The fans did it better

[branchandroot]

Annotating HP Philosopher's Stone, I think I've put my finger on one of the major points I have long felt make Rowling a bad writer. (Often charming, sometimes engaging, but still bad.) She makes a lot of use of exaggeration, which is a perfectly useful approach, and one often employed in children's lit. Unfortunately, she only uses it about half the time. Having Harry completely unaffected by what would, realistically, be vicious abuse from the Dursleys, and then turning around and having Draco and Ron play out class conflict absolutely straight, to take only two examples, just confuses the narrative. When using that kind of style, one needs to either exaggerate with sideways touches of realism, as in Roald Dahl, or else use realism with sideways touches of exaggeration, as in Dickens. Splitting it half and half doesn't work.

It doesn't help that she also deliberately opens up the question of moral ambiguity and mistaken perceptions by presenting Snape, who is very nasty to Harry and clearly dislikes him immensely and incidentally looks unappetizing, yet is still a good guy (thus breaking the otherwise thick streak of "your looks equal your character" in the book)... she presents this, as I say, but only for that one character. Everyone else is equally beaten with the black-and-white allegory bat of Harry's moral perception, but the implications that likable people are good and unpleasant people are bad are let to stand. In light of this, it once more fails to surprise me that so many fans went to such lengths to explore the space Rowling opened by implication but never carried through on, to recuperate Draco or show Dumbledore's darkness.

In a nutshell, Rowling is desperately inconsistent, and anyone who wants to engage with her books on more than a surface level is going to have to do all the world-building work themselves. She left it, not just unfinished, but barely started.

(But I am not, not, not going to be drawn back to working on "The Bells of Rhymney", despite the fact that the whole issue of house elves [see brownies] and enslavement and Hermione really does want attention. Not.)

Comments

[chronolith]

I think fundamentally she's lazy. She has these twinges that she should be doing Something More but she can never really follow through with it.

The treatment of the Slytherins was finally what drove me to stop reading after book 5 or so because honestly what the hell is wrong with ambition and cleverness? not taking it personal. not not not And I really like the little snippets of what Pansy could be. Clever, sarcastic, a little mean, but ultimately a girl who knows what she wants and isn't afraid to get it. Of course that freaks out Harry, and he totally misreads her & Draco, but this isn't a shock.

I should go back to working on "Down To Nowhere." You've reminded me how much I like the Slytherin girls.

[branchandroot]

Yeah, most of the time I think Rowling didn't really know what she wanted to do and kept reaching halfway for something that could have been cool and then totally failing to follow through. And each reach conflicted with the last one, to add to the fun. She's just not a good writer.

Fortunate that fandom has some good writers on hand to make something better of the whole notion. *grins*

[aveleh]

I should probably reread (or read meta more), but I never really got that Snape was supposed to be *good*, just that he had made promises to be good in certain ways. That is, if he hadn't loved Harry's mother, he would have merrily been an evil-doer.

(Which actually pissed me off. I wanted him to be good, and remembered thinking that it was a cop-out.)

And agreed. Rowling is a middling writer, who needed a good strong editor's hand to reign her in. But man, she does totally manage to be compelling nonetheless :D

[branchandroot]

The "because he loved Lily" was a later addition, though, and doesn't show up at all in the first book. The first book is pretty straightforward that way; there's a moral sledgehammer, and there's a bait and switch with Snape, and neither is at all subtle. *snorts* And then Rowling changed her mind some more, which is why the sum of the seven is such a knotted up mess as far as character motivations and backgrounds go. Much argh.

[opusculus]

That makes a lot of sense, really. My predominate impression from the books was that Rowling wanted to write a much grander story than she was really capable of pulling off well, and that seems to go with the kind of inconsistency you're talking about. Especially in the second half of the series, where she was really going for something epic (which is really not what she's good at), and thus really needed a strong editor at about the time that I kind of doubt that they had the power to get through to her.

On the other hand, I doubt that the fandom would be half so thriving if she were a better author. Considering that I've gotten a lot more enjoyment of the fandom than the author over the years, I guess I can't complain much.

[branchandroot]

*nodnod* Yeah, I think it would have been a stronger series if she'd just stayed away from the epic and stuck with the charming school hijinxs.

*laughs* It's true! So much of the best work in fandom is all about fixing the glaring problems. I really do see it kind of like Gundam Wing fandom: the source touched on some really powerful chords in people's imagination, but they didn't have the proper id-setting, so fandom went and changed that.

[pineapplechild]

I was just about to mention the gundam wing comparison, and you beat me to it. *grins*

[branchandroot]

*laughs* Yeah, and also the craziness.

[pineapplechild]

and the ship wars!