I had to write this essay as i just didn't get why any wizard would join such a lunatic, even if they did agree with him.
http://eri1980b.livejournal.com/2737.html

First time posting on here, hope I've done it right!!
This is a link to my journal which details a conversation with a friend which tried to address all those issues we have with the epilogue.
http://eri1980b.livejournal.com/1870.html

Let’s talk about bad boys. Specifically, bad boys in Harry Potter.

We’ve all come across Draco being referred to as ‘the bad boy’ – usually by gushy journalists in badfic, but whatever. There is an idea that Draco Malfoy is a Bad Boy. There’s even more an idea that Lucius Malfoy’s Bad, Real Bad. Where does this come from?

Interesting question, but it might make more sense to think about what makes a bad boy bad.

I wrote this essay shortly before DH as I was rereading the previous six books. I than forgot about it until I recently found it again. In it I examine the purpose of Prophecies and how that impacts the events of Harry Potter particularly the second prophecy made by Trawlany. I have updated it so it does not contradict any information from DH.

( Harry Potter and the truth of the Second Prophecy )

Before I begin, let me apologize for the tone of my last meta. To be sarcastic toward the readers who didn't see anything wrong with HP was not part of my intention, yet what I said (especially in my LJ cut, etc.) ended up offensive. Belatedly, I realize that my anger was partly fueled by self-hatred: the fact of the matter is, I hadn't seen the structure I discussed until the night I wrote it, and this had made me embarrassed and angry with myself. Hence overcompensating words like "blatantly obvious." Deep down, I was ashamed that it actually hadn't been, for me.

But now I'm starting to realize, you know... There's actually an extremely good reason why we don't tend to see these structures.

There's nothing actually wrong with us. Any of us. So I'm going to let myself off the hook, and remind myself that, after all, bitterness never gets me anywhere.

Having thus calmed down a bit, and with my heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you who have taken the time to comment, both critically and supportively, I want to try and articulate one thing I completely failed to address in my last post: ablism.

( And yes, part of my conclusion will be "HP is not only racist but also ablist," so if you're really really allergic to such statements, you might want to stop here. (4800 words) )

In this series of children's books, JKR likens her Death Eaters to the Nazis. And she purports this story to be sending a message of tolerance and equality. I don't understand how she can do so.

Because those two things are directly incompatible with each other.

( If you have to ask "How?" you need to seriously worry about the detrimental effect that HP is having on you. (3000 words) )

I made a post on my journal which suggests a few reasons why House Hufflepuff is regarded with indulgent contempt by nearly the entire British Wizarding world.

Fake cut to my journal

I will not bother with an introduction, as I know they're boring. So, I will start with my essay:

For almost two years solid, I have been in collaboration with another HP ficcer (I married one! Yay!), and as such we've created a fanon (like you do). I decided to write a precis on the chief distinctions of the fanon some months ago, and within the distinctions are seeds for argumentative essays.

I would very much like feedback since I have rarely, if ever, seen these interpretations and issues addressed in anyone else's fanfic or essays.

Blood, Love and Rhetoric: Being an Atypical Précis Explaining the Changes and Elaborations of the World of Magic as Seen by Melanthios and Hanford

Thank you.

Yes, the title is a reference to Rosencranz and Guildenstern are Dead.

This was crossposted to a couple hp comms a few days ago, before I knew about this one.

It was dark, the night that Harry first saw Thestrals.

"If he had had to give them a name, he supposed he would have called them horses, though there was something reptilian about them, too." (OotP ch10)

But since he could see them at that point, we naturally expected this to be an improvement over when he couldn't see them:

...at least a hundred stagecoaches awaited the remaining students, each pulled, Harry could only assume, by an invisible horse, because when they climbed inside and shut the door, the coach set off all by itself, bumping and swaying in procession." (PoA ch5)

And yet he still saw the same thing, which, on reflection, does not inspire the highest confidence in his efforts. It rather reminds me of a favorite passage after Sirius had exhorted Harry to "keep your eyes open" in one of his letters:

"You'd think I walk around with my eyes shut, banging off the walls..."
"But he's right, Harry," said Hermione. (GoF ch23)

Sturdy girl, that Hermione. ;D

( Read more... )
Thestrals, complete in this posting, is Part IV of a new series.

"Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought."
John Rawls

The death of Severus Snape in Deathly Hallows was not unexpected but was untimely, unpleasant, and somehow unsatisfying. It seemed to leave important issues unresolved, both for Snape himself and for the reader trying to understand this perplexing character and what moved him. His death was brutal, right down to the tiny moment when he believed he might be reprieved. It was a miserable end to what remained a miserable life. It was shocking, it was unjust. It robbed us of the revelatory confrontation between Snape and Harry that the story seemed to demand. Rather than illuminate Snape’s life it cast it into shadow. What sort of life must it have been to deserve a death like this?

