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deathtocapslock* The Order HQ is called Grimmauld Place, ’cause it’s a grim, old place, geddit? JK Rowling, you comic genius, you!
* Mrs. Weasley is “rather thinner” than she was last time, which given the series’ attitudes to fat people is probably a sign of her improving morally.
* Harry “needs feeding up”, so obviously he’s OK from a moral standpoint. Unlike Dudley, who’s heavy enough to almost break Harry’s back.
* Would it really take Mrs. Weasley that long to explain that she doesn’t want Harry to wake up the portraits?
* So the house-elves’ noses all look similar. Is this a sign that families of house-elves serve the same human family, then?
* Hermione’s clearly been missing Harry, and is very pleased to see him. Remember this when he starts yelling at her a couple of pages later.
* Given what she knows about Sirius, it’s touching (in a pathetically naïve sort of way) that Hermione imagines Harry will get off just because he didn’t do anything wrong.
* So why does Ron still have the cut from Hedwig? Couldn’t he have magicked it away/got Hermione to magic it away for him? Is it because Hedwig is a magical owl, rather than a normal Muggle one?
* Harry “found that he was not at all sorry” to see cuts on Hermione’s hands. Even though she and Ron had a perfectly good reason for not telling Harry anything in their letters. It’s clearly a sign of Harry’s Power Of Love. Or something.
* Of course DD should be angry at Mundungus, but he should also ponder whether his security arrangements were actually adequate. Being a good guy, though, he doesn’t really need to do this. It’s only villains like the Malfoys who have to actually learn from their mistakes.
* Hey, Harry, here’s an idea: maybe Dumbledore was too busy stopping the most evil wizard in a century from taking power to spend time coming up with novel and inventive ways of giving you information. Believe it or not, the entire wizarding world isn’t your personal newspaper service.
* Harry reminds me a bit of Umbridge from A Very Potter Sequel here. “Does Dumbledore like me? Well he didn’t send me any letters. Why didn’t he give me information some other way?”
* And HERE COMES THE CAPSLOCK!
* I like the way Harry’s belittling his friends’ achievements, especially since the reason they couldn’t help him was so often that they’d got injured helping him out earlier. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.
* “CAN’T’VE WANTED TO THAT MUCH, CAN YOU, OR YOU’D HAVE SENT ME AN OWL” – God, Harry is being almost unbelievably dense here. Can’t he tell that there are good security reasons for not telling him anything? What a moron.
* What I wouldn’t give to have Hermione tell Harry to shut the hell up and stop whingeing, rather than grovel at him like this.
* I like how Harry is getting angry at Ron and Hermione for not telling him about Voldemort, even though he hasn’t asked anything about him. And how Ron and Hermione are clearly terrified by him. You can tell that this is a relationship of equals, alright.
* So, having invented Extendable Ears, why don’t Fred and George offer to make some for the Order? It sounds to me like they could come in useful. And if inventing magical objects is so easy that a pair of schoolchildren can do it, why don’t more people try? Are wizards just that lacking in creativity? (Actually, given that their cultural pinnacle seems to be The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle, they probably are.)
* I’m sorry, but Harry’s just really pissing me off in this scene. He’s meeting his best friends after several weeks at the Dursleys’ – he should be happy to see them. Instead, he’s shouting at them, belittling their achievements (and ignoring the number of times they risked their lives/got injured helping him, and the times Hermione figured out what the baddies were doing), and generally treating them like they’re utterly beneath him. Someone really needs to give him a slap.
* And Ginny Mk. 2 enters our lives. Courage, friends, and try not to be too disheartened by the prospect.
* Hey, look at how Ginny’s ignoring Harry! That, like, totally shows she’s his equal, or something.
* Really, though, would it kill her to add a polite “How are you?” or something? But then, I suppose politeness is for losers. Real men yell at and belittle their best friends.
* And why flick Dungbombs? Wouldn’t they just make a nasty smell and inconvenience everyone? Wouldn’t rolled-up balls of paper do just as well?
