dear cooks, feel free to spoil the broth
Dec. 3rd, 2005 07:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lobelia321Yes! *punches air* (*although despises that gesture, really; 'tis vulgar and macho but can't undo it now, heh*)
I have solved a niggling Harry Potter opus plot problem!
I can't remember who was on my little staff of semi-betas for the HP opus. I'm sure it was![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lazlet (for canon!!), ukcalico and brightest_blue (if she's ever going to be online again ever again!). But was it also resonant8? (Did I ever send you anything, Res?) And sheldrake, was she in on it?
Anyway, as I can't remember, I'll post my solution to HP conundrum behind the cut so everyone else: just move on, nothing to see here.
(Unless you feel inclined to spit into the broth, *g*.)
Remember how Draco has to save Dudley from the deadly plague that will kill him? And this is the same plague that Voldemort used to mass murder all those Muggles in an attempt at Hitlerian genocide, years ago, before Harry vanquished him. And which has already killed (or threatened to kill -- this plot point not quite resolved yet) Petunia. But what Draco and Hermione don't understand is why Dudley should suddenly get this plague now, years after the demise of Voldemort. Spells like this, as Hermione points out, don't outlast their makers. And this is also a question that has been puzzling me. All they know or surmise about the spell (which is so complex it has defeated all Ministry efforts to divine it), is that it has something to do with love.
So this is how it came to me today. When Draco goes to Brazil to confront his father, in the hope that Lucius will know something, having been Voldemort's right-hand man, his father tells him this:
Since Voldemort was vanquished the first time, he has been obsessed with love. He realises that it was Lily Potter who vanquished him, deflecting her love via Harry onto Voldemort. So he realises that love is very strong magic. He wants to find out how to make it work for him and how to turn it against itself. He started to capture Muggles for his plague-death-dungeon-deathcamps by tracing their love networks, and those who succumbed to the Plague were killed by it because they were loved by somebody. For the Potters, he reserved a special little extra: here it wasn't about Muggles, but about wizards. Potter, and each blood relation, had to be loved by a wizard, and would die of the Plague. This spell, Voldemort had somehow cunningly worked out, could be made to survive his demise.
Then Harry vanquished Voldemort and was immune against the Plague. And Voldemort did not suffer a complete demise because part of him survived in Harry. But Harry's blood relations were still susceptible. Except they (Petunia and Dudley) were not loved by any wizard. This is what Lucius reveals to Draco, and Draco realises that this is where Voldemort went spectacularly wrong. Because Draco knows that Harry hated his relations so that there was no danger of them dying because they were loved by a wizard. Voldemort thought this would be the ultimate irony: have Potter be responsible for the death of his loved ones, except Potter didn't love them.
But then Draco falls in love with Dudley, and when he does, and truly does, and admits it and realises it, that is when Dudley falls ill. And will die. So, in Brazil, with horror, Draco realises he is responsible for killing Dudley, except how can he undo it? He can't undo love.
I think what I'm going to do about Petunia is this: She falls ill at some point but does not die. This is when Vernon rings his son for the first time in years (they are estranged) and tells him that his mother is in hospital, some strange form of AIDS, they don't know what it is. This is the chink in the theory. Draco doesn't understand why Petunia is ill.
Then Draco remembers at some point, after he and Harry had an argument about what family means, that Draco had forced Harry to dig in his memories. He puts two and two together, and thinks, maybe, just maybe, Harry had, after all, discovered some vestige of affection for Petunia. (I have yet to discover the moments that Harry remembers. They have to be powerful enough to make him unearth some rudimentary love for Petunia.) But perhaps it's not very strong love so Petunia doesn't die, just linger. But Dudley is near death pretty fast.
Betas: does this ring true? Are there any holes need plugging? Um, except for the rest of the labyrinthine plot.
Does this even make sense to you?
Also, increasingly, this is turning into a triangle story. I do love triangle stories. And writing Harry is so interesting. I find the whole question fascinating: of whom is he more jealous, of Dudley, or of Draco?
In non-plot type news, I have come to a writing insight. I remembered what one of my favourite origfic published authors said, the goddess Ann-Marie McDonald:
I knew quite a bit about structure. I knew how to build a story, and in a way I tried to forget that ... I liken it to having focused on creating all the vital organs and the mucous membranes, and then eventually the central nervous system. Finally, once I have this soft creature on the slab, I stick the bones in it. It was hard to put the skeleton in at the end, but it was worth it because I knew that I had the vital thing. I knew I had that beating heart...
from Writers on Writing, edited by James Roberts et al.
So that's what I'm going to do. Write the soft heart. Because who, after all, is going to care about the bones of the ins and outs of spells and plagues and whatnot if their soft hearts don't beat in tandem with Draco's? And if they can't believe his unbelievable love?
I have solved a niggling Harry Potter opus plot problem!