No life could deserve a death like this. It was, though, the sort of death that Voldemort was quite used to inflicting on those who came within his reach - Peter Pettigrew and Charity Burbage come to mind - and it was the sort of death that Snape had witnessed and knew he faced as a follower of Voldemort. The horror and injustice of Snape’s death should not be allowed to obscure our understanding of his life. He may not have confronted Harry in person but he told him what he wanted him to know through the memories he gave him. When we unite these memories with everything we have seen of Snape throughout the story we can understand that Snape’s life was not unfulfilled, and that though he died in pain he died in triumph. The project which was the purpose of his life was at its conclusion, and through it he had transformed himself - not from villain to hero, but from loser to winner.( Read more )

The interesting thing about DH was how it broke my heart in a million wonderful ways, while failing to break it where I would have suspected it to be the whole point of the story to break it, in order to immerse me in the book's main storylines of tragedy. Such as the Dobby funeral and the Harry suicide... The former of which didn't move me one iota because I was too busy trying not to puke at the fact that the story had just a) killed the freed slave with his selfless rescue impulse bourn out of his inexplicably unconditional adoration of a member of the enslaving race, and b) started telling me incessantly that we're supposed to see the privileged-race beneficiary of this sacrifice digging a tiny grave hole with his own hands, without relying on a power shovel, to be this super-considerate, unimaginably noble, wonderful payment for the wretched creature's death [ETA]. And the latter of which, the Harry horcrux destruction, 1) had been speculated in numerous fanfics already, 2) didn't seem like such a horrible thing (despite the fact that it by rights should have been) if the boy's own mother was suddenly happily endorsing this course of action... And, above all else, that particular heartbreak 3) paled in comparison into nothingness, for me, who was in the middle of screaming at the utter wrongness of the string of facts that had just been revealed in the same scene -- i.e. how Snape had had to live his whole life and die in such misery, for mostly circumstantial reasons as opposed to any inexcusable, healthily-educated and well-informed choices on his part.

So that's the thing about DH. I still don't know if this makes the whole series an utter failure as a piece of literature (I would venture my humble opinion that it makes it an utter misfit for something to be sold as a series of books targeted for children, framed for them as a fantasy adventure with straightforward moral messages), or if it makes it a brilliantly innovative piece of postmodern, deconstructive fairytale, regardless of how any of these things in the tale ended up being the way they are... (Because who cares, really, whether the author of this story intended for it to be one thing or another? We all know she's just about the only fanatical adult fan of her creation that still believes, in this day and age, that its author would still be alive.) But the question of whether it's a good thing or a bad thing aside, I think that there's one thing that remains incontrovertible: the real drama of the Harry Potter story -- IMO virtually all of the real, fresh, mind-blowingly tragic and beautiful dramas of this story -- happened either completely off stage, or right at the corner of our peripheral vision.

Yet they happened. And we have all the clues necessary to reconstitute them into the downright operatic melodrama that they truly are.

( So we shall, shall we not? Because boy, how can anyone with a functioning soul NOT feel sorry for all those characters in HP that suffered the misfortune of being situated exactly where they were? )


*

ETA: In this post I failed to discuss Petunia's abuse of Harry in any substantial way, as my focus was on uncovering the aspects of her character that weren't narratively put under the spotlight. Many commenting have voiced how they have a fundamental problem with seeing someone who abuses a child as a "hero," no matter what tragedy she may have come through. And I tend to agree, at least when it comes to realistic thoughts on actual human beings. Meanwhile, static_pixie has pointed out how Petunia's character is simply impossible to rationalize as a consistent portrayal of an actual human being. These fen's insights have allowed me to start thinking more about her character by shifting my focus this time onto her character-trait coherency, and what I've come up with is an out-there hypothesis of her as a nightmarishly misrepresented character. It can be read here on my journal if you would like:

Some whacked-out thoughts on Snape and Petunia

I would, however, warn you that it's kind of dark as insinuation goes.

We're reminded quite a few times in DH that Dumbledore had James' Cloak of Invisibility on the night that Lily and James died. We never quite know why he had it. The closest thing to an official answer we get, I suppose, is Afterlife!Dumbledore telling Harry that his "guess" has been right, that the Order Leader had "asked [James] to borrow it, to examine it" -- but that just reeks of bullshit, doesn't it? ( Now for a bit of speculative meta, as opposed to my natural habitat which is the meta-narrative type of meta... Watch me sink or swim. *g* )

One theme of the Harry Potter books that I found interesting was the idea that it is our choices that make us who  we are.

However, it should be noted that in the books few people actually make these kind of choices.

So who are the people who choose who they will be?

EDIT: To clarify the idea of born "good" and born "bad" are not meant to reflect on real life. It is only for the purpose of characterization in Harry Potter. I do not think people are born good or bad from the beginning. Just wanted to make this clear, so you don't think I'm some kind of horrible judgmental person.

 My mind has been focusing lately on the things I disliked about DH (and man oh man were there many) so I thought I'd shift gears for a bit and reflect on what I liked about the conclusion to the series.

( A longwinded discussion of Harry, Voldemort, Dumbledore, Snape, and their different patterns of love follows the LJ-cut. Nothing too innovative as interpretation goes, it's all pretty obvious stuff. I just wanted to gush for a while to remind myself why I still adore HP. )
Thoughts, developments, and criticisms of all shapes and sizes are extremely welcome! Although I'm very bad at responding to each comment, so I apologize about that in advance...