* “Percy had committed the fairly large oversight of failing to notice that his boss was being controlled by Lord Voldemort” – not that large, when you consider that (a) he was relatively new to the job, so probably wouldn’t have had much time to get to know his boss; (b) due to the difference in status, he probably wouldn’t have known Crouch that well anyway; and (c) everybody else (including other Ministry wizards who’d presumably known Crouch much longer than Percy had) had similarly failed to notice.
* Hey, here’s an idea: perhaps Percy just ran the department really well when Crouch was “ill”, especially considering that he was only one year out of high school, and got his promotion as a reward for that.
* Also, out-and-out saying that Percy only got the promotion because he was supposed to spy on his dad is probably the most tactless thing Arthur could have done. No wonder Percy got angry.
* Anyway, Percy’s been the unfairly maligned member of the family since the books started, and now he’s finally achieved something, and his father just throws it back in his face. Can you blame him for finally snapping?
* I think it’s quite likely that Arthur’s lack of ambition is the cause of his family’s poverty. Didn’t Ron say something to that effect when Draco taunted him in GOF (“Dad could get a promotion anytime, he’s just happy where he is”)?
* I suppose slamming the door in Mrs. Weasley’s face is better than pelting her with parsnips.
* Gosh, how silly of Percy to take the Daily Prophet seriously. Quite unlike all those characters for whom “Dumbledore is always right” seems to be an article of faith.
* Feeling satisfied about your blackmail, Hermione? Good. We’ll rid you of that pesky conscience soon enough.
* Gosh, I can’t possibly imagine how the Prophet could succeed in making Harry look like a “deluded, attention-seeking person who thinks he’s a great tragic hero”. That sort of behaviour would just be so out-of-character for him.
* “You really shouldn’t be [expelled], not if they abide by their own laws.” Because as the previous books have shown, the wizarding justice system if a beacon of fairness and rule of law.
* Hey, Ginny’s lying to her parents! And she’s not even blushing! ZOMG that is so cool. Like, no other teenager in the whole world would be spunky enough to lie to their own parents.
* Seriously kids, it’s cool to lie to people. You’ll never get married until you learn to mess up your house and blame it on the pet cat.
* Ginny grimaces at the idea of going with her mother. She’s just that much of a rebel that she doesn’t even bother to hide her disgust at other people.
* Ron and Hermione are terrified of Harry flaring up again. Yup, you can tell he’s a nice boy, alright.
* Still, at least he notices and starts to apologise, so all is not lost.
* How sad is it that I feel grateful and relieved whenever the hero of these books shows any kind of normal human remorse?
* Snape’s still Harry’s least-favourite teacher, because heaven forbid that a little thing like risking his life to save Harry should cause Our Hero to re-evaluate his opinions in any way.
* I like the way the Black portraits all seem criminally insane. Obviously, a family whose members were all in Slytherin needs to be humiliated by giving them all madness.
* In my own personal canon, all these portraits are perfectly sane, but just pretend to be mad in order to annoy the Order. Let’s face it, who wouldn’t want to annoy this society of self-righteous hypocrites?
* Now Mrs. Weasley is Stunning the portraits with her wand. Remember chaps, knocking someone out is justified if they’re annoying you in some way!
* How nice to see Sirius shouting abuse at his mother like that.
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Date: 2011-02-11 09:00 pm (UTC)I'll definitely admit that Harry's jackassery in this chapter was pretty...yeah. :/ In fact, looking at it, it's a little unsettling. Just everything in this chapter stinks of Ron and Hermione basically being domestic abuse victims, with Hermione apologizing like a battered wife.
