Jo Rowling, Killer of Ambiguity

Speaking in New York this week, J.K. Rowling put an end to several burning fandom discussions (is Dumbledore really dead, is Snape really evil, a broad hint about whether Harry is going to survive the series--click through at your own risk). I'm not remotely surprised by any of her responses, but I am surprised that the usually close-lipped Rowling has suddenly decided to spill the beans on so many contentious issues. To be perfectly honest, I wish she'd kept mum. It's one thing to feel certain that a story will unfold in a certain way, and another to know that it will because the author told you. The former allows the reader to maintain a frisson of suspense, whereas the latter takes something away from the reading experience.

On the other hand, maybe Rowling is just as tired as I am of some of the more inane Potter-related speculation that's been floating around lately (Rowling should kill Harry because children need to learn about death is a recent personal favorite, but there are plenty of others). Anything that puts paid to the puzzling yet prevalent attitude that the books are being written by committee can only be a good thing.

Comments

Anonymous said…
To be honest I'm amazed anyone could have thought the opposite of spoler number 4, because it seems so obvious to me what she's setting up. Perhaps she doesn't think of it as much of a spoiler.

Besides, I'm betting there's a lot of more exciting stuff in book 7 she hasn't even mentioned, and she's off sitting on her piles of gold cackling madly about what she's going to unleash on the fans. Or so I like to imagine.
August 04, 2006 2:26 PM
Anonymous said…
Now, that the transcript ist out (at Leaky Cauldorn: http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/
#static:eventreports/jkrnycnight2), I think, that JKR is still ambiguous with her answers.
1 & 2 of the "spoilers" noticed by Lumos seem to be right, but they do not spoil much - at least in my opinion.
I also think 3 & 4 are right, but JKR doesn't says so. She makes clear, that Dumbledore is quite dead. I think that's no surprise for the most readers. As she doesn't answer the question, whether Dumbledore plays an important role in book 7, it seems he does - but it isn't clear.
Now, about the good Snape. Actually JKR says: "Well, Salman, your opinion, I would say is, right."
So what is Salmans opinion? Salman: "So, is Snape good or bad? In our opinion, everything follows from it." His opinion is, that it is most important, whether Snape is good or evil. Is that ambiguous, or not?

Have fun - Oliver
August 11, 2006 10:11 AM
Anonymous said…
I believe that Dumbledore is dead - but I just have this little block in the back of my mind that wonders how Rowling, if Dumbledore is truly dead, passed over an important detail. Every time the Avada Kedavera curse was used before Dumbledore, the victim just crumples and falls dead. Dumbledore, however, was shot up and backwards off the tower. Usually Rowling pays very close attention to such details. What's going on with this? Is it on purpose to give the readers some sort of hint, or was it an accident??
March 23, 2007 6:06 PM

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 2023 Hugo Awards: Somehow, It Got Worse

The last month has been a busy one in Hugo and Worldcon fandom. After the shock of the much-belated 2023 nominating stats, and their revelation of serious irregularities in the compilation of the award's ballot, there was a great ferment of conversation and action. Mainstream publications have caught wind of the scandal and publicized it far and wide . Turnover in the few permanent committees that oversee the Hugo trademark and intellectual property has been high . The poor folks at the upcoming Glasgow Worldcon have been scrambling to respond to the evolving situation and to distance themselves from the previous committee—including, most recently, making a laconic announcement that they would refuse any of Chengdu's passalong funds, the budgetary surplus that is traditionally bequeathed from one Worldcon to the next. And stats nerds—of which this community is, unsurprisingly, blessed with a surfeit—have been furiously crunching the nominations numbers and EPH calculations
Read more

The 2023 Hugo Awards: Now With an Asterisk

It's been a while since we've had one of these dramas. On Saturday, the nominating stats for the 2023 Hugo awards, which were announced in Chengdu, China in October 2023, were released to the public . There was a great deal of anticipation for these numbers, in no small part because of their much-delayed release. Though the WSFS constitution permits Hugo administrators to wait as long as 90 days before releasing the voting and nominating stats, most Hugo teams have them ready to go within minutes of the ceremony's conclusion. Chengdu, in contrast, waited the full allotted period, and even went a little bit over (the voting stats were released separately in December). Once the stats were released, it quickly became clear why the Chengdu Hugo team were hesitant to make them public. There are any number of irregularities and questionable choices in this document that suggest everything from erratic voter behavior, to incompetent collation and calculation of the nomination rank
Read more

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

The first thing that must be said about this movie is that it should not work. It's a prequel to one of the most mind-blowing, groundbreaking, and just plain revolutionary action movies of the 21st century—and prequels are a bad idea in most cases, but all the more so when the character they revolve around has already given you their entire backstory in their original introduction, which is also the final, culminating act of their character arc. (To put it another way, if you had asked me, nine years ago, which character I thought offered more fertile ground for prequel storytelling, Imperator Furiosa or Han Solo, I would have picked Han without a moment's hesitation, and I don't even like Han that much.) And it's a follow-up to a movie whose chief virtue lies in its conciseness—in being a single, drawn-out, pulse-pounding, increasingly deranged car chase. Which means you can either try to repeat that accomplishment, which will inevitably feel a bit old hat; or you can
Read more