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bronze_ribbons[This is part of a comment that ran away with me over at ![[insanejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/ij-userinfo.gif)
ellid's. Slightly revised, both for context and because I'm compulsive...]
I think of Rowling not as our era's Tolkien but as its Conan Doyle. Seriously: amazing characters, inventive plots, lots of inconsistencies and improbabilities, some sterling passages of writing (e.g., Snape's opening speech, the end of "The Final Problem") amidst long stretches of less inspired exposition (e.g., the Mormon backstory in A Study in Scarlet), and a relatively healthy attitude towards derivative works (Gillette to Doyle: "May I marry Holmes?" D to G: "You can marry him, or kill him, or anything you want"), and both creators notably less invested in their creations than their fans. Doyle was a good man who, among other things, made a fool of himself in public over his belief in the occult; judging from her other deeds to date, I'm likewise inclined to think of JKR as a good woman who just doesn't happen to be intellectually deep or consistent.
(And this is definitely a case of a pot calling a kettle black, because while I flatter myself as being somewhat gifted at brute analysis, I'm hopeless at philosophy, critical theory, theology, etc. I can't understand any of that stuff without a sharp pencil, a ream of scratch paper, and preferably someone else's study guide translating the thickets of theory and jargon into layman's language, and no matter how much time I spend on it, it all slides out of my head as soon as I put it away.)
Given how messy (IMNSHO) the final product is, I can totally see JKR having considered and/or believed multiple versions of her characters' fates during the, what, 15 years she was working on the series, and failing to remember that she'd disclosed one set of intentions to the public, etc. Again with the glass half-full schtick, it means the part of fandom that cares about authorial intention (i.e., the meta writers and lit crit folks) now has license to go to town, because if the writer herself can't keep track of her own plans, readers can favor widely divergent themes/theories... Given what has shown up in this year's fests in response to canon's plotholes/disappointments, I figure every time JKR initiates another wave of WTF it's more straw for fandom's geniuses to transform into entertainment gold.
ellid's. Slightly revised, both for context and because I'm compulsive...]I think of Rowling not as our era's Tolkien but as its Conan Doyle. Seriously: amazing characters, inventive plots, lots of inconsistencies and improbabilities, some sterling passages of writing (e.g., Snape's opening speech, the end of "The Final Problem") amidst long stretches of less inspired exposition (e.g., the Mormon backstory in A Study in Scarlet), and a relatively healthy attitude towards derivative works (Gillette to Doyle: "May I marry Holmes?" D to G: "You can marry him, or kill him, or anything you want"), and both creators notably less invested in their creations than their fans. Doyle was a good man who, among other things, made a fool of himself in public over his belief in the occult; judging from her other deeds to date, I'm likewise inclined to think of JKR as a good woman who just doesn't happen to be intellectually deep or consistent.
(And this is definitely a case of a pot calling a kettle black, because while I flatter myself as being somewhat gifted at brute analysis, I'm hopeless at philosophy, critical theory, theology, etc. I can't understand any of that stuff without a sharp pencil, a ream of scratch paper, and preferably someone else's study guide translating the thickets of theory and jargon into layman's language, and no matter how much time I spend on it, it all slides out of my head as soon as I put it away.)
Given how messy (IMNSHO) the final product is, I can totally see JKR having considered and/or believed multiple versions of her characters' fates during the, what, 15 years she was working on the series, and failing to remember that she'd disclosed one set of intentions to the public, etc. Again with the glass half-full schtick, it means the part of fandom that cares about authorial intention (i.e., the meta writers and lit crit folks) now has license to go to town, because if the writer herself can't keep track of her own plans, readers can favor widely divergent themes/theories... Given what has shown up in this year's fests in response to canon's plotholes/disappointments, I figure every time JKR initiates another wave of WTF it's more straw for fandom's geniuses to transform into entertainment gold.
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