Hog’s Head PubCast #50: Two J.K. Rowling Interviews

Travis- congratulations on 50!!!

I have to listen to this PLUS your last 2 podcasts. You’ve got to slow down!!

Congratulations on reaching #50, Travis! Very much enjoy each one.

I thought your comments on fundamentalism interesting. That is, when you place it into its proper definition, or at least, its popular definition nowadays, it makes more sense. It’s a word that needs some unpacking. But the problem becomes in everyday discourse that it isn’t unpacked & so simply becomes a cipher. Calling someone a fundamentalist is a way of shutting down debate, like calling someone a racist or nazi.

It may be true, as you defined it, as someone who simply refuses to consider another person’s argument while steadfastly arguing against that argument. But it really is more pejorative than anything else nowadays.

I had forgotten about her comments about OOTP fans. It’s probably second on my list after COS. But I think people like it because here we’re finally getting into the tentatio of Harry. In OOTP Harry is finally starting to grapple with what it means to be the Boy Who Lived. He goes from hero to distrusted, disturbed boy. He grapples with his feelings of whether or not he’s into the power & glory of being the BWL, when he gets angry over Ron getting prefect. He deals with growing up & attraction to the opposite sex, which is hard enough in real life without all that’s going on in OOTP happening at the same time.

So, it’s just a deep book. Well written & engaging. It draws us into the questions & conflicts as well. I liked GOF but I agree with Travis. There’s so many plot holes in it.

Yes, that’ll be hard for the movies, since Luna has less prominence in HBP & DH. I hope they leave in the Rotfang Conspiracy, though, in HBP.

Yeah reyhan I pictured Luna more like that as well BUT the core of book Luna and Lynch’s Luna are the same. I love me some Luna. The ending of OOTP is so heartbreaking (where she has her belongings stolen.) It was the scene that got me to really feel for her and fall in love with the character.

Wow Travis – what a great podcast. I enjoyed your discussion about fundamentalism and feel like you’ve really hit the nail on the head. If you think about what fundamentalism really is, it isn’t such a “bad thing”, however, it has been hijacked by certain types of Christians. It reminded me of conversations I had with my mother – saying I wasn’t a fundamentalist or an evangelical, even though if I look up the definition of these words in the dictionary, I agree with them. There are certain fundamental things that I believe, and act on them. However, definitions or perceptions of words change in the vernacular (how well I know that with the word “theory” – so taken out of its meaning in science in its everyday usage). I agree with the others that it is now something I would NEVER want to be associated with, mostly because it brings up to me bigotry, hatred, and close-mindedness.

People who are afraid to listen to other points of view are a problem in both sides of a debate, but I especially see it as an issue as a Christian. How do you expect to grow in your faith if you don’t get challenged? How do you expect to know what you *really* believe if you are just surrounded by people who agree with you? Arrgh – it can be so frustrating sometimes – I feel as if some Christians are afraid of critical thinking, as if people haven’t gone through these same doubts and thoughts throughout history.

Thanks for bringing to light the view of HP as not an outright Christian book. I agree with librarylily’s comments (and I live in the same part of the country as her – go figure) about Christian “art” in general. I use art in quotes because I often don’t consider it art. In real art, your beliefs will naturally come out as you express yourself, rather than a forced art which starts with the message and then says “now what should I make so I can get his message across?” I feel like this difference is very obvious in Christian music, most of which I detest – you can always tell when it is Christian music because it has that certain pop sound, usually behind in the times. The really bad Christian music is music made to preach a theme. The really good Christian music (much rarer) has people making music and their faith comes out in it since they are making the music from themselves. You see this in good vs. bad Christian books and metaphors too. The better Christian authors aren’t outrightly trying to preach something but it comes out in their work (L’Engle, Tolkien, Lewis, Rowling, maybe even Bronte in Jane Eyre which I recently re-read) through themes but not directly applicable preachiness (I count “Left Behind” and lots of the stuff in Christian bookstores in this category). Personally for me, the most powerful books, music and other art are those in which the message comes through with metaphors and deeper themes – the “Great Myth” that Tolkien (or was it Lewis) mentioned. Oh, by the way, I see the great myth, or great story in art even by people who are not Christian – Buffy for instance.

Anyway, great podcast – I always love listening to you.

I need to think more about the fundamentalism thing to really say anything worthwhile about it.

But I do have a question, stemming from this quote by JKR referring to Evanna Lynch’s portrayal of Luna:

She was a perfect piece of casting, she is… she won’t mind me saying this, she is completely cool with this, she is Luna! (Dublin Q&A, my italics)

We all love Luna, but I’ve always had this sense in HP fandom that we wouldn’t necessarily hold Luna up as a great role model; or at least that we would be tempted to steer our kids more towards Hermione or Ginny as a role model long before Luna. And Rowling’s slip of the tongue here, I think, indicates this, as well — as if anyone would be insulted or worried about being compared to Luna’s “spiritual purity” (to rob Reyhan’s term).

What about Luna makes us weary of her? Or am I just misreading something (which is highly possible)?

