Thanks! I'm going to try to get it into one sentence - I hope it's okay. Your view then, is that HP presents an instinctual view of good and evil that is strong and sure of itself but, because it hasn't been sufficiently considered, is contradictory.
I hope I’m not too far off the mark if I say that the view of travisprinzi and ohioriverutopia is that HP accepts the concept of good and evil and goes on to demonstrate - with a lot of force -its limitations, and that the contradictions it contains are essential to its purpose.
To hold this second view of HP there are a few things one has to come terms with: its mischievous comedy, the old-fashioned character Rowling has given to the wizarding world, and the conventions that go with fairy tales and school stories.
I really do think it’s these things - usually in some devilish combination - that are behind most of the difficulties readers have with HP, and that lead it to be considered ill thought-out and contradictory.
I think that the comedy of HP is a particular problem, because it can be cruel, flippant, entirely inappropriate in a variety of ways, not at all funny, and undermines the serious purpose of thestory - all of which is its particular charm, though charm hardly seems the right word to use!
Also, HP sets up the opposition between good and evil so firmly at the beginning of the story - with an innocent child and an evil monster - that it’s hard to accept that it’s actually bent on breaking it down.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-07-04 10:13 pm (UTC)I hope I’m not too far off the mark if I say that the view of travisprinzi and ohioriverutopia is that HP accepts the concept of good and evil and goes on to demonstrate - with a lot of force -its limitations, and that the contradictions it contains are essential to its purpose.
To hold this second view of HP there are a few things one has to come terms with: its mischievous comedy, the old-fashioned character Rowling has given to the wizarding world, and the conventions that go with fairy tales and school stories.
I really do think it’s these things - usually in some devilish combination - that are behind most of the difficulties readers have with HP, and that lead it to be considered ill thought-out and contradictory.
I think that the comedy of HP is a particular problem, because it can be cruel, flippant, entirely inappropriate in a variety of ways, not at all funny, and undermines the serious purpose of thestory - all of which is its particular charm, though charm hardly seems the right word to use!
Also, HP sets up the opposition between good and evil so firmly at the beginning of the story - with an innocent child and an evil monster - that it’s hard to accept that it’s actually bent on breaking it down.