fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2791 ]

[ SECRET POST #2791 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2791 ⌋

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I see. Yeah, now that I think of it, I suppose I agree. I totally forgot about TOotP!Ginny; frankly, I kind of didn't notice her behind all the huge events that took place in that book.

That's the only time she sounded alright to me, though. I'm with you on other counts: Rowling really isn't very good at character dynamics/characterization.

Rowling is amazing at characterization - the Harry Potter characters are some of the most vividly-drawn, distinctively-voiced, memorable people I've ever seen in a work of fiction. And I've read a LOT of fiction.

JKR just isn't very good at all at character *development* This doesn't really matter a whole lot until the 6th book, I think, but it gets really noticeable right about then. It's not just Ginny, IMO. It hits Harry and Hermione worst of all.

Do you mind giving some examples of Harry and Hermione?

Not trying to be confrontational. I'm just interested! :)

Because I never fell in love with books 6 and 7 as much as the others and I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Basically, Harry in Book 6 has very little continuity with Harry at the end of Book 5. It's not like the change is unfathomable or anything, but his changes all take place offscreen. He tells them to Dumbledore in the Weasleys' toolshed, but we never get to see it, which is a shame. And from then on, he never really fails. This is a problem. Ron got to fail, obviously, on multiple levels, in Book 6 and 7, which made him one of the characters who really did seem to have good character development. Harry never really failed, or gave up, or went "fuck this, I can't, go to hell" at any point after that amazing meltdown at the end of OotP. Again, it's not completely unbelievable, because Harry is nothing if not possessed of great strength of character, but it's wasted potential for a hero of his type, IMO.

Hermione actually doesn't really get smacked until Book 7, where she suddenly turns into a magical swiss army knife with very little personality or agency of her own. In Book 6 she feels technically good and appropriate for her age, but the regression from her being one of the awesomest, most fascinating teenage-girl characters I've ever seen in Book 5 (her detailed, perceptive awareness of the political context and what Umbridge is doing, the complicated mix of impressive maturity and intelligence and scary immaturity and shortsightedness in her attempts to make people act the way she thinks they should act, etc...that moment in the Department of Mysteries when she gets MAD at Luna for saying that there are voices behind the veil is something I read over and over again because I can't believe how well that was done) is kind of disappointing and frustrating. Not that I think a 17 year old girl wouldn't act the way she did in Book 6, just that I don't really want to think Hermione would go from her Book 5 characterization to her Book 6 characterization.

These problems actually bother me a lot less than it might seem from this comment -- they're actually just small nuisances to me. But they do stop me from, as you say, falling as much in love with 6-7 as with 1-5.

Oh God yeah -- I agree with you about the lack of continuity. I remember being SO CONFUSED at Harry's seeming lack of reaction over SIrius' death compared to Cedric. He freaked out at the end of Book 5 but he just seemed WAY too level headed in book 6 comparatively.

And Book 5 Hermione WAS great (although I"ll admit SPEW started to tire me out after a while, although I think that was intentional on some level).

It just seemed like Book 6 and 7 had so much wasted potential. What I really loved about Book 6 was the expansion of Tom Riddle's backstory. But almost everything else in that book felt disposable to me. Book 7 just seemed like…well…a mess to be honest.

Uh. I can agree with that if we are talking all the little details that make a character unique - dialogue quirks, mannerisms, stuff like that. But the instance it comes to something bigger and more important, things go awry. How can she be good at characterization but not very good at character development? Is the latter not an inherent part of the former? Or do you mean "characterization" as in "the first few bits of information the audience learns about the character" (no sarcasm/hostility intended)?

I mean that her characters really felt like real people until she started putting them into plots that ought to have forced them to change dramatically and gradually, and they kind of...didn't, really. Or did for a while but the change didn't last long enough (Harry in OotP for example), or changed in weird sudden shifts (like Ginny).

And no, I don't think character development is an inherent part of characterization? There are loads of really amazing and well-characterized fictional characters that remain pretty static throughout the canon source material.

