[ SECRET POST #2867 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2867 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 088 secrets from Secret Submission Post #410.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - random image ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[dreemyweird]

Co-signed. I'm not a big fan of Rowling's characterization skills, but this is such an obvious point that I do have to wonder if those arguing against it have any reading comprehension.

[(Anonymous)]

Why? I always thought characterization was one of her better points.

[dreemyweird]

intriguieing and I once had a big discussion about this. I came out of it admitting that Rowling's characterization is not quite the apocalyptic disaster I'd considered it to be, but I still see obvious issues that prevent me from being overly keen on her works.

The tl;dr is that there is, in my opinion, a noticeable discrepancy between the way the characters are treated by the narrative and the way they look when their actions and behaviour are really taken into account. The narrative treats the characters who'd be 146% fucked up in real life as if they're actually alright - or at least alright-ish ("controversial", as people like to term them). The important examples being Snape and Dumbledore.

The same applies to some of the character dynamics - Harry/Ginny, Snape/Lily, Harry&Dumbledore. Harry&Dudley, sort of. All of these are presented in a better light than they would realistically be.

intrigueing argued that this is a matter of interpretation, not a textual issue, and this is partially true. But I also think that interpreting your way out of these issues requires too much mental gymnastics.

[(Anonymous)]

Ah well then we are just talking about completely different things. When I think about good or bad characterisation I think of how like normal humans characters seem. I mean the one thing J K Rowling does very well is write characters that seem like people you know or could start working for in your new job. Who can't say they know an Umbridge?

Fucked up things being treated as normal bothers me a lot less. Go knows that is not unrealistic.

[dreemyweird]

Oh, yes, that's true. Maybe not for all the characters, but there are definitely quite a few that are brilliantly spot-on.

[(Anonymous)]

Appart from Ginny and Tonks I can't really think of many that seem unreasonable. It might just be because I read a lot of fantasy. After game of thrones or lord of the rings I started liking the characters in Harry Potter a whole lot more. Not that those books have bad characters just not really ones I can imagine meeting on a bus stop.

[intrigueing]

Well, I do think it's a textual issue....sort of -- the Harry Potter universe and the laws of human nature and emotional logic in it bear far more similarity to Roald Dahl stories than to real life (although, on the other hand, real life bears a lot more similarity to Roald Dahl than to any philosopher's or psychologist's treatise on how humans ought to act). But it's consistent, and consistency and in-story believability (which is highly subjective to say the least) is, IMO, what matters most in soft fantasy.

Not that the relationships you mention wouldn't be improved by more realism and less gloss (or just...more breathing room/pagetime to explore them), just that I don't think they break from their lack of realism ;)

[dreemyweird]

>the Harry Potter universe and the laws of human nature and emotional logic in it bear far more similarity to Roald Dahl stories than to real life

This makes a lot of sense, actually, and I can definitely get behind this. The first chapter of the first book especially always struck me as purposely non-realistic and grotesque, but the same applies to the universe as a whole.

Thanks :) Yep, I think this is not the best kind of Dahl-esque writing, but it does make the story continuous.