Maya's QoM - Oh, the scrumptiousness!
Sep. 3rd, 2005 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flyingskullIt's when life is at the darkest that a whammy good read makes you fly out of your bodily discomforts and gloomy ponderings and slams open the door of the possible.
This happens to be true, but honestly compels me to say that Maya's writing does that to me even when I'm chirpy and gaining more fingers to use.
My beloved (yep, meant that literally, I talk with books; I hold long discourses with the written word; authors are, to me, beloved friends) Maya has been refining and tempering her style in vinegar and it's now pared down, rifted with ore and cutting as an obsidian sword. Obsidian because she manages to make darkness shine.
So, to cut this short, I'm moved to analyse her latest WIP.
The first thing that hits me is how Maya has managed to incorporate the sloppy, approximative mishmash of HBP in a coherent universe that resolves all the badly defined character jumps into a story lived and acted by real people. Let's examine the players in this farce-tragedy.
Harry is all he should be. Incredibly petty, stubborn, wistful, intelligent, oblivious, yearning, obsessed, immature, old before his time... incredibly - no, I tell a lie - oh so credibly YOUNG. He's seventeen, he's been abused, he's been too much petted, he's been manipulated and fagocitated by the Weasleys - yeah, he's been, read the books - he has a skewed perspective and an even more skewed self image. He can both say:
"-“I’ll do my best to protect Malfoy,” Harry continued. “You have my word – as long as it doesn’t interfere with anything else. I do have slightly more important things to think about, and I won’t let anyone get in the way of what I have to do. But I know Malfoy needs help, and I will give it to him if I can.” -"
which is not only both mature and logical, but also manages to be really and sensibly compassionate; and:
"-“Fine by me,” he breathed. “Now I’m going to use Cruciatus, or maybe I’ll just rip you apart again, until you do what I want.” -"
which is ruthlessly cold-blooded, not to mention a tad over the top; and:
"-“Yes. Oh,” Harry said roughly. “Time to face some consequences, Malfoy.” -"
which is pefectly ethical and just, but with an inner twist because the exchange between them before this had been all about how Harry doesn't want to believe in consequences for his own and the twins' actions; and:
"-“She’s worried about your health,” Harry went on. “Seeing that you’re so, hmm, how did she put it, pinched looking and-” -"
which is so silly petty that you can't help loving him for being young and not entirely crushed by responsibility.
Harry is obsessed by Draco - read the books, I said! - and that is very ambiguous in itself, but there's worse - or maybe better. Harry doesn't like to admit to himself he's obsessed by Draco and so constantly dredges up excuses to monitor the other boy so closely. It may not end in slash, but it can't be ignored and, of course, Maya goes one better than not ignoring.
The first four chapters have been one long continuous Draco-bashing orgy. He's pale, pinched, scruffy, cowardly, sicophantic, humiliated and humiliating to have around, the butt of Harry's contempt and even more contemptuous pity, (that's an Oxford comma, you nit-pickers) and sundry jokes and pranks. We can't see him at all, as it's right, because Harry doesn't really see people, just the everlasting lengends in his head about who people really are. We glimpse reactions, badly interpreted; we notice that the only good Weasels - apart from dead Weasels - Bill and Charlie react favourably to him. And we get the wonderful, breathtaking, jealousyfest in chapter four: Harry has left his judgement in ostage to the Weasleys in exchange for what appears to him to be unconditioned love. Now, inexplicably to him, two Weasleys like his arch-rival, the bad boy, the damned boy, the nasty twisted boy. They shouldn't! How can they? How easily Harry forgets that, if there was ever such a pact as he envisions, Bill and Charlie were never part of it.
Maya's QoM is all about consequences and understanding, yet - and why in hell do I say yet? - it's funny and snarky and subtly ironic. Without the laughter and the ironies there would be no depth to it, but laughter, snickers and arresting ironies abound and it's deep - for want of a better word - layered and as much as the important realities of real life as it's possible to be. One can see her masters and guides have been Jane Austen and Terry Pratchett among others. She has their unfliching sense of justice, their clear understanding of human nature and their compassionate view of the messes human being make when social imperatives put barriers in the way of human contact.
I love Draco because JKR's need to create a foil to her Harry-Sue and her hatred of such a foil make her so profoundly unjust to the character that I - but I'm not alone - feel I must flesh out that poorly delineated outline and give the forever-beaten a chance to be human. I flatter myself that I understand that this is Maya's reaction as well. One wants to cuddle the poor boy except he's poisonous and cuddling may bring danger. Remember the tale of the old man and the snake? But there's an older tale of the (old?) woman and the snake and it goes a little differently. I really believe you can warm snakes in your bosom if you don't forget what they are and if you respect that and yourself.
