Considering the term "Monster", in heraldry, any composite beast is classified as a monster. Such as the Unicorn. Yes, that is right. The Unicorn. A Unicorn is not a horse with a magical horn on its head, it is a *composite* beast.
As to Riddle: I just don't think we have the whole story yet. Rowling likes to yank the rug out from under her readers. We know she is going to do it. We keep trying to guess the context. We sometimes get it right. But never completely right.
From where we are standing now, the biggest potential payoff for her will be to blow us up over the issues upon which we have been led to feel ourselves most confident that we know what is going on.
We were handed a number of "Aha!" moments in HBP. I've become suspicious of most of them. The two biggest ones in particular. The first of these is "Aha! I *knew* Snape was eeeeevil!" The second is "Aha! *That's* Tom Riddle!"
I frankly expect to be handed something in Book 7 to upset both of them.
I think I have a better than average chance of being right on the Snape issue. There is so much obvious moonshine and misdirection about the murder of Albus Dumbledore that I can't help but conclude that much of it was smoke and mirrors. What we saw is only part of what was going on.
On the Riddle issue, I can be less certain. The evidence that we've been misdirected is so tenuous that to stick to my guns here is practically an act of faith. But what we have been shown simply does not fit anything we have been told to believe. And unless Rowling is a lot more mushy-minded than people are crediting her with being, I cannot believe that she has given us all of the puzzle pieces to work with.
After all, if she could introduce and develop the whole Marauder backstory, without preamble, over the course of a single book, and then use it as the foundation for the resolution of that year's problem in Book 3 she ought to be capable of doing something of the same thing in Book 7.
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Date: 2006-12-13 10:19 pm (UTC)As to Riddle: I just don't think we have the whole story yet. Rowling likes to yank the rug out from under her readers. We know she is going to do it. We keep trying to guess the context. We sometimes get it right. But never completely right.
From where we are standing now, the biggest potential payoff for her will be to blow us up over the issues upon which we have been led to feel ourselves most confident that we know what is going on.
We were handed a number of "Aha!" moments in HBP. I've become suspicious of most of them. The two biggest ones in particular. The first of these is "Aha! I *knew* Snape was eeeeevil!" The second is "Aha! *That's* Tom Riddle!"
I frankly expect to be handed something in Book 7 to upset both of them.
I think I have a better than average chance of being right on the Snape issue. There is so much obvious moonshine and misdirection about the murder of Albus Dumbledore that I can't help but conclude that much of it was smoke and mirrors. What we saw is only part of what was going on.
On the Riddle issue, I can be less certain. The evidence that we've been misdirected is so tenuous that to stick to my guns here is practically an act of faith. But what we have been shown simply does not fit anything we have been told to believe. And unless Rowling is a lot more mushy-minded than people are crediting her with being, I cannot believe that she has given us all of the puzzle pieces to work with.
After all, if she could introduce and develop the whole Marauder backstory, without preamble, over the course of a single book, and then use it as the foundation for the resolution of that year's problem in Book 3 she ought to be capable of doing something of the same thing in Book 7.