DH meta: On Potter and Dickens and why I need a Big Point (SPOILERS)

[westernredcedar]

Oddly, this has a spoiler for Dicken’s “Bleak House”, in case anyone cares.

So, I was responding to snegurochka_lee’s fascinating and glowing response to DH with my curmudgeonly issues, and getting really cheesed off at myself. Why do I need a Big Point to the books, anyway? Why is it so important to me that the deaths in it have a point? Can’t it just be that war is hell, and random people die, and it doesn’t all have meaning? Why can’t I just accept the tale as told and enjoy it? After all, I read it in ten straight hours. It can’t be a bad story, right?

Then I went to the place where I always get my best ideas- the shower- and it blinked on during the shampoo, the lightbulb I’ve been waiting for.

*lightbulb*

I want a Big Point and symbolic, meaningful character arcs, because that is the genre JKR has been writing in throughout the series. She has been writing in the genre perfected by my man Dickens.

In Dickens, characters, events, coincidences, fates are all tied up in the overarching web of social issues and morality. Nothing happens by chance, everything is imbued with meaning, so that if, as in “Bleak House”, Jo the street urchin dies, it is not just because “that’s what happens,” it is because of a complex set up of symbolic events that have lead to his death- in that case, his being ‘moved along’ by all of the other characters in the book, even as he offers help and tries to get help in return. Dickens is criticized for this type of writing all the time, but regardless of how one feels about him as an author, it is his genre and his way of communicating the Big Points in his novels.

Why do I think JKR was writing in Dickens’ genre? Many reasons. The coincidences, the minor characters that are actually very important later in the book, the symbols, such as Fawkes, the threads of mystery and mistaken identities and lost parents, the embedded social issues. Like Dickens, her characters are generally flat. So, you get Lockhart as arrogance and deceipt, and Hermione as book-learning, and Ron as friendship, and Lily as good, and Remus as the oppressed, and Voldemort as evil. I know this is not a unique point, and I have no doubt better minds than mine have outlined the similarities between Rowling and Dickens. I’ll just give a couple of examples to firm up my point.

In CoS, when Lockhart is obliviated while trying to obliviate the trio, that is a lovely Dickensian moment. That is a demise that means something, that is its own symbol, that tells us as readers what to think about arrogance and lying. Even the first major character death, of innocent Cedric, means something by being meaningless, and we learn about the cruelty of evil because of it. Then from Sirius’s death we learn that in war, nothing is certain, and that impulsivity has it's price. He was the symbolic character to teach us that.

If I am reading a book in the genre of Dickens, I expect that the events of the climax will bring together not only the symbolic character motifs, but also have a deeper meaning, based on what each event or character has come to symbolize throughout the book- as Lockhart’s demise did, as Jo the street urchin’s did.

Now I can start to see where my disappointment in DH comes from. In DH, the character arcs and symbols don’t resolve into any recognizable patterns. There was a reason many of us expected Snape to die saving Harry in some way. It was because, symbolically, that made sense, it gave the character arc closure in the way you would expect from this genre. (And I must add that I think it is possible to have satisfying symbolic conclusions and still write a surprising and original novel, not just a dull romp through what we all thought was going to happen.)

So if Remus is going to die, for example, and he is a symbolic character for the oppressed, then what happens to him should give us, as readers, some sort of message or meaning about the fate of the oppressed. Or if he is now the symbol of fatherhood, then we need an ending that embraces him as a father or informs us in some way about it. Killing him as yet another symbol of the tragedy of war misses the point of his character being part of this fictional symbolic world. If you set up Fred and George as the power of laughter over darkness, then you cannot kill them off, unless your message is that the power of laughter is meaningless.

It is not just that I want it that way, it is that the books have been written in a genre that demands that type of reading, and not getting it is very unsettling.

To put in concisely, I want a Big Point because JKR set me up to want a Big Point in the way she wrote the books, and I feel cheated.

This all came out much more clearly when I was talking to myself in the shower, but I wanted to write it down before I got into too much of a muddle again.

PS I love Dickens.
PPS I still love Harry Potter too.

Comments

[moonlightnrain.livejournal.com]

A big, orgasmic YES!!! Thank you, this sums up many of my feelings so very well.

Hedwig was also a good symbol of war being random. I mean there are all these people flying through the air trying to kill each other, and Hedwig should be fairly shielded with being in a cage and between Harry's knees. And yet? She's the first to go down. Okay, we get the "young innocent in the wrong place at the wrong time" point (though I would argue that Hedwig was never all that innocent, but this is my own pet pet peeve, so I won't digress further).

I would also argue that Sirius showed us that being caught up in the excitement of war was folly. This is portrayed better in the movie version, IMO, but it's still there in the book, and is a lesson that really needed to sink in to our three Gryffindor heroes.