I suppose it's a matter of weighing the positives of her characterization of the characters in each book/period of time against the negatives of the weird/unsatisfying/glossed over transitions between the characters' different periods between books and within different parts of the books. IMO the characterization of each segment = great, but most of the transitions = huh, what? More info plz? But I guess IDGAF about the problems with the transitions enough for it to really badly impact my love of the characters. *shrugs* Not that sort of book franchise for me, maybe? I did read the whole series as a kid between the ages of 9 and 15, after all. ;)

Edited 2014-08-24 21:04 (UTC)

I think this was a case of confusion over terms - "character development" referring to the initial creation of a character versus referring to the character arc throughout the course of a story.

Kind of, I believe - I was referring to the psychological exploration of the technically-static characters as well as to the actual changes in the personalities of the dynamic characters.

IDK. A lot of criticisms of Harry Potter are the kind of thing that fill me with a powerful feeling of "I totally understand this line of thinking logically but I cannot bring myself to actually give a single fuck about any of these problems you keep talking about, because it's like disliking my best friend for clipping her toenails on the carpet." The negatives always just feel so overwhelmingly and inarguably drowned out by the positives to me personally because, I think, of the context in which I first read them. It's like...magic. No pun intended. :D

I get what you're saying, but I do have a problem even with the parts that do not belong to transition periods. I guess my main issue with Rowling's approach to characterization is that if some of her characters are taken at face value, they really are quite awful, which is probably not the effect she was going for. There seems to be a discrepancy between the way the characters are supposed to be perceived and the way they are actually perceived by the audience (one of the notable examples being Snape), and IMO it's a failure on her part.

eta: I understand not giving a damn about the problems, too! It's just that I can't agree that Rowling's objectively "amazing" at characterization. At certain aspects of it, maybe.

Edited 2014-08-24 21:20 (UTC)

I assumed that's what you meant, too, I just disagree. ;) But, uh, I thought Snape was supposed to be perceived as a giant asshole who is sort of amusing? The pevensie flashback was supposed to be a big twist on everyone's expectations, as far as I could see. Or do you mean it the other way around, that you think she intended the flashback to absolve Snape of all blame and it didn't? I'm not sure what you mean, so this might be more useful if you articulated these problems and what you think the audience perception differs from the author intent.

Because...well, I think that type of thing is more of a disagreement over how much author intent actually matters to the books, and on what perceptions of author intent are objective or not. Most people never even try to objectively claim "the author clearly intended this!" because it's almost guaranteed to cause 500 people to pipe up with "uh what? I was 100% sure she intended this totally other thing" and 500 other people to pipe up with "IDK what she intended and I'm not going to pretend to know, but this totally other thing is what actually happened" and 500 more people to pipe with "Who gives a rat's ass? Can't we list all the possible alternate interpretations of what actually happened instead?"

IMO basing objective judgements (rather than personal opinions) on a single reader's claim to somehow objectively know what the author intent was is something that makes no sense. I personally feel that if you can't find it in the text, you can't back it up as an objective claim, it's a subjective feeling. Which is still a valid criticism, as it indicates a communication problem between author and reader.

It may partly be due to my special attitude towards the relationship between literature and authorial intent, but I also believe it's a textual thing. Like, I don't just get this feeling from nowhere, nor even from Rowling's interviews on the matter - I get it straight from the books.

Snape never ever struck me as someone who's supposed to be "a giant asshole who's sort of amusing". Not a single character of significance is amused by Snape, and none of the protagonists end up convinced he was a dick. I grant you, Harry's and Dumbledore's perspectives can be said to be skewed - but how is that not a subjective claim, not wishful thinking? Is there any confirmation in the text that either Dumbledore or Harry are all wrong about Snape? There's none. Does the (third-person omniscient) narrative mock Snape, treat him with contempt? No. On the contrary, in books six and seven he's a heroic and tragic - if controversial - figure. (how is the whole "but what about my soul?" arc isn't about Snape being good and noble?)

I do think the flashback was supposed to be a twist in the sense that it should've made Snape look better, too. But it ended up making him look worse.