She’s such an odd impression of doe-eyed naivetee that clearly isn’t naive — making her one of the top three compelling characters for me, behind only Snape and Dumbledore. I sometimes wonder if readers don’t see her, at least subconsciously, as a suspicious contradiction, one that cannot really exist.

One of the key problems with fundamentalism is what it’s become, and the context in which it was born. Fundamentalism came out of the era of creationism vs. evolutionism, particularly the events surrounding the Scopes trial. So those who still see the survival of the Christian faith as dependent on that particular battle have their faith defined in terms of a clash of scientific, supposedly atheistic modernism vs. theistic belief, naturalism vs. supernaturalism – and it’s all caught up in a culture war.

There are, of course, those who still hold to the “five fundamentals” (though how dispensationalism got wrapped up in the fundamentals will always be a bit of a mystery) and therefore might define themselves as fundamentalists. As sketchy as some of its origins might have bee, what fundamentalism has become is really the problem. The fundamentalist push against secularism and what they saw as a heretical “social gospel” of the “liberal” churches (some of which was true) has resulted in a separatist, combative stance against anything that might be perceived as a threat.

Dave,

I think there is a literary and cultural tradition of the fool who is actually a wise man.

The first such example which comes to my mind is the Fool in the Tarot deck: (from Wikipedia):

“The Fool is the spirit in search of experience. He represents the mystical cleverness bereft of reason within us, the childlike ability to tune into the inner workings of the world. The sun shining behind him represents the divine nature of the Fool’s wisdom and exuberence.”

There is also the Hanged Man: (from Wikipedia)

“The most common interpretation of the card is of an outcast of society that appears to be a fool but is in actuality completely in alignment and integrated. The inversion of The Hanged Man furnishes an advantage opaque and impenetrable to others.’

In literature, the first example to come to mind is Dostoevsky’s “Idiot”, Prince Myshkin: (from Wikipedia)

“By making Myshkin a paragon of kindness and humility, Dostoyevsky shows what can happen when such a man is confronted by society. Myshkin frequently confronts society’s norms with his “idiocy”, which is merely his apparently naive approach to life. However, it is merely a search for truth in human relationships, he is not naive about what others say to him and about him, he merely assumes they’re true because human beings should have no need for falsehood.”

Both the Hanged Man and Myshkin sound a lot like Luna.

There are also many classic fairy tales featuring three brothers who one by one go on a quest, and meet and fail to overcome a challenge to their mercy, compassion or good sense. It is always the third and last brother, regarded as a fool and least likely to succeed, who shows true wisdom and overcomes adversity.

I’m not sure whether you meant to write “weary” or “wary”. Certainly those people who don’t look or act like others are not easily accepted by society; it takes an evolved person to look beyond the disconcerting exterior to discern the spirituality within. I think Harry goes through just such an evolution, moving from being embarrassed by Luna’s quirks to appreciating both her loyalty and wisdom.

What I’m trying to say is that it is a test of our character, not Luna’s, as to whether we can see and value her inner beauty. What Lynch does for us is to give voice and form to that beauty, so that the exterior looks like the interior.

But you know what? In the poll of who was the “goodest” character, Luna got the most votes, and this after starting as a write-in candidate. Which suggests that although we may be wary of her, we know what she is, and what she stands for.

Hey, this is my first comment, but I’ve been reading/listening here for a while. Nice podacst, but I feel the need to rush in and defend GoF. I think if you think about the situation, the plot makes perfect sense.

Hogwarts is, as we know, protected against apparation, and I think it silly to assume it is not also protected against other forms of magical trasportation such as floo-ing and portkeys (the only exceptions to this happen under the eye of Dumbledore). Now think about the third task… say a champion battles through countless enchantments and twists and turns to find the cup. Yay! They won…. now what? They have to turn around and battle their way back out again. I think that, partley to avoid that issue and partley to know for sure who was the first to touch the cup, it would have been made into a portkey to take the champion to the front of the maze (which of course is where Harry ends up after the graveyard as opposed to the middle of the maze). Therefore, the protections against portkeys would have had to have been lifted only over the maze and only on that day. So Moody/Crouch’s only opportunity to portkey Harry out of there would be to get him to tough the cup, because turning Harry’s toothbrush into one wouldn’t have done squat.

hope that made sense and I didn’t ramble too much. Thanks for the nice discussion. I enjoy it

Ah, well, I have another theory about that, but the point is that I don’t think that Gof is as ridiculous as it is made out to be

I agree that the plan was definitely more complicated than necessary, as Wormtail points out at the beginning, and I also agree that some of the complications are probably due to plot re-workings, but I still think it makes logical sense.

And you’re right, Travis, Dumbledore does portkey Harry in in book 5, and people floo in in book 6, but this is all with Dumbledore’s specific approval. I don’t think this could be done generally, given Draco’s struggle in book 6.

