The message I got from Dave’s article on the three brothers tale was that JKR is having a little fun by gently suggesting that in the end Harry Potter IS a tale for children and that perhaps we adults are getting a little carried away with ourselves and with our theorising, run the risk of becoming pompous like Xenophilius?

There was another point I wanted to make earlier: yes, Shakespeare’s plays are full of plays-within-plays, and yes they are self-referential: Puck’s “If we shadows have offended” speech from A Midsummer Night’s Dream comes to mind, as well as Jaques’ “All the world’s a stage” soliloquy from As You Like It. However, plays are different from novels: the audience is right in front of you and acknowledging them is in some ways more natural than pretending they’re not.

Which brings me to another reason why the interpretation of the Tale of the Three Brothers as a self-aware commentary dismayed me so much. A work of fiction requires a huge collusion between the writer and the readers; each side pretends that the things in the story are real or really happened. It’s a little like the Monty Python housing project built on hypnosis. As soon as either party stops pretending, then the whole thing comes tumbling down.

Reyhan, or another option for the power/longing/humility triumvirate is as a quick spelling out of the inner journey all three of them took at some point. The three character traits all apply to Snape, Dumbledore, and Harry at different times in their lives, though they may apply in varying degrees.

Assuming that the three brothers in the tale-within-a-tale correspond to three characters in the tale, who is who?

The brother who’s seduced by power (I think it goes a trifle beyond temptation) could be Gerrelt Grindelwald, or Albus Dumbledore, or more than likely, Voldemort himself.

The brother who is consumed by the longing to see his beloved again could be Albus Dumbledore, or, as you said, Severus Snape.

The brother who meets death cheerfully could again be Dumbledore, who actually set up his own death, or it could be Harry himself.

Voldemort, Snape and Harry seem to be the likeliest contenders to me, but that leaves out Dumbledore.

Then again, perhaps all of the brothers are aspects of Harry, who at various times is pulled by power (his initial blind impulse to go after the Hallows), the longing to see his dead (all over the saga, but especially in OotP), and who does walk staunchly to his death.

However, all the three of them were not afraid of death. So it doesn’t really match. The hero’s quest is not at all about conquering death (that is only Voldemort’s goal). It is about love defeating evil in different ways.

Three brothers – next generations, next levels of development.

This is where I really have to decide if I can put my money where my mouth is. I have been one of the proponents of the idea that the story, once published, has an independent existence outside of the author, so that what the author thinks about it and intended by it is of secondary importance – or even of very little importance, except to those who study the book academically. As such, it should not matter whether JKR intended parts of DH to be self-referential. The only question that matters is: is it a good story, well told?

Parts of it are. Other parts, not so much. But then, it’s a rare author of whom I can say that every word, every character, every sub-plot is a crucial and indispensible part of the story. We could all use some editing, I find.

So I can skip over the self-refential parts, and also the hanging around in tents, just as I’ve skipped over the Quidditch matches, the entire Cho sub-plot, and Molly Weasley’s annoying and semi-hysterical nagging.

I’ll be fine. A little disillusioned, but fine.

Actually, I guess I didn’t make it clear enough in the essay, but I think Rowling uses her “children’s story” more as a comment on the perils of interpretation rather than an acknowledgement that she’s only writing a children’s story. After all, “The Tale of the Three Brothers” proves to be far more than a simple parable for kids.

I actually like metanarrative moments in books and poems quite a bit — they’re one of my fascinations. And Bob is right, too; Shakespeare uses metanarrative techniques all over the place. There’s always some subplot or character (often a fool in a royal court) retelling the main story. Maybe the most famous is Hamlet’s writing of a short play retelling the murder of his father as a means of testing Claudius and Gertrude for their complicity. The whole scene is a loaded commentary on Hamlet’s mental state.

As a teacher, one of my favorites is a subplot in Don DeLillo’s White Noise depicting two academics, one devoted to Hitler studies and burdened by the fact that he can’t actually read or speak German. His friend is a professor devoted to “Elvis Studies”.

The thought that the Tale of the Three Brothers is actually JKR stepping outside of her narrative and acknowledging that she is writing a children’s tale, but wrapping that around a more mature theme, is disturbing to me. It makes me feel oddly betrayed – if one can be betrayed by a book.

This is a new thought, so I haven’t worked it through. But I think the betrayal comes from being willing to suspend my critical thinking about the writing and the story – especially the tedious and interminable hanging about in tents – for the sake of going along with the story. I put my faith in the story because even if I couldn’t quite accept it wholesale I believed that it believed in itself. It took itself seriously, and I was therefore prepared to do so too.

And now I find out that only one of us was serious? The story was saying: yes, I know I’m a children’s tale, but I have a serious message.

Doesn’t that make it an allegory?

I think there’s a broken covenant here. The covenant is that the meaning of the story has to be completely within the story. The story has to be able to carry the whole weight of the meaning. No outside references should be necessary.

I have thought about whether JKR has wrought a timeless tale, with a meaning that would resonate with people hundreds of years from now, like Dickens or the Brontes or Hugo. If she has to step outside of her story to give it meaning, then I don’t think that would be true.