(And I don't usually go there)
I know Rowling was trying to show Harry was under a lot of stress, but I really doubt it came out well. And the capslock didn't help either. Kind of threatens to rupture your eardrums, really. :P
If I'd been writing this scene, I would have taken a leaf from Matthew Stover's book. (Warning: *Shameless* Stover pimpage. XD) There's a scene where Anakin returns to his apartment after Palpatine not-so-subtly insinuates that Padme and Obi-Wan are up to something, and Padme comes in. While Anakin doesn't capslock (Stover seems in favor of italics instead. :P), he does get quite emotional, and at one point, he describes Padme being a bit like a bug he could squash and keep on walking. (Which genuinely made me shiver) Fortunately, Padme snaps him out of it before it gets too bad, and Anakin just starts venting.
Why does it work where the Grimmauld Place scene failed? Let me try and list it.
First off, Anakin's actions, while unsettling, make sense in terms of the circumstances. He's being manipulated by both the Jedi Council and the Chancellor, he's been having horrible nightmares, and his sanity's generally slipping. Second of all, Stover doesn't shy away from Anakin's dark side (in fact, it's the focus of the book) while Rowling keeps trying to justify Harry's actions. (I understand it's mostly because he's like a child to her, and that's okay, but you shouldn't let it leak too much into the story) And finally, both sides are portrayed sympathetically, with Padme trying to keep Anakin from sliding into insanity and Anakin becoming more bitter and stressed, and torn between his duty to the Jedi and his filial love -- twisted as it may be -- for Palpatine. The fact that Stover's quite poetic in the process ("freefall in the dark") definitely helps, and the fact Padme's basically a Morality Chain for Anakin, even more so.
/end pimpage.
But pimpage aside, Rowling should have done something like that. She should have let us have a bit more of a glimpse into what Harry was feeling and thinking. And probably abandoned the capslock, or done it rarely. Like bungee jumping. ;-)
In fact, reading these capslock posts makes me realize how unintentionally mean-spirited HP is. It's funny and sad at the same time that Rowling didn't notice it. :(
Again, great analysis, and I really hope my reply wasn't too...irritating. XD
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Date: 2011-02-11 09:52 pm (UTC)She may have found herself out of her depth and was unable to cope, or she may just have convinced herself that now the story was supposed to become "serious" and just isn't competent at writing serious (or what she identifies as serious). Because it just doesn't work. The first half of the story was exaggerated symbols and silly jokes. In the back half she still is making jokes, but they no longer fit, because the story is no longer being written in fun.
And there is no real transition between the over-the-top cartoon abuse of the first half -- which no one ever *really* took seriously, because it clearly wasn't *meant* seriously, and the retaliation was just as exaggerated and implausible as the provocation -- and the overblown trashy melodrama of the last, which is no fun, and not supposed to be.
Or, at any rate, I cannot believe that she ever regarded any of the stuff packed into the back half of this series as being *fun*.
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Date: 2011-02-11 11:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 09:39 pm (UTC)More like a sign of him being a spiteful, vindictive jerk.
/* I like the way Harry’s belittling his friends’ achievements, especially since the reason they couldn’t help him was so often that they’d got injured helping him out earlier. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen./
I *hated* this scene. Harry just came across as a supremely ungrateful, conceited twit. Yeah, Harry, because it's not like Ron's chess skills helped you out in PS/SS. It's not like Hermione solved the mystery of the Chamber of Secrets before you did, and it's not like her knowledge *saved* you from being killed by the basilisk or anything. It's not like Hermione's knowledge of the Time Turner helped saved Sirius in PoA. No, Hermione and Ron just sat back and twiddled their thumbs while you did everything by yourself.
*sighs* I would say more, but I'll let this comic speak for me: http://loleia.deviantart.com/art/Harry-Potter-Comic-05-111285176
/* What I wouldn’t give to have Hermione tell Harry to shut the hell up and stop whingeing, rather than grovel at him like this./
I don't understand how Hermione feels free to constantly snipe at Ron and send deadly canaries after him, but practically cowers whenever Harry so much as raises his voice. Why is she so intimidated by him? And yes, she and Ron really should have told Harry to shut up and stop yelling at them.
