The HMS STFU - In which Snapefen discover canon....

Subject:	In which Snapefen discover canon....
Time:	11:09 am

As noted in my previous entry, duj suddenly 'discovered' (or should I say rediscovered) book canon when it suited her purposes to do so.

Behold:

terri_testing's "less than rosy" view of Dumbledore.

Comment by

oryx_leucoryx:

I love the Albus - Remus comparison. We really need to go over canon and compare how characters deal with serious guilt. Albus, Remus and Slughorn vs Regulus, Draco and Severus. And then there is Sirius.

So for once they will actually go and look at the books instead of making stuff up; it's a marvel! :P

ETA: by

oryx_leucoryx again we have:

In a different discussion I brought up Dumbledore's lack of concern for the safety of the hundreds of minors under his care I was 'reminded' that the early books are more cartoonish and childish in their approach whereas the later ones were more realistic.

For them to take this long to realize what we all kind of already knew, that JKR likes to use a Roald Dahl-esque writing style in the first few books, really makes me wonder. It's why attempting to apply a buttload of srs bsns logic to the first couple of books in particular usually just makes one look like a pompous buffoon (esp when trying to make Snape look good and not just a giant bag of assbaggery).

But at least oryx is acknowledging book canon exists :P

comments: Poke a delusional shipper

Comments:

(Anonymous)

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Time:	2009-09-27 06:52 pm (UTC)

Yes, but I think it's often used in a rather deceptive way. As I understand it, in canon, protective enchantments always protect against something specific - while I get the sense that 'wards' is often taken to mean spells that just protect, so if you're behind wards, you're safe.

Do we know what protective enchantments there actually are at Hogwarts? There's a spell that stops you apparating in. There's a spell that makes it invisible to Muggles (but that one is clearly no use against Death Eaters). There are also protections which are not actually enchantments - e.g. the presence of suits of armour which are prepared to fight. Anything else?

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quantumreality

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Time:	2009-09-27 07:48 pm (UTC)

There's probably got to be some kind of structural reinforcement, too. Maybe spells that keep people from falling of high places as well? (though I guess it doesn't work with dead bodies as evidenced by what happened when Snape killed Dumbledore)

The above two are my conjectures. I don't think canon backs them up so don't go by me there. :)

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(Anonymous)

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Time:	2009-09-27 08:09 pm (UTC)

I don't know about the high place spell. Although it's not the same as the astronomy tower, remember Neville falling off his broom in PS and Harry doing the same in PoA?

I think though, that whatever enchantments are at Howgwarts, they are far from foolproof. If anything kept Dumbledore alive it wasn't cowering behind the "wards of Hogwarts" it was his magical ability.

But, you know, I don't think he's evil.

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quantumreality

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Time:	2009-09-27 08:56 pm (UTC)

I would be surprised if one could easily protect such a large castle that needs to house somewhere around 300 people, give or take a few, and whose population changes from year to year as people come and go.

So I agree that the allegation made about Dumbledore 'hiding' behind the wards of Hogwarts overstates the case.

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(Anonymous)

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Time:	2009-09-27 09:45 pm (UTC)

I think the idea may come from the claim in PS that Hogwarts is the safest place in wizarding Britain, which is why the Philosopher's Stone was brought there after the attempt to steal it from Gringotts. But if you look at what actually happens to the Stone, it seems that it's safe, not because anything at Hogwarts is automatically protected, but because there are people there with the expertise to set up specific protections.

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mllemaenad

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Time:	2009-09-28 05:43 am (UTC)

I confess I find the whole thing a bit baffling.

"One o' the only safe places left was Hogwarts. Reckon Dumbledore's the only one You-Know-Who was afraid of. Didn't dare try takin' the school, not jus' then, anyway."

The inference is not that Dumbledore was safe in Hogwarts, but that Hogwarts was safe because Dumbledore was there. It's never completely safe, but it's only ever successfully invaded (as opposed to infiltrated, which it is all the time) in Dumbledore's absence.