I can't remember who was on my little staff of semi-betas for the HP opus. I'm sure it was
lazlet (for canon!!), ukcalico and brightest_blue (if she's ever going to be online again ever again!). But was it also resonant8? (Did I ever send you anything, Res?) And sheldrake, was she in on it?Anyway, as I can't remember, I'll post my solution to HP conundrum behind the cut so everyone else: just move on, nothing to see here.
(Unless you feel inclined to spit into the broth, *g*.)
Remember how Draco has to save Dudley from the deadly plague that will kill him? And this is the same plague that Voldemort used to mass murder all those Muggles in an attempt at Hitlerian genocide, years ago, before Harry vanquished him. And which has already killed (or threatened to kill -- this plot point not quite resolved yet) Petunia. But what Draco and Hermione don't understand is why Dudley should suddenly get this plague now, years after the demise of Voldemort. Spells like this, as Hermione points out, don't outlast their makers. And this is also a question that has been puzzling me. All they know or surmise about the spell (which is so complex it has defeated all Ministry efforts to divine it), is that it has something to do with love.
So this is how it came to me today. When Draco goes to Brazil to confront his father, in the hope that Lucius will know something, having been Voldemort's right-hand man, his father tells him this:
Since Voldemort was vanquished the first time, he has been obsessed with love. He realises that it was Lily Potter who vanquished him, deflecting her love via Harry onto Voldemort. So he realises that love is very strong magic. He wants to find out how to make it work for him and how to turn it against itself. He started to capture Muggles for his plague-death-dungeon-deathcamps by tracing their love networks, and those who succumbed to the Plague were killed by it because they were loved by somebody. For the Potters, he reserved a special little extra: here it wasn't about Muggles, but about wizards. Potter, and each blood relation, had to be loved by a wizard, and would die of the Plague. This spell, Voldemort had somehow cunningly worked out, could be made to survive his demise.
Then Harry vanquished Voldemort and was immune against the Plague. And Voldemort did not suffer a complete demise because part of him survived in Harry. But Harry's blood relations were still susceptible. Except they (Petunia and Dudley) were not loved by any wizard. This is what Lucius reveals to Draco, and Draco realises that this is where Voldemort went spectacularly wrong. Because Draco knows that Harry hated his relations so that there was no danger of them dying because they were loved by a wizard. Voldemort thought this would be the ultimate irony: have Potter be responsible for the death of his loved ones, except Potter didn't love them.
But then Draco falls in love with Dudley, and when he does, and truly does, and admits it and realises it, that is when Dudley falls ill. And will die. So, in Brazil, with horror, Draco realises he is responsible for killing Dudley, except how can he undo it? He can't undo love.
I think what I'm going to do about Petunia is this: She falls ill at some point but does not die. This is when Vernon rings his son for the first time in years (they are estranged) and tells him that his mother is in hospital, some strange form of AIDS, they don't know what it is. This is the chink in the theory. Draco doesn't understand why Petunia is ill.
Then Draco remembers at some point, after he and Harry had an argument about what family means, that Draco had forced Harry to dig in his memories. He puts two and two together, and thinks, maybe, just maybe, Harry had, after all, discovered some vestige of affection for Petunia. (I have yet to discover the moments that Harry remembers. They have to be powerful enough to make him unearth some rudimentary love for Petunia.) But perhaps it's not very strong love so Petunia doesn't die, just linger. But Dudley is near death pretty fast.
Betas: does this ring true? Are there any holes need plugging? Um, except for the rest of the labyrinthine plot.
Does this even make sense to you?
Also, increasingly, this is turning into a triangle story. I do love triangle stories. And writing Harry is so interesting. I find the whole question fascinating: of whom is he more jealous, of Dudley, or of Draco?
In non-plot type news, I have come to a writing insight. I remembered what one of my favourite origfic published authors said, the goddess Ann-Marie McDonald:
I knew quite a bit about structure. I knew how to build a story, and in a way I tried to forget that ... I liken it to having focused on creating all the vital organs and the mucous membranes, and then eventually the central nervous system. Finally, once I have this soft creature on the slab, I stick the bones in it. It was hard to put the skeleton in at the end, but it was worth it because I knew that I had the vital thing. I knew I had that beating heart...
from Writers on Writing, edited by James Roberts et al.
So that's what I'm going to do. Write the soft heart. Because who, after all, is going to care about the bones of the ins and outs of spells and plagues and whatnot if their soft hearts don't beat in tandem with Draco's? And if they can't believe his unbelievable love?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-03 09:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-03 10:01 pm (UTC)I fear this may be a mystery to any of my other betas, too...
The soft hearts are nice, aren't they? And that from Ann-Marie MacDonald who is a mistress of structure, whose plots are like fugues or architectual scaffolds! But the beating heart is the passion at the centre. And I figure even if I never finish this fic, do I want to be left with notes and fragments of plot explication, or a few pages of deeply heartfelt, swoony dialogue and sex?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-05 03:53 am (UTC)This is a rhetorical question, right? :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-12-06 03:12 pm (UTC)*snorts*