/* I’m sorry, but Harry’s just really pissing me off in this scene. He’s meeting his best friends after several weeks at the Dursleys’ – he should be happy to see them. Instead, he’s shouting at them, belittling their achievements (and ignoring the number of times they risked their lives/got injured helping him, and the times Hermione figured out what the baddies were doing), and generally treating them like they’re utterly beneath him. Someone really needs to give him a slap./
Which is why I do not believe that his temper tantrum is justified. No, he's not "venting," he's not exploding after so many years of abuse from the Dursleys (especially since he's been fine before this), etc., he's just being an entitled, overbearing jerk. Reading this, I thought, "Whatever happened to the kid who didn't want to be thrust into the spotlight, who was a fairly humble boy who appreciated his friends? Now all of a sudden, he's acting like he did everything and Ron and Hermione did nothing?"
/* “Percy had committed the fairly large oversight of failing to notice that his boss was being controlled by Lord Voldemort” – not that large, when you consider that (a) he was relatively new to the job, so probably wouldn’t have had much time to get to know his boss; (b) due to the difference in status, he probably wouldn’t have known Crouch that well anyway; and (c) everybody else (including other Ministry wizards who’d presumably known Crouch much longer than Percy had) had similarly failed to notice./
And d) Crouch was being controlled under the Imperius Curse. You know, the same curse that Fake!Moody and Sirius said gave the Ministry a lot of trouble because it was difficult to detect, that served as an excuse for Lucius Malfoy and other ex-Death Eaters? Why would Lucius claim the Imperius as his defense if it was easy to tell whether or not somebody was being controlled by it? If the Ministry can't tell, how could Percy?
/* Gosh, I can’t possibly imagine how the Prophet could succeed in making Harry look like a “deluded, attention-seeking person who thinks he’s a great tragic hero”. That sort of behaviour would just be so out-of-character for him./
Especially since that horrible scene he just had with Ron and Hermione has shown him as exactly that.
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Date: 2011-02-11 11:09 pm (UTC)Thanks for that comic; it just made my day. XD
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Date: 2011-02-12 12:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2011-02-12 09:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 01:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 10:46 pm (UTC)Apparently so, and it helps explain the mutual bonds of loyalty between Regulus and Kreacher. On the other hand; Dobby says that Hogwarts was the only place he and Winky could find that offered work for two elves, elves don't get paid but must be fed somehow, and since they have (at least) two sexes they presumably reproduce sexually. So how does this all work? If there are so few places that can support two elves, how can elven families be supported? Two elves not in a relationship would presumably be better than two elves and some amount of children with one parent having to take breaks to look after the children at regular intervals. Are their children and extraneous relatives sold off by their owners to pay for their upbringing?* Based on real-world slavery this is probably the case, but then why wouldn't Hermione have mentioned it in this book if she wanted to show how horrific their lives are? Do elves literally spontaneously generate from plot convenience? Is that the actual secret of their awesome magic?
What was it Sirius said? "If you want to see a man's true nature, look at how he treats his inferiors"? It's not just the systematic elf-abuse that's JKR brushes under the table (after all, all they need is a good master!), it's the entire mechanics of how her slave-owning society works. They're just there as a convenience for her heroes and something for them to feel proud about how they dehumanise (de-elfise?) them to a lesser degree than the Malfoys. I feel sick.
*And what effect would this have on their loyalty - does their (generalising from Kreacher and Winky) intense emotional bond to their original wizarding family instantaneously shift? Does house-elf loyalty work like Amortentia-obsession, and if so why is the Kreacher-Regulus relationship presented as such a heartwarming thing?
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Date: 2011-02-12 01:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-12 01:27 am (UTC)She calls the House Elves "slaves" because she wanted Hermione to make a fool of herself in public as yet another jokey thing where you know that Hermione is actually *right* but it's supposed to be *funny*, and eventually she either gives up or backs off, or her rightness gets proven.
Funny thing. It never *quite* happened that way, did it? Sort of in that ball park, yes, but in the end, Hermione merely accepts elf "slavery".
