Reading Between the Lines of Harry Potter – Part 3

Hermione Granger Is A Racist

Well hello again! As you may know, in my last two posts, I’ve been “reading between the lines” of Harry Potter- and if you don’t know what I’m talking about you can catch up with part 1 and part 2 here and here. Today I’m going to fill you in on the last piece of the puzzle. Because now that we’ve confirmed that Voldemort (in the guise of Ron) is really the victim and Harry is the villain- what does that make Hermione? Well I’ll tell you: a racist. “How did I reach that conclusion?!” I hear you ask- allow me to explain!

1. Let’s start with the obvious shall we: SPEW is clearly a cover for her to *spew* her racist beliefs. As a racist she would need the cover of pretending to help people so that she can really oppress them- classic racist behaviour!
2. Her parents are dentists and everyone knows all dentists are Tories- and everyone knows all Tories are racist. End of story.
3. J K Rowling obviously wanted to cover up the fact that she accidentally created a racist character and therefore she cast a black actress for the part- it’s a conspiracy dammit!! And that’s why the racists were so offended by this casting- we got one of their own! 
4. Why is Hermione so offended about being called a “Mudblood”? Obviously it’s not cos it’s an offensive term (as a muggle born she doesn’t even know what it means at first, just sayin’)- it’s because they’re stealing her limelight as the biggest, baddest racist on the block!
5. Come to think of it she probably has a thing about “pure bloods”- bet she says that with a sneer.
6. What? You wanted more of an explanation? Haven’t you learnt to read between the lines yet? Oh, alright then…
7. When Hermione dresses up she reveals her *true* colours. Namely, at the Yule Ball she wears blue (for tories) and at Bill and Fleur Weasley’s wedding she wears purple (the colour of Euroscepticism!) That tells us everything we need to know! I bet she voted Brexit as well- the animal.

One of these days you’re all gonna say I’ve gone too far with these satiric posts!

(At least I hope not!)

Now that I’ve successfully ruined Harry Potter for you all I’m going to go hide under a rock and hope that the Potterheads don’t get me! Any good tips on where to hide? Preferably somewhere in the Muggle realm- I don’t want to run into any pissed off wizards now that I’ve slandered, ahem, revealed their heroes for who they really are…

Reading Between the Lines of Harry Potter – Part 2

Harry Potter Is the Real Villain and Voldemort Is Just an Innocent Bystander

Okay, so if you’re back for more, that clearly means you’ve read my last post and whole-heartedly agree that Ron Weasley is the Dark Lord. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can check out my last post here, where I’m quite confident of convincing you of my whack-job conspiracy theories, ahem, I mean absolutely genius epiphany. Now I’m about to explain to you why Harry Potter is the *real* villain of the story- buckle up cos you’re in for quite a ride!

1. The Dark Lord is obviously a misnomer- who would name themselves the Dark Lord and actually be evil with it? That’s obviously a red herring. Presumption that Voldy is evil: debunked!
2. Voldemort lit-er-ally means “flight from death”- who would call themselves that if they wanted to kill people? They obviously hate death more than anything!
3. Voldy has to spend so much of his adult life in hiding cos everyone is mean to him. Especially Dumbledore, who wouldn’t let him fulfil his lifelong ambition of corrupting, ahem, I mean moulding the minds of kids
4. Harry Potter’s clearly a psycho- I mean did you see him flip out in book 5? And did you read what Rita Skeeter said about him? Why on earth would she lie- I mean, she’s a journalist! He’s clearly so schizo he doesn’t even remember the interview going down like that- how could we possibly believe any of his accounts after that?
5. History is written by the winners- which means that Harry and his cronies are liars and we can’t trust anything they say. In fact, we should believe the opposite- conclusion HARRY IS EVIL!
6. Ermm I’m running out of ideas- will “because I said so” work again?
7. Oh I’ve got one- Harry where’s glasses, and as a glasses wearer myself I know that glasses wearers are never to be trusted
8. Come to think of it- one of his main descriptors is his knobbly knees- and you should never trust someone who has knobbly knees (you should also never trust anyone that says “trust me”- trust me on that one)

Well- I hope you are all sufficiently enlightened after that! And if not- what’s the matter with you- didn’t you “read between the lines” like I did? Jeez! I’ll be back tomorrow with the last lesson on the matter- hopefully you’ll get the picture then!

