Waaaaaay post-DH thoughts.

[valis2]

Yeah, probably useless at this point, but still.

Last week I was listening to snapecast episode 16 (which was released last spring, before DH hit, yeah, I'm still catching up in a weird way--I missed a few episodes because they were mislabeled in my mp3 player). The snarky chapters portion really made me pause and rewind.

In the segment, chaeche mentioned her fear that JKR would only write 20 pages about Snape and we'd find out precious little else about him. Also, either Chaeche or someone else in the segment mentioned that she expected JKR to pull something really amazing out of her bag of tricks, because she's so clever. (This is very paraphrased, as I don't have my mp3 player in front of me right now.)

Oddly enough, the second part is something I really expected. Each book ended in such a novel manner that I really thought the final ending was going to be something marvelous, some tricksy, astonishing sleight of hand that would set the fandom aflame.

You see, right from PoA (and even more so with GoF) I had this feeling about JKR and her mysteries.

Mystery authors generally write three different kinds of mysteries. 1) The murderer is someone you're introduced to in the start. 2) The murderer is someone who comes onstage somewhere around halfway through. 3) The murderer is someone who pops up out of nowhere in the last five pages.

#3 is not as common as the first two. Readers aren't very fond of it, you see. And as soon as I read PoA, I knew that JKR was inordinately fond of #3. Though not really in terms of finding out the identity of the murderer--more in terms of solving the mystery or mysteries. She repeats this formula again and again. She plants quite a few red herrings. A good example is Barty Crouch Jr's funeral in PoA, which is why I was so completely blindsided by Barty impersonating Moody. When I reread the books, I do notice that the clues are there, but the first time through I never guessed any of the endings. Based on what the reader knows, it's really difficult to guess some of the mysteries--especially the whys and whodunits.

This is partly due to the fact that she withholds information. Which is also a reason that I think the books were so intriguing--but I digress.

I honestly expected her to follow the same formula, but leave the biggest "punch" for last. Like, it would end with a bang like usual, but it would be even a huger bang, because this would take all seven books and transform them into one big mystery. This was reinforced by an interview where JKR mentioned that she hadn't seen anyone guess what she was going to do. I had numerous conversations with people, and in the end I just assumed that it would be a pretty amazing revelation. I mean, we were really swimming in a sea of theories, so if no one had guessed, then it had to be pretty brilliant, and based on something we hardly knew.

Unfortunately, Chaeche was quite the Trelawney, and her unwitting words about Snape came true, in a sense. We did learn about his life (the very barest bones), but otherwise, we found out...well...precious little else. That was definitely a disappointment. Snape was always the most intriguing character for me, and I was very much hoping that Harry's "personal" grudge with him would end spectacularly. Instead, we have a strangely subdued Harry, who never seems to get that angry about Snape. Plus, we have a very condensed version of Snape's backstory, and we see little of him in the rest of the story.

It's been ten months now, and when I think about the book, a few things rise to the top quickly.

There were some really haunting moments. Scenes where I literally put the book down and ran around the apartment like an idjit. The scene where Ron destroys the Horcrux had me nearly crawling up the walls. The scene where Kingsley's Patronus warns everybody that the Ministry is coming. There were so many great moments that I really wholeheartedly enjoyed.

But then there was the camping. And the messy slapstick. And the camping. And the lack of Snape. And the camping. And the authorial shortcuts--getting rid of Hedwig (which sidesteps a few problems), Hermione's beaded bag, the wholesale revision of Secret Keeping, etc.

And that brings me to the next issue. You see, we were kept in the dark for much of the series by having a limited narrator, someone who was raised by Muggles and kept in the dark about magic, and had to have magic and wizarding society explained to him. JKR knows exactly how to ratchet up the tension: leave out some of the details. Which she did, and played up by having question and answer appearances with fans. She left out enough that a large section of fandom became theorists. In fact, that's part of what's gone from fandom; the theories. We have little need for them any longer. I miss the essays, the pondering, the clues. I even miss the crack!theories. It feels like a huge part of the HP fandom experience has vanished.

I'm still surprised at the Snily, in a way. JKR's thought that no one had guessed where she was going was the ultimate red herring, and I should have known better, because how could she have known all of the theories we generated? Still, there were a lot of fans who guessed Snily. And I remember reading "Snape's Worst Memory" and thinking, this is it? Being upside down in front of tormentors? Isn't this all in a day's work for him at this point? So then I thought that either Harry had interrupted it before it went further, or that calling Lily a Mudblood was what made it so awful for Snape. (Seeing the OotP film made me think that it was the former, as the latter wasn't present in the film.)

I have started thinking of my personal fandom experience in a different manner. I view the time between OotP and HBP as a Golden Age of fandom, in a way; certainly we had lots of new information to use, new characters, and lots of open space to write in the margins. I view the time between HBP and DH as a Silver Age. Some loose ends were tied up, and creativity was necessary to write certain pairings. But in all, it was still a time of blooming. Of course, I come to this viewpoint from being a Snape fan and entering the fandom in November, 2003. I'm certain that other fans have their own timeline.

Overall, after spending time thinking about it, and talking to other fen, I've really revised my opinion of the books. I used to say, over and over, that they were definitely more mature and more adult; but, having really thought about it, I have revised my opinion. They straddle a line, but they never really cross over one way or the other. I went to a great lecture at Prophecy about how JKR combines kid's lit and adult lit, and I really think that the speaker was right on target. JKR writes about Spellotape and names her werewolf characters Lupin and Fenrir, for example. And the whole Fiendfyre scene, and Malfoy getting punched in the face...these scenes felt very kid-oriented and kind of slapstick-y to me.

When it comes down to it, I can't forget what I wrote in my LJ after I read it. This book was not written for us, the obsessed fen. It was written for the millions of kids and adults who casually enjoyed the series. This isn't meant to sound like, "Boo-hoo, us big fans were mistreated," or anything like that. It's just that I think I lost perspective on the way. I immersed myself so much in the world and read so much amazing fanfic and saw so much amazing fanart that her world was broadened and enriched, and when I returned to the source for what I felt would be the triumphant, brilliant ending, I felt a little let down. Yes, the book was definitely the definitive end to the series; it explained what it need to explained, and parts of the journey were terrific. Please don't think that I don't appreciate its strengths. I'm just whining about the fact that my expectations were pumped so high--which is entirely my own fault.

Yeah, I know, total tl;dr. But I've had these thoughts rattling in my head for a while and I needed to get them out. Thanks for reading.

Comments

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Very interesting post.

I agree with you about JKR straddling the line but never going beyond. There are YA novels which I think work this much better (I'm very fond of Jonathan Stroud for one).

[valis2.livejournal.com]

I think she never really makes any book wholly adult or wholly meant for kids. It's a tricky line to maneuver, and I was saddest when we were treated to the strange broomstick rescue mission at the end of DH, and then later when we see Draco, he's exactly the same as he was in the first book--and Ron punches him. A very odd end, I thought, but then I realized--she has to satisfy everyone. She has to have the slapstick and the character who likes to bite children's faces.