Unless you want to suggest that the narrator is completely indifferent to the events of the books and the reader is not supposed to get any moral from the stories that are being recounted, I don't think you can argue that Snape was written as a bad person.

This
>I personally feel that if you can't find it in the text, you can't back it up as an objective claim, it's a subjective feeling. Which is still a valid criticism, as it indicates a communication problem between author and reader.
is a good point, though, and it kinda makes me feel better about my non-text-supported complaints.

Edited 2014-08-24 22:31 (UTC)

Er, sorry. I meant that in the first six books, he was supposed to be seen as a giant asshole (and amusing to the readers, not the characters. Except maybe Dumbledore in Book 3). Sorry if I made that unclear. What I meant was that I didn't think that the flashback/reveal was intended in any way to absolve Snape of all the shitty things he did during the actual run of the series (bullying Neville and Harry, trying to get Sirius kissed, etc) and make them okay. It was intended to introduce multiple layers and show that people (and things, and ideas, and societies) are not exactly what they appear at first, which is sort of a recurring theme in the books. And yes, he is treated with contempt at least once: when Dumbledore chews him out in the flashback for intending to only save Lily for his own selfish reasons and let James and Harry die. I think this sort of thing is still very subjective -- because no one ever says whether Snape's noble actions excuses his other shitty behavior or not, I suppose people could plausibly interpret Rowling's intent in either way, but I don't see why they WOULD interpret her intent in the "totally absolved!" way instead of the "multiple layers" way. Like, what's the point of doing that? Is there any compelling reason to lean towards that direction other than the reader's personal vibe? That part of the book was just...excessively rushed and vague, IMO.

re: your second comment. I feel obliged to point out it's still very possible and common for the "communication problem" to be partially on the reader's end (or even sometimes COMPLETELY on the reader's end, and not at all on the author's -- for example, that OP from a few days ago who thought the protagonist of "Remains of the Day" only made sense to him/her if he was an asexual with Aspergers. When the entire point of the book literally evaporates if you interpret it that way.) Not that I think the problems are on your end in this case, I just felt weirdly obliged to mention that I don't believe that batshit interpretations are fine because "but-but-but the author never actually said it wasn't, so nyaahhh!"

Edited 2014-08-24 23:33 (UTC)

(and I fell asleep.)

Oh, I didn't mean that it was supposed to absolve him. I just don't think that the "multiple layers" thing worked out. All it succeeded at was making Snape sound like an epic creep. The extent to which he appears to have been motivated by his obsession with Lily is... um. Which part of the flashback gives him any more dimensions than he previously had? His affection for Dumbledore? But this doesn't really come as much of a surprise.

The big reveal of the flashback is in the fact that Snape has worked for the good guys; none of what the scene has to say enhances the understanding of his character.

I know that's not what was meant to happen, of course. I am capable of interpreting Snape as a highly controversial character. But textually, the more plausible interpretation is that he remained an unapologetic bag of dicks till the very end.

(that was why I was a bit confused re:your take on Snape. The seventh book didn't actually change much — it was only the way the narrative treated Snape that changed.)

Also, I think that one of the reasons people want to interpret this arc as an absolution is because of Harry and the epilogue. Some say that it was "corny" and "out of the blue", but I think it is a logical consequence of the authorial illusion that Snape is a good person more than he's a bad one. Which is what the flashback was supposed to and failed to show.

As regards your other point, that's true, of course. I'm not about to run around claiming my headcanons are as valid as the actual text. But the fact that not all issues that aren't fully textual aren't there is a good idea to acknowledge.

Haha yeah, I'm the last person to go around going "no headcanons eva!!!!" given how very, VERY frequently I headcanon motivations in places where none explicitly exist re: authorial intent (actually, I sometimes love it when authors don't explain stuff well enough, because it lets me make up plausible shit to fill the holes and I love doing that).

I totally agree with your take on the lack of any clear textual evidence that Snape is a good guy, I just think that this lack doesn't mean that "bag of dicks" is necessarily a more plausible interpretation than "controversial sorta good guy" because in my view, the text doesn't support either one more than the other -- all I see is a big empty gap where JKR glossed over things, which can be filled with a good range of different interpretations. I just go for "sorta good guy" because it's more satisfying and coherent -- it doesn't actually conflict with the text to assume that he may have started out motivated solely by his creepy Lily obsession but acquired a somewhat more mature and less selfish understanding over the years, and if it doesn't conflict, then I say, well, why not?