I always adored Fleur, though I admit it may have been because my older sister's name is Fleur and that the hard, intelligent, assured, loving, half-veela is a lot like my sister, only less volatile. :D So thanks Maya for giving me a Fleur I can keep on loving and admiring.
Bill is a hero in the truest sense here. Not only because he survives and learns to live with his scars, but because he's mature enough and human enough to realise that the brainless actions of seventeen yoear olds with issues and fears can't be judged in the same way as those of grown-up men with a clear idea of the consequences. It's a brilliant parallel that Harry doesn't realise that his spite for Malfoy has made him overlook the hurt he's giving Bill, exactly as James' and Sirius' spite for Snape made them forget they were endangering Lupin's life and freedom; and that they were hurting him on a more basic level. Righteousness has never been my cup of tea, really. Also thoughtlessness.
Charlie as deus ex machina is a pure joy. He's brusque and plain, but his feelings run deep and he's not above being entertained by the vagaries of human nature and the joy of playing. He clearly is not lovingly chiding about the twins' - God how i hate them! - idea of a joke. He can see how all people involved in the joke are hurt and demeaned by it, and is not going to scold them with a twinkle in his eyes. Go, justice, go! His core being is shown and personified by the dragon, Bessie. His power is kept in check, but it's there, visible to all. His hidden grace of spirit comes out in his efforts to entertain all the guest, regardless. His no-nonsense approach to life is shown in the baby-veela game. He knows the baby is enjoying it, there's no false or Disneyan sentimentality here, the Weasels' most disgutsting trait. I dont' like the Weasleys, can you tell? :D
Which brings me to - blech - Ron and Ginny. Maya has rightly followed HBP in having CassieClaire!Ginny and MayaDraco!Ginny mixed up here. The spitefulness is there and the grabbiness. But she's an amateur compared to Ron's grabbiness. His one success in life is to have secured Harry's affections and blocked out forever every chance of Harry's interest in Draco to develop in friendship. Maybe it wouldn't have done, but we're never going to know that, are we? Ron's made damned sure Harry is off everyone who isn't Ron, the Weasleys or Hermione, who's destined to become a Weasley anyway. He may look and act and speak as a brainless yobbo - much like Crabbbe and Goyle - but he plays chess, and cunning has nothing to do with intellligence. The Weasleys bask in Harry's reflected glory and general fame, and Harry, for one, will never really ask what's the story about The shed. BTW I loathe that shed because of its implications. I can't see that Arthur or Molly have any sense of ethics or justice, the twins would have grown up very differently, if they had.
I almost forgot. Why is it that everybody accepts Harry's abuse - though in the books it's little more than wangst - and nobody seems to realise that to be the son of Lucius Malfoy is no bed of flowers? Do people really think that tbeing the child of a sociopath is a good thing to be? Do people imagine Lucius is bad, but spoils his son and loves him utterly? Does no-one have an idea of what a true sociopath is? To grow up with such a father, even if no phisical abuse occurred - whichis moot as sociopaths don't like hesitation in obedience - there was truly emotional neglect on a grand scale. Actually JKR, in her haste of hatred, hasn't realised that she's badly written two sides of the same coin with Harry and Draco. The Sue and the rival anti-Sue. She writes cardboard figures, actually, but the premises are there, if one wants to analyse them. And Maya does. Even in her most farcical tales or moments, she never forgets the characters are persons. People. Human beings with all their contradictions and fumblings towards life. And I love her for that
Right, not really an essay as balbbings of the mind, but honest blabbings, at least. :D
This happens to be true, but honestly compels me to say that Maya's writing does that to me even when I'm chirpy and gaining more fingers to use.
My beloved (yep, meant that literally, I talk with books; I hold long discourses with the written word; authors are, to me, beloved friends) Maya has been refining and tempering her style in vinegar and it's now pared down, rifted with ore and cutting as an obsidian sword. Obsidian because she manages to make darkness shine.
So, to cut this short, I'm moved to analyse her latest WIP.
The first thing that hits me is how Maya has managed to incorporate the sloppy, approximative mishmash of HBP in a coherent universe that resolves all the badly defined character jumps into a story lived and acted by real people. Let's examine the players in this farce-tragedy.
