sistermagpie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sistermagpie) wrote2006-06-18 01:24 pm
sistermagpie) wrote2006-06-18 01:24 pm
Macbeth in the Park and AU HP Heroes
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petitesoeur and I had great luck last night taking a chance on Shakespeare in the Park We got on the stand-by line after 7 and got tickets--woo-hoo!Liev Shrieber was doing Macbeth. The production was entertaining, if uneven. In the really important parts the one that was weakest was Macduff--I liked Banquo a lot.
petitesoeur was worried Macduff's stage fighting skills were so bad Macbeth was going to beat that prophecy. I'd only ever seen this play performed one other time that I can remember, when a friend of mine was in a production, so I don't know if they often do this, but I liked that they decided to not show Banquo's ghost at the banquet. Macbeth was just reacting to an empty chair that sometimes had a spotlight on it. It made for, I must say, a funnier scene with Macbeth jumping on the table and spearing the chair with his sword before looking around like, "Oops. I look a little crazy, don't I? Sorry about that."I'd never thought of it before, but there was a note in the program pointing out that Macbeth is kind of the anti-Hamlet. He's got lots of doubts, but they never keep him from acting. In a way he seems to just be compelled to follow his impulses and then wonder about it. Another friend said she always feels like Macbeth's kind of underrated as a part while Lady Macbeth is a bit over-rated. I admit I do find Lady Macbeth an annoying character, pushing her husband into doing stuff and then going mad herself. I considered making a joke about Shakespeare totally ripping off JKR with that prophecy that only happens because Macbeth acts on it (leaving out the part where JKR seems to undermine that by saying that had Voldemort picked Neville it wouldn't have worked), but instead I'll confess to the dorkier confession that at times I did look at Lady Macbeth and Macbeth and think I might be watching H/G, the later years. Seriously. ("If the king hadn't looked like my father when he was sleeping, I'd have stabbed him myself!")
That just made me think of
Another random HP thought I had yesterday. Someone was making a comment about Dumbledore talking about how he couldn't believe he'd have somebody so great as Harry to deal with. I think the person was contradicting another person's reading of that line as saying that DD had never felt close to someone personally the way he did Harry, and presenting this as a more acceptable reading. What struck me was that I really disagree with the whole idea behind this interpretation, which I think is backed up in canon. There's always all this focus on how great Harry is with his great power for love yadda yadda, and I think there is a suggestion that DD feels what he does for him because he's so personally special.
But that makes me think a lot less of Dumbledore (not that I have all that far to fall there!). I feel like he should have felt that way about any kid he decided to focus on specifically. Like, if he decided to take special interest in Ron Weasley wouldn't Ron have seemed just as great? Or even a kid who's decidedly not great, like Draco? I mean, obviously Draco's not a hero in canon but what I like about his story in HBP is even the little we see of it, imo, sets him up as a legitimate protagonist in his own story who's conflicted enough to hold his own and be worth rooting for. Obviously his being in Harry's role would be a very different story because he'd be going against his own, but I'm talking here just about rooting for him in the story he had.
Really I guess what the comment really did was made me imagine AUs in which other characters were put in Harry's role. I mean, we all know that whoever the hero was would have to win; they'd just have a different path to get there because of their own personalities. Ron would face a lot more confidence issues in the TWT tournament and might have just barely scraped it. Hermione would have more troubles with going too far. Neville would be more about the contrast between his timidity and abilities, and we'd probably get more of a sense that winning wasn't everything.
I don't think it's a flaw that I can imagine other characters in the role. That kind of seems like the point that a kid put in the situation makes good. I just can't help but think of it whenever it's suggested that it couldn't be anyone but Harry.
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Particularly since apart from his lack of willingness to *control* his emotions, Harry shows no evidence whatsoever of being a particularly loving child.
I just had an uncomfortable flash there to the most uncomfortable (and autobiographical) of Diana Wynne Jones's novels "The Time of the Ghost".
Jones and her sisters were not brought up in a normal household and Jones has stated that it took her years to realize that and to deal with it. In Time of the Ghost, the mother of the (criminally negleted) four sisters makes up for her lack of involvement in her daughters' lives by making up glorious futures for each of them and convincing them that this is what their lives are destined to be.
In fact the children are left to inexpertly raise themselves and their mother's glorious imaginary futures are about the only thing they have of her. And these futures become as much a prison as a hope. The story, as I say, is extremely uncomfortable, but ends well.
But I'm suddenly seeing far too much resemblance between Phylis's glorious futures for her children and Albus's faith in Harry's power of Love™.
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There are a number of strong similarities between Ghost and Hemlock. I've noticed that Jones often takes more than one book to explore an issue.
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It does seem that way, doesn't it?!
But on love, perhaps the point is that it's remarkable that Harry can love at all, that this capacity hasn't been destroyed by LV and by H's experience at the hands of the Dursleys. Perhaps DD going on to Harry about love is in order to encourage him further in that direction. (Because that's the way to vanquishing LV.) And, you know, it's important to remember that inspiring love is as important as feeling love, and Harry certainly inspires love in others.
Someone was talking about Harry not having to struggle to be good. Harry's struggle is to understand, I think, and he's definitely having a lot of difficulty with that! I wonder if in Book 7 he'll be disillusioned about DD?
I know that there has been a deus ex machina element to the resolution of many of the scrapes Harry has got into, but the thing is that Harry doesn't ever know there's going to be a d-e-m, and that in fact the d-e-m only arises out of Harry's own actions, or puts him in a position where he can act - if he chooses, or if he's brave enough, and imaginative enough!
Draco in the Astronomy Tower: selfish love. Harry in the Cave: selfless love.
Heck, am rambling, and in someone else's livejournal. Must stop and go away.
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Sorry for derailing here,
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