Someone pointed me to an article that was pointing out that JKR

[moonlightnrain.livejournal.com]

Sorry, was in process of deleting that last sentence and it sort of got away from me.

What I was trying to say was that I've been reading lots of articles and posts about the subject, so I'm not sure where I read it, but someone was saying that it seems as though JKR was not even aware of the story she was writing: a story of love and redemption... for Snape. If she were, I'd argue, we'd get a hell of a lot more than a throw away line from Harry in the epilogue about Snape being brave.

[westernredcedar.livejournal.com]

I would also argue that Sirius showed us that being caught up in the excitement of war was folly.
Ooo, such a good point and a great read on that moment. Love it!
I'm chuckling about your orgasmic response! That is pretty awesome. Your point about Hedwig is great- JKR does know how to do the satisfying and meaningful end, doesn't she? She just didn't do it for everyone, when she had set it up that she would.
Bah. Time to stop ranting and get back to fic. Yay!
PS Thank you so much for the pimp! eee!

[moonlightnrain.livejournal.com]

You deserved the pimp-age... it's a really interesting take.

[westernredcedar.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, don't confuse shower ranting with intellect. Ha.
I have been channelling my inner-nerd (not hard) to write this stuff because I haven't written any literary analysis or anything for 12 years either. I tell you, this book is motivating.
until you actually met my bloody family Hahahaha! Caricatures can live full and disturbing lives, can't they?
You are so right about this series having (in theory) the basic moral reasoning of children's lit (it doesn't have to be Dickens) and therefore a set of expectations comes into play. Exactly.
I love Pullman too. eep. And the last book of the trilogy was my favorite for its satisfying resolution. And my house is still not clean.

[deadskie13.livejournal.com]

::pokes head around corner:: Hello. Thought I would return the favor.

Mmm. I see what you mean. It's like every character is the representation of this stereotypical iconic figure, and that when that person falls, it's a bit like everyone they represent has fallen too, yes? And so when you look at it that way, they're all generic stock characters, to an extent. And so it's when you add the details that they start to take shape and become more and such. Which is very interesting.

Interesting, because we've known these characters for so long--they've been with us long enough to be alive, I mean. And so I think that's also why we feel cheated at certain parts. We feel cheated, because we want more. And it's not us wanting everything to go exactly as we percieve it--that's exactly right. It's more about us wanting to know why--why things didn't go the way we expected. Because we can deal with not being right, so long as there's an explanation behind it. And, explanations were lacking at times.

I recall being very disappointed with Lupin's death, myself. With a lot of deaths, actually. And the reason being, is I understand death is sudden and pointless more often than not. But it just got to be repetetive, after awhile. Boring, if you will. Like I'd become desensitized just because it was common practice. And so somewhere along the line, I stopped mourning the dead, and started shrugging and wondering who would be next. (Until Snape of course--for Snape is the exception to every rule.) But still, there it is.

[westernredcedar.livejournal.com]

Hooray! Return reading and commenting, I love it.
I think it is fascinating that the characters in HP, very much like Dickens, (as I drilled home in the above rant), are caricatures in many ways, but developed just enough to pop off the page and live. In particular for those of us who have committed time to helping them live by writing about them, thinking about their choices, their stories, their motivations, suddenly the life of these characters takes on real meaning. To see one (or many) of these lives ended meaninglessly is a huge disappointment. This is fiction after all, and it doesn't have to be, as blpaintchart says, "Rocks fall, people die." As you said, it does get boring, and pointless, and I read this type of fiction because it will have a satisfying and meaningful end where good, all good, triumphs.
I read other genres for the bleak and the pointless. :)
explanations were lacking at time
You said it with this one. This is why fic is really helping me, because so many writers around these parts are skilled at finding explanations and making sense of the story when it does not make sense on its own. That's my hope.
Snape. Gah. Yeah. I'm just not over it.

[deadskie13.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I don't care for Dickins myself, and so it was a point that I missed. And so I thank you for pointing it out. I have a bad habit of often just looking at a work in and of itself. (I tend to like to analyze words and plot instead of the influence of others.)

I think the reason a lot of people felt ripped off, is because they put a certain level of trust in Rowling. That she would do whatever it took to make the story work in the best possible way. And so they felt like that trust was violated, when things didn't work out to a satisfactory explantion.

And so I just try and remember that the bottom line is, she couldn't possibly please everyone. That this was her story to tell, and she told it. And that it's not her fault we latched onto it like we did. We were just going along for the ride, I mean. And got shocked when a tire blew. But, as you said, you can take your imagination and look into the imagination of others, and have the tire fixed in no time at all. It only takes a bit of magic.

(And, erm, I write too much--do forgive me.)

[timetiger.livejournal.com]

Very well said!

[westernredcedar.livejournal.com]

Thank you! And hooray for friending. *friending back*