Harry is all he should be. Incredibly petty, stubborn, wistful, intelligent, oblivious, yearning, obsessed, immature, old before his time... incredibly - no, I tell a lie - oh so credibly YOUNG. He's seventeen, he's been abused, he's been too much petted, he's been manipulated and fagocitated by the Weasleys - yeah, he's been, read the books - he has a skewed perspective and an even more skewed self image. He can both say:
"-“I’ll do my best to protect Malfoy,” Harry continued. “You have my word – as long as it doesn’t interfere with anything else. I do have slightly more important things to think about, and I won’t let anyone get in the way of what I have to do. But I know Malfoy needs help, and I will give it to him if I can.” -"
which is not only both mature and logical, but also manages to be really and sensibly compassionate; and:
"-“Fine by me,” he breathed. “Now I’m going to use Cruciatus, or maybe I’ll just rip you apart again, until you do what I want.” -"
which is ruthlessly cold-blooded, not to mention a tad over the top; and:
"-“Yes. Oh,” Harry said roughly. “Time to face some consequences, Malfoy.” -"
which is pefectly ethical and just, but with an inner twist because the exchange between them before this had been all about how Harry doesn't want to believe in consequences for his own and the twins' actions; and:
"-“She’s worried about your health,” Harry went on. “Seeing that you’re so, hmm, how did she put it, pinched looking and-” -"
which is so silly petty that you can't help loving him for being young and not entirely crushed by responsibility.
Harry is obsessed by Draco - read the books, I said! - and that is very ambiguous in itself, but there's worse - or maybe better. Harry doesn't like to admit to himself he's obsessed by Draco and so constantly dredges up excuses to monitor the other boy so closely. It may not end in slash, but it can't be ignored and, of course, Maya goes one better than not ignoring.
The first four chapters have been one long continuous Draco-bashing orgy. He's pale, pinched, scruffy, cowardly, sicophantic, humiliated and humiliating to have around, the butt of Harry's contempt and even more contemptuous pity, (that's an Oxford comma, you nit-pickers) and sundry jokes and pranks. We can't see him at all, as it's right, because Harry doesn't really see people, just the everlasting lengends in his head about who people really are. We glimpse reactions, badly interpreted; we notice that the only good Weasels - apart from dead Weasels - Bill and Charlie react favourably to him. And we get the wonderful, breathtaking, jealousyfest in chapter four: Harry has left his judgement in ostage to the Weasleys in exchange for what appears to him to be unconditioned love. Now, inexplicably to him, two Weasleys like his arch-rival, the bad boy, the damned boy, the nasty twisted boy. They shouldn't! How can they? How easily Harry forgets that, if there was ever such a pact as he envisions, Bill and Charlie were never part of it.
Maya's QoM is all about consequences and understanding, yet - and why in hell do I say yet? - it's funny and snarky and subtly ironic. Without the laughter and the ironies there would be no depth to it, but laughter, snickers and arresting ironies abound and it's deep - for want of a better word - layered and as much as the important realities of real life as it's possible to be. One can see her masters and guides have been Jane Austen and Terry Pratchett among others. She has their unfliching sense of justice, their clear understanding of human nature and their compassionate view of the messes human being make when social imperatives put barriers in the way of human contact.
I love Draco because JKR's need to create a foil to her Harry-Sue and her hatred of such a foil make her so profoundly unjust to the character that I - but I'm not alone - feel I must flesh out that poorly delineated outline and give the forever-beaten a chance to be human. I flatter myself that I understand that this is Maya's reaction as well. One wants to cuddle the poor boy except he's poisonous and cuddling may bring danger. Remember the tale of the old man and the snake? But there's an older tale of the (old?) woman and the snake and it goes a little differently. I really believe you can warm snakes in your bosom if you don't forget what they are and if you respect that and yourself.
I always adored Fleur, though I admit it may have been because my older sister's name is Fleur and that the hard, intelligent, assured, loving, half-veela is a lot like my sister, only less volatile. :D So thanks Maya for giving me a Fleur I can keep on loving and admiring.
Bill is a hero in the truest sense here. Not only because he survives and learns to live with his scars, but because he's mature enough and human enough to realise that the brainless actions of seventeen yoear olds with issues and fears can't be judged in the same way as those of grown-up men with a clear idea of the consequences. It's a brilliant parallel that Harry doesn't realise that his spite for Malfoy has made him overlook the hurt he's giving Bill, exactly as James' and Sirius' spite for Snape made them forget they were endangering Lupin's life and freedom; and that they were hurting him on a more basic level. Righteousness has never been my cup of tea, really. Also thoughtlessness.