It doesn't directly contradict the text, no. But the Patronus scene strongly suggests that his motivation for protecting Harry, at least, was his feelings for Lily first and everything else second. Additionally, she's the very last thing he remembers in his life — and that with Harry right in front of him; because of Harry, too. It's actually pretty scary how he gives no fucks about Harry himself.

Taking this into account, I can't agree that the two interpretations are equally valid. One is supported by clear textual evidence, the other is just a way to try and make the existing text more coherent.

Besides, his lack of motivation is by no means the only problem. He freely indulges in bullying eleven-year-olds
; he tries to get an innocent man killed. IMO there's a point where a controversial character becomes simply unsalvageable, and, however much good deeds are piled up in the subsequent narrative, they make nothing better.

Now, if the idea were to make Snape an essentially bad person with something good in them, I'd declare his arc a success. As it is, the exact opposite is the case.

But I don't think that he necessarily gives no fucks about Harry himself just because his last thought was about Lily, or that just because Lily was his biggest motivation, that's his ONLY motivation. People are capable of entertaining more than one idea at a time, without them being the same priority. Sorry, but I really don't think your interpretation is any more supported by "clear textual evidence" any more than mine is.

But yeah, IA that he's more bad than good, re: your examples. I don't think it's so black-and-white though. Just because a guy is more bad than good doesn't devalue the good, it's not like it gets neatly separated into "bad" and "good" and gets plopped on a scale and balanced out or something.

I'm afraid don't quite understand what you mean when you say "unsalvageable" though. Unsalvageable as what? Do you mean "unsalvageable" as in incapable of perfectly redeeming himself as a total good guy? Becoming likable? I'd agree with that, but I don't understand what "unsalvageable as a character" means.

(btw, I don't think I've EVER been on this side of an argument about Snape before! I'm always the one pointing out to people how his dickery in the series doesn't have any good ulterior motives or justifications, it's just him being a dick. A first for me!)

But the problem IS that it's his primary motivation, not that he has no other motivations besides it. That was my view - I guess I miscommunicated it by saying that he "gives no fucks", while in fact I should've said something along the lines of "gives fewer fucks about Harry than he does about (dead) Lily".

I also have issues with the way Snape's obsession with Lily is almost written as a good thing. Considering the facts that the book is not narrated from an objective viewpoint and that one of the -morals- seems to be "yay everyone should marry their childhood sweetheart", I'm pretty uncomfortable with how no one notices that Snape's being skeevy in this regard. (barring Dumbledore, who, however, has no problems with Snape's obsession as such - it's only the fact that it's Snape's only motive for coming to him that disgusts Dumbledore.)

Yeah, I can agree with you about that -
> Just because a guy is more bad than good doesn't devalue the good, it's not like it gets neatly separated into "bad" and "good" and gets plopped on a scale and balanced out or something.

I guess I've always had difficulty seeing the good in bad characters. My standards for judging fictional characters are the same as for judging real people, and it's hard to be objective.

I've thought about this discussion and I think I can say that I no longer consider Snape's arc a spectacular failure on Rowling's part - most of the problems with his characterization are, as you said, due to the "gaps", i.e. omissions or lack of explanation - but I still believe the issues with his characterization are kinda obvious. They're not an insurmountable obstacle to someone who wants to read Snape the way Rowling (textually) seems to want him to be, but they definitely make it impossible for me to say that she's really very good at characterization. She's... all right? Like, I'm ready to agree I can't prove she's shitty.

(re:"unsalvageable", that's my ESLness showing. I meant "irredeemable". Irredeemable "controversial" characters happen to be a big pet peeve of mine, so I might've been biased in this regard, too).

I've never been on this side of the debate, either! I actually like Snape. He's one of my favourite characters and I love to friend-ship him with just about everyone *shrugs shoulders*

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