Interesting debate

[gategrrl]

There's an interesting debate happening on John Scalzi's blog called What Authors Know About Their Characters. It was sparked off by JK Rowling's answer to a question about one of her characters, the now famous "Dumbledore is gay" answer. The main point in contention  seems to be, who is in control of the characters in a book - the author, or the readers? Who dictates the characters' realities? And what role does the reader play in the writer/reader collaboration?

I admit I tend toward Scalzi's point-of-view. I think the writer, whether the answer is there explicitly in the text or not, has the final say as to what a character is, or is not: what the character will be, or will not be. (I'm not including television in this - TV/movies are more of a collaborative effort in production) 

Letter number 2 takes a POV that I only semi agree with. Sure, when I read a book (any book) the mythos and characters and settings and wonderment of being in that author's mind become my own while I am reading; and even if I write fanfic, or read fanfic, or imagine my own adventures for those characters, they still aren't *mine*. They're the author's. The one who imagined it all up is the one who gets to say definitively what those characters are like. And a reader may change them however to suit them in their own imagination - but it's not going to ever be the way the original author/creator considered and "grew" them. 

Anyhow, opinions, anyone?

Comments

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

I'm looking for a link to see if there's a transcription to that entire conversation/interview. Personally, I don't care one way or the other if it was self-aggrandizing or just innocently answering a question.

For me, while I read book 7, I had to wonder at he many descriptions of how close D and his friend Grindelwald *were*. Nothing was said directly - but I didn't think it needed to be said directly in the context of the book. It was pretty much out there. (to me)

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

To me, it's more the way she keeps going around and saying stuff like, "This one and this one are married. No wait, it's this one and this other one instead. No, wait, she has this job. No, she has that job." And blah blah blah blah blah. As I said, it comes across to me as the author trying to control what people think instead of that she's trying to express her own views or give readers any insight into the text. I probably would have seen the Dumbledore comment differently if not for that.

I also agree with justalurkr, pretty much.

[justalurkr.livejournal.com]

My ego-at-the-center-of-the-universe is all purring and happy now. Thanks! :D

I wasn't aware that JKR had been commenting and then reconning her own comments on the series beyond Dumbledore's secret youthful passions. That actually puts a different spin on it for me, as it appears she's either lost or never had a perspective on the weight fans give her words. I'm willing to bet that, even with the amount of skullsweat she put into building the Potterverse, she never overthought some of this stuff to the extent some fans do. The barely-there tag scene at the end of Book 7 leads me to believe she seriously isn't thinking about these characters much beyond the final showdown with Voldemort, and doesn't come close to caring who got to be an Auror and who wound up scrubbing toilets.

There seems to be a pretty reasonable crowd gathered here, but there are some fans out there who put a lot more on what JKR says than maybe she meant.

[justalurkr.livejournal.com]

I really need to re-read Book 7, which I more or less devoured to see how it would come out, and catch more of the nuances. I was focused more on figuring out what custody of Dumbledore's wand had to do with anything (scenes involving his wand and who had it seemed to stand out) that some of the other plot threads didn't really register. I blush to disclose that I'm unlikely to have remembered Grindelwald's name, or much beyond "big bad before Voldemort" had I been pressed.

Anyway, the series never really was about what the grownups got up to in their spare time. Dumbledore's preferences would only have mattered if the book had an agenda with respect to 'gay people can be good people,' and it didn't that I saw.

Of all the authorial intent-type things to drop after the fact, though, the queer mentor of young people was...interesting, no matter what the context.

[gategrrl.livejournal.com]

I am fully prepared to hear that her background notes include a lesbian background for McGonagle. I'm not sure what the British "coding" for lesbians is these days in fiction, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least.