really puzzles, are mostly just what the people are doing while I get to spend time with them. So in light of that, I tend to think about the canon as a list of characters. My disappointment, the one I faced four years ago, is that no one changed, no one even had the opportunity to change, even that the author was implying that no one actually does change—that obnoxious kid is going to be that obnoxious adult. I don't believe that in life, and what I like about fiction is watching a character's journey, and I'll even say that I find it to be somewhat irresponsible to say, in a children's book, that a school is entirely right to dismiss a quarter of its population because of something a magical hat worked out when they were eleven.
The Harry and Hermione moments reminded me of why I love their friendship in the book so much; they're fantastic partners who understand each other on a ridiculously deep level and I'm so pleased that JKR testified to that. I adored the glimpses of Seamus and Dean and of course that growly hug. I was so pleased that we saw bits of Dean on the run and that JKR cared to get him to safety at Bill and Fleur's and show Seamus fighting alongside Neville with his usual boyish exuberance. I was so pleased to see Ron grow into the man I always knew was in there someplace.
I've never been a Snape fan, and the Snape/Lily I found to be, in the end, shockingly selfish. To me, that's not love. I've known guys like Snape—hell, I've even been in the position of Lily, standing there telling them that I simply cannot deal with them anymore because they don't know how to stop being an asshole, and it's heartbreaking, when you get to that point with a friend, where you've been there and been there and they just can't get their head out of their ass long enough to understand that there are other people in the world. That Snape's motivation all this time was not a real change in understanding but an obsessive and selfish love is a big let down, and pretty much closes the book on him for me, anyway.
But I will say that what Lily says to him—in effect, that being an asshole isn't the same as being evil—is pretty much the theme of these books. I just wish that more characters had had the opportunity to stop being assholes.
Posts that resonated with me include Cassie's, Maya's, and Magpie's (particularly the insightful discussion in the comments).
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no subject
Date: 2007-07-27 04:14 pm (UTC)I have not read that! So I will put that on my list. I do like magic, though. I wonder (and I'm not thinking you know this, though you might) if there are books with magic without saving the world? Are all fantasy novels about saving the world? Although, come to think of it, I'm not entirely sure that even Holly's books are about saving the world. They have action scenes and People Up To No Good but not really like, Let Us Now Vanquish Big Evil.
no subject
Date: 2007-07-27 05:19 pm (UTC)I will loan you Westing Game.
Do you dislike good vs evil, or do you dislike saving the world, or do you dislike both? And how do you feel about magical realism?
no subject
Date: 2007-07-27 05:45 pm (UTC)I'm thinking through things that I like, and I think: I am not fond of stories that need an actual antagonist to start up the plot, someone who is running around doing whatever the evil thing is, taking over the world or whatever, and everyone else has to fight against them. I don't find evil to be that interesting. I always want to say, "Why are you making trouble? I think someone needs a time out!" This isn't to say that I can't enjoy stories like that. The Italian Job was on again last night and Steve being a giant selfish prick sets the rest of the story in motion, but I'm much less interested in getting back at him than I am in the mechanics of the caper. That said, he's not really evil so much as he is selfish and greedy, which is different.
In your average mystery, the killer usually has a reason for doing what they did, even if it is selfish, like, "I wanted the money" or "She killed my mother" or something. It's human scale obnoxiousness. Police procedurals about serial killers, OTOH, whatever. And then with movies like Die Hard--I'd say more about the villains, and the thing that they all have in common, but let's just say that for all the shit they pull none of them want to take over the world. And John McClane is just a guy who doesn't die.
So I think it's Big Good v Big Evil that leaves me cold; I never was into Super Heroes because I was never into Super Villains. (Though, I always want to humanize the super heroes, too; I'm like, but who does the dishes?) But saving the world from like, someone's fuck up (say, War Games) or you know, an asteroid, that's cool.