Fascinating article

[icarus]

Harry Potter and the Banality of Evil

(Hey Brodie, does this sound familiar? Didn't we have this conversation back in March? *grins*)

Harry's punishment from Umbridge is similar to a scene in Kafka's The Penal Colony? Hmm.

'Beg Me For It' news. Well, I promised the next installment to my Beta today, but I've hit a snag in one scene. Almost there though.

Comments

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I know, you could paste your long spliced together email from a few months ago and have virtually the same article. Same references, same points... you don't mention Kafka, but then, it was OotP.

Do you have a pseudonym? ;)

The writer did bring out that point (about the evil resulting from mindless subservience, etc.) -- in the portion about Percy, where they call him a 'stuffed shirt' turned sinister when he smoothly joins the smear campaign against Harry.

I'm exploring more on that theme -- and Percy's role in the Death Eater run Ministry -- now actually.

I see my stories as running on a separate track from JKR's, and I'm suddendly surprised to realise they are parallel. For the time being. It think that I've made some good guesses from her books (it shows how well she uses foreshadowing), some lucky guesses, and I suspect we might be interested in some of the same themes. Which stands to reason, since there's a reason I'm reading her.

But I don't expect these courses to run parallel in the next two books.

The one thing I don't have in 'Beg Me For It' is a hero. Ron is more a soldier caught in the gears. Even he says that he's not Harry -- he could try to be a hero, but chances are - heh - he'd lose. And right there he proves he isn't a hero, because a hero is the sort of person who doesn't count the cost.

But then he goes on to say that why rely on chancy heroics when you can win with overwhelming force? It's the mindset of a soldier, even a general, the chess-player, that relies on the team but is impotent alone. Once Draco arrives, someone who's willing to take risks and in a sense act as a strange Harry-surrogate (though Harry and Draco's roles are very different as Draco's much less competent and independent) Ron not only wakes up, he has his army. If he had only been made aware of the fact he was a collaborator, he would have felt guilty, but nothing would have changed.

So JKR's and my tracks are guaranteed to diverge because of the personality of the main characters. Quothe the Raven (hedwig_the_owl) has a brilliant observation in the Percy chapter of 'Giving Notice' (hopefully that link will work) -- that Harry tends to lose chess games to Ron because he relies on only one piece and forgets the rest of his team. That is the essential difference between self-sacrifice and leadership. The Navy Seal vs. the Army.

Icarus (www.thedarkarts.com/authorLinks/Quothe_the_Raven)

[tinderblast.livejournal.com]

The writer did bring out that point (about the evil resulting from mindless subservience, etc.) -- in the portion about Percy, where they call him a 'stuffed shirt' turned sinister when he smoothly joins the smear campaign against Harry.

True, I forgot that - it's funny that he pinpointed how this 'new' Percy is now utterly sinister for some people, like himself, yet I'd argue that the online fandom at least have been predicting that Percy would 'go bad' for a while now.

I didn't, actually, in the sense of thinking that Percy would maybe be deluded about the Ministry but always having primary loyalty to his family. Guess I was wrong. I don't quite like the 'string him up' sentiments some people express about Percy, as I just feel that he shows such desperate ambition and such careful neutralisation of his family and past that it's hard to see his actions as anything more than a mis-guided attempt at self-improvement. And telling Mr. Weasley that it was his fault that the family were poor ... ouch. What a revealing and sad statement.

I'm exploring more on that theme -- and Percy's role in the Death Eater run Ministry -- now actually.

*cheers quietly and methodically in best Percy-mode*

I'm loving the hero discussion, but need to think more about it. I think I still have that knee-jerk 'anyone I like who isn't raping and pillaging is the hero' sort of mentality; I saw both Ron and Draco as 'heroes' just for being survivors, for getting through their situation somewhat intact.

Ron is more a soldier caught in the gears.

Hee. Arendt flashback.

The self-sacrifice vs. leadership point is really interesting. I think that the wizarding world places WAY too much emphasis on old Albus as their de facto, enabling 'saviour' and this is in part why the Ministry has such an impossible, draconian approach to governing. Neither system is fair or adequate (Dumbledore could refuse to help or share knowledge; the Ministry appear to be corrupt) but I think that this is, in part, Rowling's point.

The point about Lupin finding it virtually impossible to get a job thanks to new legislation is really important for several reasons, but in this context I think it points to either blatant prejudice running unchecked in the Ministry, or, general prejudice in the broader community. Either one shows great danger and incompetence. Yet when things go badly, the community call upon Dumbledore to fix everything, and a new kind of rule is instituted. This is a different version of the dynamic descried above in terms of Harry and Ron's chess games. I'll read the link in the morning.

It's late, I'm rambling ... night.

brodie

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

More later, and I got your email too (writing response) -- read these:

Fanfic contest general description (http://www.livejournal.com/users/blackfall/24647.html?thread=216391#t216391)
Fanfic contest categories A (http://www.livejournal.com/users/blackfall/24647.html?thread=219463#t219463)
Fanfic context categories B (http://www.livejournal.com/users/blackfall/24647.html?thread=219719#t219719)

On Percy: the fandom's too quick to jump to conclusions and forgets how JKR loves to jerk us around on judging good and evil. Remember what she's done with Snape? First he's the bad guy, then he's the bastard but good guy (maybe), then he's awful but chose the good so must be noble, now he's a sympathetic nerd... and JKR says to watch him. Of course we're going to see more of Percy, and it's not going to black and white.