In a nutshell, I believe that the plan was 2-way: get Harry out of Hogwarts, but also get the Death Eaters in. The main evidence for this is 1) Voldemorts calls his Death Eaters together. I think this was meant to be more than just a show-off “haha, look I’m reborn.” party 2) The portkey takes Harry back, to a different place from where he left, so it’s not just a 2-way portkey: it’s a double-destination portkey. There would be no need for this if the plan was only to kidnap Harry.

I think the plan was to kill Harry, portkey all the Death Eaters into Hogwarts where the Minister, Dumbledore, and international representatives would all be there unsuspecting of an attack (and not suspecting Moody to be working against them), and to make a grand entrence/secure his rule all in one blow. This could only be done when the protections around Hogwarts were lifted, and therefore could only be done during the Third Task. This would definitely be in line with Voldemort’s damatic flair as well as his long-term goals, and while it might be somewhat stupid (the teachers can fight well, after all), he would have thought that with Harry out of the way, he would have free reign.

So, anyways, there’s my thoughts. It might be a bit of a stretch, but it works in my head.

Ned at al,

You can’t conjecture about Voldemort’s plan about what he would do after he a) was reconstituted and b) killed Harry because he is only a construct in the author’s mind. The question has to be: was it part of JKR’s backstory (that Voldemort planned to take over Hogwarts after killing Harry)?

I tend to think that is unlikely. While we know that JKR has worked out a lot of the backstory which she has yet to share with us, i.e. the past, I doubt that she has worked out what her characters would have done had their plans gone the way they planned, i.e. the second conditional tense. Why bother when you know it’s just not going to happen that way?

Here’s an example. In CoS, the Tom Riddle/horcrux plans to come back as a corporeal being by draining Ginny. Harry destroys him before that can happen. Did JKR plan what Riddle would have done had he come back to lie at that point? Of course not. She had other plans for him which required the diary-horcrux to be destroyed.

So I don’t think it works to argue that a plot line makes sense based on what might have or would have happened had it worked the way it ought to have. It didn’t and it doesn’t.

I am one of those who argue that the plot is full of holes because there had to be a major re-write. But I could also argue that as a typical megalomaniacal ubervillain, Voldemort overplanned his schemes, using many tortuous steps to accomplish what could have been easily done in a few simple, if unimaginative steps. The satisfaction of showing Harry (and his disloyal minions) how clever he was would easily outweigh the dicatates of common sense: letting fake-Moody just bob Harry over the head at Hogsmeade and apparate him to the cauldron.

Dr. Evil & his son, Scott, arguing over how to kill Austin Powers comes to mind.

Scott, “I’ve got a gun in my room. I’ll get it. Boom. He’s dead.”

Dr. Evil, “No we’re going to continue with ‘an easily escapable situation involving an overly elaborate and exotic death.’”

SeaJay mentioned Karen Armstrong, who has a lot of good things to say about fundamentalism. Her book The Battle For God is subtitled “A History of Fundamentalism”. (I imagine her thoughts in The Bible: A Biography are just a sample of what’s in this book.) She wrestles with using the term “fundamentalist” because of all the baggage it carries, but ultimately decides it is the best one.

She references two modes of thinking described by the Greeks: mythos, the mythical and mystical way of thinking; and logos, the rational and pragrammatic way of thinking. In premodern times, both modes of thinking were deemed important for discovering truth — logos helped us hunt, farm, and use technology, while mythos provided meaning and a spiritual framework in which to understand these activities.
In the modern world, though, mythos has been discredited; rational, scientific thought has been elevated as the only way of discoverig truth. This has posed a real crisis for religion. One response to this crisis was to seek to make faith rational and scientific; Armstrong calls this approach “fundamentalism”. Fundamentalism takes the mythos of a religious tradition and treats it like logos.

“Before the modern period, Jews, Christians, and Muslims all relished highly allegorical, symbolic, and esoteric interpretations of their sacred texts.” (11)

“[Fundamentalists] did not search for mystical meaning in the Bible, which [they] saw as a document that told the literal truth. The old myths were now seen as factual logos, the only form of truth that many modern Western people could recognize.” (138)

She also discusses the Scopes Trial, which Travis mentioned above. Before that the chief enemy of fundamentalists was Higher Criticism, but then it shifted to evolution.

“[Fundamentalists at the Scopes Trial] had tried — badly — to fight the view of the more radical secularists that religion was an archaic irrelevance, and that only science was important. They could not express this point of view effectively and chose the wrong forum in which to do it.” (178)

Even though the fundamentalists could not articulate their views well, Armstrong believes that mythos provides us something that logos cannot:

“The moral and spiritual imperatives of religion are important for humanity and should not be relegated unthinkingly to the scrap heap of history in the interests of an unfettered rationalism.” (178)

She explains that art (not religion) is often the way that many modern people experience the mythical mode of thinking.

The painting, sculpture, poetry, and drama of the early twentieth century were all quests for meaning in a disordered, changing world; they were trying to create novel modes of perception and modern myths. (168)

More than just a detailed history of fundamentalism, The Battle For God provides (especially in the first four “introductory” chapters) an approachable general intellectual history of the last few hundred years that can help us understand the importance of Harry Potter, mythopoeic literature, and art in general to us today.