Re: Dumbledore's Death Denial Club

I love the way in which you put a nice space at the beginning of the message
to avoid a plot spolier, yet you give away the spoiler in the subject line!
My wife's just about to read the HBP and I'm having to keep her away from
the laptop.
"Tim Peters" <tim.one@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:o6SdnVkCfohsoZ_eRVn-ug@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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> [Tim Peters]
>
> <most of a longish JKR interview slice got snipped here>
>
> >> JP: Is it going to upset people?
> >>
> >> JKR: Yes. It upset me. I always knew it was coming, but I managed
to
> >> live in denial, and carry on with the character and not think about
> >> it.
> >>
> >> How bloody definitive could she be? Well, even that wasn't enough:
she
> >> did not literally say "Sirius is dead" there, and legions refused to
> >> believe it.
> >>
> >> I figure people overall were a lot more attached to Dumbledore than to
> >> Sirius, so JKR may have to say "D is dead" thrice this time around ;-)
>
> [Dark Magic]
> > Nonsense.
>
> That's the spirit ;-) Anything in particular, or everything?
>
> > First, Rowling has resurrected the dead twice already in her
> > story, Pettigrew and Crouch were both definitely dead, witnessed
> > and everything, and yet they reappeared.
>
> A difference is that their (supposed) deaths occurred in the dim past. We
> didn't see them thru Harry's eyes, Harry just heard about them from
others.
> Harry was _there_ when Cedric and Sirius and D bought it, and in the case
of
> S held out desperate hope until reality sunk in.
>
> > Second, Sirius' death was silly. People just don't die from falling
> > through a curtain, even in her fantasy world it's unbelievable.
>
> Yet I believed it ;-) Of course it wasn't just a curtain, else Sirius
would
> have popped out the other side again, and it wouldn't have been in the
> Department of Mysteries to begin with if it were a harmless bit of cloth.
> The implication is that it was a gateway to (some Potterverse version of)
> the hereafter. I expect we'll learn more about it in book 7. If not,
fine,
> he's still dead ;-)
>
> > Death by Avada Kedavra, yes. That we've seen. Trampled by a Hippogriff
> > that also I could believe. Devoured by a giant Spider, sure. With
> > Sirius we have no cause of death, no corpse, it's just very implausible
> > in the story and I don't care how many interviews she has to do to
> > explain her plot, it's still implausible.
>
> I'm not arguing that Sirius's death was 100% convincing within the book,
and
> I'm certainly unhappy that sometimes JKR has to let interviews explain
what
> the books _should_ have explained better. For another example of that,
> there's the whole "a Pensieve memory reports objective reality, not the
> memory-holder's subjective impressions" business -- the books don't even
> begin to make that point, only her interviews do.
>
> But given that's how it is, I give the interviews as much weight as the
> books, and you snipped a great many of JKR's words from the interview
above
> that are simply impossibly strained to read as holding open that Sirius
> didn't die in OotP. There are sufficient clues within OotP too, although
> not nearly as many as for D's death in HBP. The most obvious was Lupin
> saying at once:
>
> "He can't come back, Harry," said Lupin, his voice breaking as
> he struggled to contain Harry. "He can't come back, because he's
> d ---"
>
> at which point Harry interrupted. In desperation, we might hope that
Lupin
> was going to say "because he's doing his hair", or even that Lupin was
> mistaken. But why would he be? He's the more knowledgable wizard here,
and
> he obviously believes Sirius is dead. It takes major contortions to
believe
> that he's wrong at that point, not to believe that he's right. To
> underscore it, Harry spends the rest of the book failing to convince
himself
> Sirius didn't die. I expect JKR was inviting the reader to take this
> journey toward acceptance with him.
>
> > Now with Dumbledore we have a definite cause of death. Avada Kedavra
> > kills people, it's killed people before, we know all about it. (How
> > many wizards have fallen to their doom through the curtain? I'd like
> > to know) Dumbledore's body was lying in full evidence, death doesn't
> > get much more certain than a corpse. And Dumbledore actually had a
> > funeral, an actual encasement in a tomb that we witnessed along with
> > Harry. There can be no legitimate doubt that Dumbledore is dead.
> > There is no need whatsoever for Rowling to reassure or reiterate the
> > fact, the story itself makes the fact crystal clear and undeniable. You
> > still can't say that about Sirius Black.
>
> You haven't seen postings claiming D is alive? I have. And, yes, to me
> they carry much the same flavor as post-OotP "Sirius is alive!"
speculation.
> In reality, posters do know about JKR's interviews too, and it took major
> acts of willpower to ignore or misread (or just snip <wink>) JKR's
> exceedingly clear interview statements about Sirius's death.
>
> She hasn't been as redundantly clear about D's death in interviews yet,
and
> if you're inclined to believe it, of _course_ the greatest wizard in the
> world could fake his own death convincingly. Every evidence of his death
is
> then seen as just more evidence of how well D planned it. For those
people,
> ya, it's going to take JKR literally saying "Dumbledore is dead" -- and
even
> then some will hang on through the end of book 7. Indeed, it will be
wholly
> consistent with the rest of the story to believe D _is_ alive, but for
> loving reasons beyond our understanding chooses never to make an
appearance
> again ;-)
>
>


.

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