But then, *is* it slavery? There is not one word anywhere in some 4000 pages of text to suggest that a House Elf can be *sold*. In fact Dobby comes right out from the beginning and tells us that an elf can only be *freed*.
They are not slaves. They are *family members*. To free them is to disown them, and it is a great disgrace. Like blasting them off a family tapestry.
And it must happen from time to time or else why would there be a House Elf relocation office? Of which Dobby and Winky are unaccountably ignorant.
Or, perhaps, and this makes as much sense as anything, the office of House Elf relocation's business is to find new families for Elves whose own families have become extinct in the human line. The office wants nothing to do with freed elves. Reducing Dobby and WInky to the status of illegal aliens whose employment reflects badly upon those who do it. Although there must be a few people who do. Given the level of disgrace that attaches to a freed elf, there must be few who risk such rejection.
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Date: 2011-02-12 02:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2011-02-12 04:25 pm (UTC)My theory is that the way it works is that elves are bred intentionally by wizards to provide enough for the next generation. Families come to agreements about pairing one family's male elf with another's female one, once the female is pregnant the male elf is returned to his family. The young elves stay with their mothers until they reach a certain age, then get attached to a member of the next generation of either family.
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Date: 2011-02-12 02:52 am (UTC)And the whole thing with the house elves and slavery gets ickier the more I think about it...
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Date: 2011-02-12 07:41 am (UTC)Or is he keeping it unhealed on purpose - as a souvenir? Or to gain fame by proxy, like he did when Sirius appeared to have nearly attacked him with a knife or when he was taken as a hostage for the second task - because that's the only kind of fame he'll ever have?
Harry “found that he was not at all sorry” to see cuts on Hermione’s hands.
I hope he remembers this in a few weeks when Umbridge won't be at all sorry at seeing the cuts on his hands. Did Rowling realize she wrote her hero as equaling her worst villain in sadism? (I know, it's not the same because, err, Hermione really deserved it, right? How treacherous of her to prefer the order's secrets to satisfying Harry's curiosity.)
Of course DD should be angry at Mundungus, but he should also ponder whether his security arrangements were actually adequate. Being a good guy, though, he doesn’t really need to do this. It’s only villains like the Malfoys who have to actually learn from their mistakes.
QFT
But then, I suppose politeness is for losers. Real men yell at and belittle their best friends.
'Cause real men know their worth.
and (c) everybody else (including other Ministry wizards who’d presumably known Crouch much longer than Percy had) had similarly failed to notice.
But see, the anti-Percy stand is that he kept running interference for Crouch that nobody knew he wasn't coming to work. As if a department head never sees anyone but his assistant. Doesn't he have regular meetings with other staff members or people from other departments, even the Minister himself?
Gosh, how silly of Percy to take the Daily Prophet seriously.
He had more reason to do so than his mother last year to believe Hermione was Harry's disloyal girlfriend.
Seriously kids, it’s cool to lie to people.
Unless you're a Slytherin, in which case it is evil!
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Date: 2011-02-13 02:27 pm (UTC)Ouch, good point! I never noticed the similarities there.
/He had more reason to do so than his mother last year to believe Hermione was Harry's disloyal girlfriend./
So, Mrs. Finnigan and Percy are meant to be viewed as ignorant for believing the Daily Prophet's words about Harry, but Mrs. Weasley doesn't take any blame for believing Rita Skeeter's slander against one of her son's best friends? Even though Mrs. Weasley *knows* that Rita is a liar, because she had already insulted the Weasley family before that?
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Date: 2011-02-12 09:06 am (UTC)Ouch. I'd forgotten that.
It’s clearly a sign of Harry’s Power Of Love. Or something.
Heh.
What I wouldn’t give to have Hermione tell Harry to shut the hell up and stop whingeing, rather than grovel at him like this.
But that simply can't happen.