Reading Between the Lines of Harry Potter – Part 1

Ron Weasley Is Secretly the Dark Lord

So if you read my last post, you will know what a “fan” I am of people saying “read between the lines” (and if you don’t know you can read my rant here). After that post I just thought it would fun to share an example with you all of how you can read between the lines of just about any book! And since it seems to be Harry Potter month on the Blogosphere, I thought what better time could I have to write out my “best” interpretations of Harry Potter. Today- I’ll be starting off by debunking the biggest Harry Potter myth of all: that Ron Weasley is Harry Potter’s loyal friend and sidekick. THE TRUTH WILL SHOCK YOU- because I’m about to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that Ron Weasley is in fact the Dark Lord:

 

1. Ron seems particularly fond of calling the Dark Lord HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED- obviously that is something Voldemort would do, as he would want to make people more afraid of the Dark Lord himself
2. In the earlier books Ron’s never in the same place at the same time as Voldemort- coincidence? I THINK NOT! (obviously when they are in the same place at the same time it’s cos of the whole “split soul personality disorder horcrux” thing- duh- I mean, read between the lines!)
3. He harbours resentment towards Harry for being the Chosen One- he pretends this is just jealousy to cover up the fact he is the Dark Lord
4. He harboured his buddy Peter Pettigrew for years, pretending he was just a harmless rat called Scabbers, and then played innocent when the jig was up (the duplicitous snake!)
5. Did you ever read Molly’s version of giving birth to Ron? No? Well nor did I! That obviously never happened
6. If I was the Dark Lord, I’d also want to hide in plain sight, but I’d want to be someone no one would suspect: that’s why he picks a pure blood family with a soft spot for muggles- no one would suspect!
7. And lastly, the most important reason of all… because I said so!

Still not convinced? Well here is a pic you can’t argue with:

Caught in the act! Stay tuned for part two where I will reveal more Harry Potter theories truths to you all!! And I’m not going to ask if you agree with my interpretation- because if you read between the lines you are certain to reach the same conclusions I did! 😉

Reading Between the Lines Is Not A Thing

*Warning: I’m talking about one of my biggest pet peeves- this may get ranty*

Hi all! So I’m gonna start by laying all my cards on the table. In my last post I admitted to committing the cardinal reading sin of just assuming a character was gay. While this is a somewhat popular theory around the book, I didn’t bother to back up my point, cos I know that while I was reading this was something that I just felt rather than based on any textual logic. Admittedly we all do this from time to time- and as long as we accept that these are fanfic-y assumptions we have made and not actual facts, we can all go along with our lives quite swimmingly.

The problem, for me, arises when people present what is actually a very flimsy opinion as fact. I cannot tell you how many times someone has said “well I just think so-and-so was secretly in love with so-and-so” and when I ask for evidence of this they just say “read between the lines!”

No, just no. That is not how analysis works. I’m gonna come right out and say this: there is no such thing as reading between the lines. I mean if you step back and think about it, what is actually in the blank space between the lines, except maybe a few scrawled notes we may have made? (yes I’m guilty of writing in books- it’s not sacrilege if you’ve ever been an English Lit student!) As self-referential as we may like to be, it is hardly good academic practice to say: “well I think so-and-so was in love with so-and-so- because that’s what I wrote in my notes!” Good analysis actually requires going back to the source material and showing that this is the case.

Remember what your primary school teacher said about how, when you construct an argument, “you can say anything as long as you can back it up”. Well- we need to go back to that- with an emphasis on that last part! Because at some point, when you make a claim, someone will say “prove it”.

More than that, we need to remember that sometimes the evidence is weighted in the other direction and an interpretation can be wrong. Because sometimes, someone can show evidence to the contrary that fits the story better. And also, to be absolutely clear, the absence of evidence is not evidence! (No matter how hard someone tries to convince me that, say, Mr Rochester is a zombie, I’m guessing that I will remain unconvinced). It’s obviously fine to have parallel convictions about what a book means, but sometimes opinions contradict each other and- this may come as a shock to some people- only one person is right.

And that’s a good thing- that’s the whole purpose of debate! We are actually trying to reach some sort of conclusion! When someone says: “I don’t agree with that interpretation, where’s the evidence for that?” it’s ridiculous to just throw up your hands and say “read between the lines!” Because that is not an argument. And if you say that, don’t expect me to take you seriously.

Okay- phew- glad to get that off my chest! What do you think? Are you open to more vague interpretations or are you more finicky about these things like me? And do you have any reading pet peeves that make your blood boil?