Also, there's a reference to Dumbledore lifting the anti-Apparition enchantments on the Great Hall so the students could have Apparition lessons, which would suggest that maintaining Hogwarts's defences was the Headmaster's responsibility, so again, if Hogwarts is safe, it's because Dumbledore is very good at what he does.

Whinging that the Headmaster of Hogwarts spends a lot of time at the school sounds a lot like complaining that the Minister for Magic works out of the Ministry. I don't know how they claim to know exactly what Dumbledore did in the first war, but the way I remember it, in the second one he was present at the first major engagement - the battle at the Department of Mysteries - and lost his life hunting down Voldemort's Horcruxes. Er. Except for Snape's intervention, of course. But he was dying in the first place because of a cursed Horcrux.

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quantumreality

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Time:	2009-09-26 11:43 pm (UTC)

"glazed over with the stupid" XD

Yes, it is quite a lot of teal deer to wade through there.

Um, the bottom line of the reply threads is basically a lot of religious waffle, the usual Dumbledore-is-a-meanie-because-he-didn't-help-Snapeypoo, and so on. Example: "(I think a lot of us expected Fawkes to go to Severus--look at all the fics where Fawkes's tears save Severus's life! But JKR didn't go there.)"

BWAHAAHAHAHA um NO.

I guess they had a relapse too soon 'cause as you can see terri_testing is once again trying to use fanfic to buttress her argument. Now what was that wonderful law that says use of fanfic automatically fails and requires sentencing to review the canon material?

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quantumreality

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Time:	2009-09-27 07:57 pm (UTC)

What I found amusing was all that outrage over how dare JKR selectively employ mythological features for her own stories.

What's interesting is how they insist JKR should have done it the true mythological way since argumentation of that sort buttresses their anti-JKR bias. For example OMG CENTAURS, the subtext there is that JKR was making Hermione be her special meanie sending Umbridge to those creatures INSERT BIG GREEK MYTHOLOGY THING HERE.

And this business with the phoenix egg thing and so on - clearly it's partly because they wish their special woobie was Phoenix-teared back from the brink of death and it fits with their idea of an overly dramatic part in DH as far as Snape is concerned. So because JKR didn't do it that way she's just a crappy author who doesn't UNDERSTAND.

The sheer arrogance it takes a reader of a story to so baldly say that an author doesn't know his or her own work is appalling. I grant that authors have indeed admitted they did not see a certain subtext readers were seeing, but how many of them said immediately after that said subtext was unintentional?

I wonder if other authors have had the misfortune to be patronized like that by readers.

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esclaramonde

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Time:	2009-09-28 01:01 pm (UTC)

It's funny, I've gotten so used to this sort of thing that it rarely strikes me as anything special by now - but can you imagine if any other large book fandom had sizable waves of people who did this? Old-school Pratchett fans who bitched about how he was always answering questions on Usenet, or Neil Gaiman non-fans who wrote essays on the faulty morality of Neverwhere. People wouldn't stand for it.

(I specify book fandoms because there's always an element of hating creators in tv fandoms, either because the ones at the top Don't Get It, the ones in the middle want to keep the advertisers happy, and/or the writers disagree on a character and so she seems to have two personalities, etc.)

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quantumreality

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Time:	2009-09-28 01:17 pm (UTC)

I wonder if they even realize how inappropriate it is to suggest that JK Rowling would, even off-screen, rape a character, given the overall tendency of the book series to be appropriate for all-ages (though the racy innuendo in DH seems to be calculated to amuse adults and older teenagers).

I guess that sort of mentality is what gives rise to fanfiction whose express intent is to see just how much pain and agony can be visited on as many characters as possible. I personally don't have the desire or the motivation to want to read such depressing material.

Re authors in general.

I think if we disregard Twilight, it's hard to imagine any fen going to the lengths that the Harmoanians have gone. I mean, forget the Snapefen for a sec.

Look how the Harmoanians are retreating into the movies and getting shriller with each iteration that comes along that the Dan/Emma chemistry means H/Hr must be the one true ship.