Charlie as deus ex machina is a pure joy. He's brusque and plain, but his feelings run deep and he's not above being entertained by the vagaries of human nature and the joy of playing. He clearly is not lovingly chiding about the twins' - God how i hate them! - idea of a joke. He can see how all people involved in the joke are hurt and demeaned by it, and is not going to scold them with a twinkle in his eyes. Go, justice, go! His core being is shown and personified by the dragon, Bessie. His power is kept in check, but it's there, visible to all. His hidden grace of spirit comes out in his efforts to entertain all the guest, regardless. His no-nonsense approach to life is shown in the baby-veela game. He knows the baby is enjoying it, there's no false or Disneyan sentimentality here, the Weasels' most disgutsting trait. I dont' like the Weasleys, can you tell? :D
Which brings me to - blech - Ron and Ginny. Maya has rightly followed HBP in having CassieClaire!Ginny and MayaDraco!Ginny mixed up here. The spitefulness is there and the grabbiness. But she's an amateur compared to Ron's grabbiness. His one success in life is to have secured Harry's affections and blocked out forever every chance of Harry's interest in Draco to develop in friendship. Maybe it wouldn't have done, but we're never going to know that, are we? Ron's made damned sure Harry is off everyone who isn't Ron, the Weasleys or Hermione, who's destined to become a Weasley anyway. He may look and act and speak as a brainless yobbo - much like Crabbbe and Goyle - but he plays chess, and cunning has nothing to do with intellligence. The Weasleys bask in Harry's reflected glory and general fame, and Harry, for one, will never really ask what's the story about The shed. BTW I loathe that shed because of its implications. I can't see that Arthur or Molly have any sense of ethics or justice, the twins would have grown up very differently, if they had.
I almost forgot. Why is it that everybody accepts Harry's abuse - though in the books it's little more than wangst - and nobody seems to realise that to be the son of Lucius Malfoy is no bed of flowers? Do people really think that tbeing the child of a sociopath is a good thing to be? Do people imagine Lucius is bad, but spoils his son and loves him utterly? Does no-one have an idea of what a true sociopath is? To grow up with such a father, even if no phisical abuse occurred - whichis moot as sociopaths don't like hesitation in obedience - there was truly emotional neglect on a grand scale. Actually JKR, in her haste of hatred, hasn't realised that she's badly written two sides of the same coin with Harry and Draco. The Sue and the rival anti-Sue. She writes cardboard figures, actually, but the premises are there, if one wants to analyse them. And Maya does. Even in her most farcical tales or moments, she never forgets the characters are persons. People. Human beings with all their contradictions and fumblings towards life. And I love her for that
Right, not really an essay as balbbings of the mind, but honest blabbings, at least. :D
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-04 10:40 pm (UTC)That said, love the essay. You make me want to rush off the write the next chapter of QOM, when I must, I must concentrate on the original. Temptress.
I do appreciate the words on Bill and Charlie. I tried to work with the canon fragments - their places as big brothers, their kindness to Harry without really knowing him at all, Bill's good humour persisting past horrific scars - and, well, I'm glad they came out as they did, if it made you think about them like that.
My favourite words were those on Harry. HBP *really* caught me on Harry (the scene where he feeds Dumbledore Evil Juice without faltering! and then the proving of my darling theory, that he would notice with no holds barred if Draco withdrew his attention) and you can't use a perspective without thinking of all the flaws in it. That you're seeing all Harry's flaws is a huge compliment. So, thank you.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-05 01:25 am (UTC):: blush :: Temptress... Hmm.. I can get used to that! But really you can't pretend you dont' know what you're doing, This is my LJ so'll proudly say: you got enough of the horrible fanbrat writen HBP in here. Go and soar!
Bill and Charlie (ADORE Bessie) are perfect because they aren't, but I'm sure you can understand what I'm fumblingly trying to say. They are SO real and human and decent DECENT persons! Youo score 200% over a 100% with them.
Well it's not much of a compliment, more of a seeing what you do. Agree with you totally on the Harry question: the flaws are as important as the rest to read Harry. You get into his lil flawed head and make him human and not a Sue. That's so heartening!
As I doubt you'll be peeking her for the reply, I think I'll email it to you. Hope you don't mind.