OVERANALYZING THE TEXT

Objection to the prevalence of "my instinctive reading is spontaneous and natural ...but *your* instinctive reading is over-analyzing the text!" sentiment floating about on the Twins thread. Emphasis on the subjectivity of humour and a challenge to the notion that comedic or "toonish" scenes do not reveal character or have deeper significance, using as an example GoF's Ton Tongue Toffee scene and its role as a precursor to both the QWC and Pensieve scenes.

A bit of a reprise of "What does it mean to 'like' a character?" this, itemizing factors contributing to my strongly negative reader response to the Twins. Also raises the issue of the double-standard in list etiquette, according to which it is acceptable to abuse unpopular characters in the harshest of imaginable terms, while polemic directed at popular characters raises objections of unkind behavior and "vituperative language."

More on the extent to which characters' canonical behavior is revelatory of character, regardless of whether or not they are portrayed as "Toons," and a disussion of the thematic significance of the Ton Tongue Toffee scene.

Objection to the notion that some forms of humour are more "moral" than others.

A bit more on the Twins as bullies and the Twins' relationship to Percy, followed by a discussion of humor and its relationship to character analysis: aren't the characters' actions revelatory of their character regardless of whether or not said actions are *funny?* And why on earth would someone cease to find something funny merely because they have come to believe that it is cruel? Have none of these people ever heard of black humour?!

Extremely testy objection to the characterization of polemic as an intellectually dishonest or in some other way inappropriate form of criticism.

Testy-as-all-get-out meta-discussion about the types of arguments "permissable" on the list and the problems inherent in a list culture in which any negative comment about a well-liked character immediately causes the thread to get diverted into accusastions of rhetorical dishonestly, "unfairness," "trashing" and so forth. (Can you say "Elkins is made cranky as all hell by this sort of thing?" I knew you could!) This is what I sound like when something is dancing on my last nerve.

*Exceptionally* testy explanation of the various valid forms literary criticism can and does take - polemic being one of these - followed by a plea for listmembers to keep dat ole factional/fictional divide in mind and not draw conclusions about other listmembers' character or intellectual honesty from how they talk about the fictional characters, or from which critical styles they favor. This is what I sound like when I'm about to snap.

Has the use of polemic really risen within the fandom as the wait for OotP has dragged on? And if so, then why might this be the case?

And this is what I sound like when I've snapped. So-Far-Past-Had-Enough-That-"Testy"-Isn't-Even-In-Range-Of-Vision-Anymore explanation of precisely the list etiquette problems that I think the conflation of fiction and reality can create. With examples from the, uh, canon, so to speak, of the list itself. (I composed a resignation letter to the Mods team shortly after writing this post, btw, and had to be talked out of it by well-meaning - if perhaps, in retrospect, misguided - friends.)

"If you don't want to be exposed to other people's readings of the text, then why on earth are you HERE?" Phrased only marginally more politely than that.