I can't name any fandom that has so vigorously nurtured a segment that insists book canon is just plain wrong and contorts what canon does exist in service of effectively rewriting the books for their pleasure.

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esclaramonde

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Time:	2009-09-28 04:14 pm (UTC)

Yeah, I didn't mention Twilight on purpose. :D Although that's slightly different than this case - the vast majority of the Twilight antifen started out as antifen, and the ones who converted seem to have taken Breaking Dawn as a catalyst not because it didn't line up with their predictions but because it was so over-the-top insane. I don't think anyone writes pretentious essays about how Twilight failed to live up to its potential.

I think it's unlikely that JKR would have intentionally innuendo'd rape in OotP - I'd say that Ariana's thing and Greyback's preference for children were both supposed to make you think of it, although I don't think she was necessarily saying in either case that sex actually happened. And those are from when Harry's 17, which makes a difference.

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(Anonymous)

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Time:	2009-09-28 01:18 pm (UTC)

For example OMG CENTAURS, the subtext there is that JKR was making Hermione be her special meanie sending Umbridge to those creatures INSERT BIG GREEK MYTHOLOGY THING HERE.

Of course, even in Greek mythology not all centaurs are rapists, and centaurs have been used a lot since then in all sorts of ways (e.g. in some mediaeval works they are a symbol of Christ), so the idea that JKR is ignorant of the real meaning of centaurs is pretty silly - on the contrary, it's the people who know only one story about centaurs and assume they must be understood in the light of that who are ignorant. (Setting aside the obvious point that JKR has the right to use mythological elements any way she likes.)

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(Anonymous)

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Time:	2009-09-26 09:41 pm (UTC)

Teal Deer ahead!

'Albus told us himself that at the end of his life he tried to use the Resurrection Stone selfishly: “to drag back those who are at peace” [Ariana and his parents] to assuage Albus’s guilt over his role in Arianna’s death. Which, while egocentric, is still much more creditable than why he wanted to use it when he was eighteen: “to me it meant the return of my parents, and the lifting of all responsibility from my shoulders.” '

Yes terri_tesing, how dare a teenaged boy feel grief stricken at the loss of his parents! I mean, it's not like he could have felt scared or been unable to cope with the stress of dealing with two younger siblings - one of whom obviously needed a lot of care, as well as the loss of his future!

'Some of us mammals miss loved ones simply because they are gone (I’ve seen a cat die of grieving her sister): that simplicity was apparently beyond Albus.'
And some animals will eat their own young! :D

Albus Dumbledore was a flawed man and a great man. When Arianna died, he snapped back to his senses and spent the rest of his life atoning for that mistake by protecting the children of the wizarding world. I always saw his attempted use of the stone as a way to apologize to the one child he couldn't protect. If Fawkes is anything besides a really cool pet, then I think he is a symbol of the change Dumbledore went through - arising from the ashes of his old life into the new.

Teal Deer Ends

In conclusion, Albus = awesome and terri_testing and her ilk need to stop over analyzing a children's book series. Also, I want a pet phoenix.

-pennagal_girl

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pathology_doc

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Time:	2009-09-26 11:13 pm (UTC)

I always saw his attempted use of the stone as a way to apologize to the one child he couldn't protect.

I hadn't looked at it this way, but I agree with you. Though I'd put it as "Hadn't been able to protect", since ultimately he knew he couldn't protect Harry. It's possible he knew that Voldemort was Harry's Horcrux, but didn't dare let on because he needed Harry to want to die for Hogwarts in order to protect it from Voldemort. Part of me thinks this, and another part suspects he wasn't sure.

That doesn't stop it from having been a completely stupid thing to do under the circumstances - i.e. he lost his head and forgot the danger the object represented. I suspect he was scared that destroying the Horcrux might damage the powers of the Stone, and he couldn't deny himself something he'd waited all his life for. As he hinted to Severus and bluntly told Harry, that mistake alone was proof positive that he wasn't fit to possess the Hallows.

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September 26th, 2009

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