Hofmeyr, Rowling, Smith

[bronze_ribbons]

"Characters certainly develop as you go along, so much so that you find yourself looking in shop windows and choosing things for them." - Dianne Hofmeyr

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"Dorothy L. Sayers, who is queen of the genre said — and then broke her own rule, but said — that there is no place for romance in a  detective story except that it can be useful to camouflage other people's motives. That's true; it is a very useful trick. I've used that on Percy and I've used that to a degree on Tonks in this book, as a red herring." - J.K. Rowling, in answer to an interview question about the romances in Half-Blood Prince [emphasis mine]

(Yes, yes, there are many ways one could interpret this. Me, I want the more interesting theories to prevail.)

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. . .There are days
where I care for nothing but the dignity
of these birches, this solemn green water,
the wild geese in formation below cumulus clouds,
days beside the river when I have no desire
for anyone's trouble, not even my own
or an angry child's, the one who crawled
onto that precipice jutting over the river to scrawl
a name and a curse onto the limestone wall.

- Katherine Smith, "The Serpent," in Shenandoah (Spring/Summer 2005)

Comments

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

(Yes, yes, there are many ways one could interpret this. Me, I want the more interesting theories to prevail.)

Me, too.

[catrinella.livejournal.com]

What?!?!? Penelope Clearwater really is Percy's beard?

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

So it's not just me asking "the hell...?", eh?

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

It's funny - when Tonks first arrived on the scene, I mentally paired her with Lupin, without even really thinking about it. I realized a little later that this pairing of mine was a bit odd, since Tonks had a miniscule role in that book, but that's what my brain wanted. I later found out that I wasn't the only one, but that we were widely regarded as crazed. However, although I really like the idea of Tonks and Lupin together, I think Rowling handled it pretty clumsily in the most recent book, and that red herring plan failed resoundingly and made both Tonks and Lupin weaker characters for it. I have, of course, retrofitted the whole think in my brain. *g*

This is probably another indication of how my brain just doesn't see slash, even when it's lit up like a neon sign for many other people.

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

I would be pleasantly surprised if what is going on is actually slash (as I've written before, I have a tendency to favor pairings I consider authorially unlikely, and much as I admire JKR, I don't see her blazing that particular trail...), but I do suspect there's something awfully peculiar about Tonks's tendresse for Lupin -- and I fancy Remus has his own suspicions as well. There's certainly a fair amount of wishful thinking involved on my part, but it comes down to my sense that he's a smart guy, he's privy to a lot of information and perceptions Harry doesn't have access to, and that, if he had really wanted to, he could have dispatched the real Tonks within five minutes if they'd really had that discussion about him being too old and dangerous "a million times."

That said, I'll also be really surprised if Tonks, Lupin, and Snape make it through Book 7 alive. I'm steeling myself for the worst...

[catrinella.livejournal.com]

I've already decided that I'm Just. Not. Going. To. Read. It.

There - problem solved!