This morning, I got up early enough to make it to the hotel for a small press gathering with Jim Dale. In the next week or so, I’ll do a podcast with audio clips and reflections on that. His talk was excellent; he’s a very engaging speaker.
My second talk went well, I think. ”Hogwarts, A (Haunted) History” is still a bit organizationally challenged, but it was well-received, and I was pleased that well over half the people in the room were Lovecraft fans. What is particularly validating for me was this simple observation from James Thomas: Fear and Sacrificial Love are the two key thematic elements of the series. My two talks were on those two precise themes, and, in fact, I constructed the major thematic analysis in my book around those two key themes. I feared, to an extent, that I had oversimplified, but I am more convinced than ever that those two issues are at the crux of the series, and that they make up the central conflict in a series that is “about death” – and that all the issues of power flow from there.
The rest of this afternoon will be spent enjoying other talks without having to think about my own. I’m meeting for “afternoon tea” with James Thomas, trying to arrange a few other meetings, and hopefully, if our schedules work out, grabbing a beer later with a friend from the Boar’s Head Tavern (great name, right?) later tonight. Next on the schedule, I’m heading to hear Edmund Kern argue that “King’s Cross” in Deathly Hallows was entirely Harry’s imagination, and that Dumbledore wasn’t really there at all. I disagree, but it will be fun, and I do admit Rowling left the ambiguity there on purpose. This afternoon, I’m utterly torn between three different presentations. I need a Time Turner. Too bad they all got smashed.
PotterMom05 on 
Joivre on 
Red Rocker on 
Arabella Figg on 
korg20000bc on 
Travis Prinzi on 
Loading ...
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Kern’s presentation sounds interesting. Good luck arguing for or against something that is deliberately ambiguous.
Although I’m generally in agreement with you, Travis, that the King’s Cross scene is real. But I won’t definitively say that.
I just re-read King’s Cross and the conversation with Dumbledore’s portrait at the end of the book. I’ve always believed that the two conversations are actually one interrupted conversation, and that that was the proof that King’s Cross was “out there” real. But I see that there is nothing in the last conversation that directly refers to something which was only referred to at King’s Cross.
But still, I believe. I believe because I wish to believe. I agree that the author left it deliberately ambiguous, capable of different interpretations. Which raises a very interesting possibility. She left it so ambiguous that she too has the freedom to believe – or not – as she chooses.
How cool is that?
Red Rocker, that’s precisely it! Choose to believe.
And I find it hard to imagine that after she emphasizes that point consistently, in the previous pages, that she’s not asking us to “choose to believe” it really happened.