I don't what's so evil about Percy doing something that's pretty damned common for someone in their late teens, particularly when they're going against the family grain.

'I'm going to be a musician, don't argue with me that it's impractical! You're just trying to stop me from doing what I love! You've never taken my music seriously.'

'I'm going to be Minister of Magic and don't argue with me about the morals of those I admire! You're just standing in my way! You've always been in my way.'

There's no difference, really.

Between the lines... he's having trouble fitting into Fudge's world, and blames his family, not the biased nature of that world. That's so common. Social risers go through that all the time. They either blame their family, or they blame themselves... and the successful ones almost always blame their family.

Eventually they discover that that world is closed; they can stand on the sidelines and be permitted to enter it temporarily, but really, unless you're born to it, you don't know the rules. The kids of a social riser are the only ones who stand a chance of really being part of the upper crust, no matter how successful he is, because there's an unwritten social etiquette that Percy is just discovering I imagine.

Hmm. And JKR is recently wealthy. I think I know the source of her Percy-understanding.

I touched on that a little bit in 'Name Dropping.' I'm familiar with the phenomenon because my father was a social riser, while my stepdad was born to a rather upscale 'realm' of millionaires and rebelled against it. I watched my middle class mother (who didn't give a damn about the social politics, she just liked the house) struggle through it all, not comprehending the social rules she was breaking left and right, rules my Dad struggled to manage and my little brother (and myself, to a lesser extent) knew like breathing.

Icarus

[tinderblast.livejournal.com]

Eventually they discover that that world is closed; they can stand on the sidelines and be permitted to enter it temporarily, but really, unless you're born to it, you don't know the rules.

Oooh, exactly. Poor Percy doesn't realise that there are hierarchies within hierarchies, and that some people (is invoking the Malfoys a huge cliche here?) would never accept Percy because he's an upstart and hasn't been in their circles since forever, etc. He's probably young and naive enough to not know that all the earnestness, diligence, and hard work in the world idn't going to help him, there. And yet there's that really sad part where Percy basically spells out that he feels as if everyone 'accepts' him in spite of his background and family, and means Fudge in particular, and he doesn't see how damaging this is (to himself, psychologically) to not just admit this, but endorse it.

They either blame their family, or they blame themselves... and the successful ones almost always blame their family.

That's so interesting. I don't think I've known that many, but that just seems like such self-defeating behaviour.


Re his late-teens behaviour: Marvolo has a great lj icon: there's a hazy silhouette of a t-shirt in the background, and in the foreground the lines 'I'd send my fucking Weasley jumper back too!' I killed myself laughing at it, there was something so condensed about that gesture. Everyone has fights with their parents, or feels like the family outcast, but there was something so extreme about Sending Back the Weasley Jumper that everyone talks abut it in hushed tones, both in fandom and canon.

Anyway, will respond more soon.

brodie

[tinderblast.livejournal.com]

Once it was made clear that Sirius was an outcast in his family (I think it was Pogrebin who called him 'the Black sheep,' lol) I started to see parallels between him and Percy. It's funny that Sirius is feted for his decision (if it was a conscious decision) to symbolically remove himself from his family, yet Percy is villified for the same set of actions. Both choices were ethical decisions, in a sense,

'I'm going to be Minister of Magic and don't argue with me about the morals of those I admire! You're just standing in my way! You've always been in my way.'

I wonder how Percy will cope with knowing that he's been used by the Ministry? While it's not absolutely clear that Fudge is deliberately targeting Percy as a Weasley with information, or if someone else is maniplating Percy via Fudge, it seems clear that Percy will probably have to choose to stick with the Ministry's revamped party line, or admit that he was wrong to place so much trust in it. I see him being more like Fudge and trying to live in a state of fetoshistic disavowal ('Voldemort might be back, but we still need those cauldron bottom reports'). But I can also imagine a scene of reconciliation with the Weasleys (well, maybe not with the kids, for a long time).

I'm going to go look at the contest links, now.

brodie

[tinderblast.livejournal.com]

I just looked at the definitions, and they're pretty concise and good. I guess genres are like pornography, that old standby --- 'I know what it is when I see it ...'

If the stories are all post-June 21, then we could actually give examples of stories from within the fandom that fit the criteria.

But the post-June 21 thing is actually the part that most bothers me. While I definitely see the merit in finding and feting new stories, I also think that the old stories and authors haven't really been given their due. Not properly. So I feel conflicted about that, as I just wonder if having this date as a cut off point will create a lot of ambiguity (first date of posting on a lj as opposed to at an archive, ongoing WIP's and series, etc.).

brodie

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I agree. I was thinking about that, too. Also, not every site lists when a story was written so I'm afraid people won't nominate those stories that don't have a date on them. Plus we'd have to check... it would be a big mess. The thought is to prevent the 'heavy hitter' stories from dominating as usual.

Icarus

[tinderblast.livejournal.com]

Oh, I can totally see what you mean there, as that thought about the heavyweights occurred to me, too.

I was wondering whether we could ask people to say *why* they were nominating a story - for interest's sake, and to create a little more self-consciousness about the nomination process.

We could either send an e-mail to the author asking for the date of initial online publication, or else go by the story's archiving on a major site ... but this seems like unnecessary work.

brodie