Because if Hermione laid out the facts nice and simple for Harry then either (a) he'd accept the situation and calm down, and Rowling wouldn't have her caps-locking hero, or otherwise (b) he'd look like a total petulant juvenile.
So his friends go to a point but no further in rebutting him.
It's the same story in DH, no doubt all over the place; his friends are conveniently thick in places where Rowling just doesn't want Harry to have the chance to do the right thing.
Well, you've pointed out that Harry apologises to them at the end of the chapter, so maybe in this case it was a just-a-few-pages device.
Hey, look at how Ginny’s ignoring Harry! That, like, totally shows she’s his equal, or something.
I've been told lately it's a sign of how Ginny is Harry's 'soul mate', how she stands up to him. Seems more like evasion to me. Hermione copped more flak over the series because she really did 'stand up to him'.
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Date: 2011-02-12 07:21 pm (UTC)* Also, out-and-out saying that Percy only got the promotion because he was supposed to spy on his dad is probably the most tactless thing Arthur could have done. No wonder Percy got angry.
Of course the idea that Percy got the promotion because he did a good job never occurs to Arthur. Arthur is going by the standards great and wonderful Dumbledore.
Can you think on anyone DD hires because they are actually competent at the job?
Dumbledore picks people because they show unquestioning loyalty and devotion to Dumbledore. (what other reason could there be for promoting Hagrid to teach)
or to use them (Snape to spy, Slughorn has a memory he needs)
It is not clear if DD decided to hire Lupin before or after Sirius escaped. If after DD is hiring the last person who was close to Sirius.
If it is before - well Lupin believes it is only because of DD that he was allowed to go to Hogwarts. So Lupin feels that he owes DD a huge debt.
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Date: 2011-02-12 07:39 pm (UTC)The list of schoolbooks can only be finalized once all teachers are hired. It arrived on Harry's birthday. The photo of Ron's family was published early enough that the newspaper got to Egypt and Erroll managed to fly ever-so-slowly with it from Egypt to Surrey by Harry's birthday. Also isn't it the day of Harry's birthday when people are asked to be on the lookout for Sirius Black, escaped murderer? So I think there was time to hire Remus a day or two before Harry's birthday, within a few days of Sirius' escape.
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Date: 2011-02-14 06:33 am (UTC)Oh, Percy. I liked him since the first book; even if he is a bit pompous sometimes, he seems like one of the few wizards who genuinely wants to make things better. He answers first years' questions and advises kids on their third year elective choices! He wants cauldrons to be safe and non-melty (possibly because he's heard from Ron how many cauldrons Neville has melted)! And he thinks being a thoughtless, possibly criminal sports star is not the same as being a good department manager, especially if there's missing employees involved! He also shows at many points that he cares for his family even when they treat him badly (which maybe isn't so great for him, but compared to the Harry and Dumbledore school of You're-Evil-If-You-Don't-Like-Me, it's refreshing). And, uh, is the only Weasley boy that we know of mature enough to have a girlfriend at 16. (The twins getting dates to a dance isn't the same thing at all.) So, Jo, why is it that you hate the character who values education and responsibility and doesn't think nearly killing people is a good school prank, hm? Why does he get blamed for things when other characters don't, or are even commended for? He trusts the guy in authority. So does Harry. One of them is Wrong... because the author arranged for some convenient secret background to make it so.
This chapter, or one shortly after, would have been a really good time to explain whether the talking portraits are more like ghosts (real-ish people) or more like chatbots. Or better yet, back in PoA when Sirius attacked the Fat Lady's canvas. Did he almost commit murder...ish... or was it more like trying to close the chatbot's window?
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Date: 2011-02-14 05:56 pm (UTC)Voldemort has returned, and Harry is at the top of his hit-list, yet Dumbledore still, without explanation, sent Harry back to his muggle relatives for the summer. Living with muggles meant that there was nobody around who would have any idea if Voldemort was planning to attack him or not, or if Dumbledore and/or the Ministry were doing anything prevent an attack. Living with muggles also meant that, as far as he knew, if Voldemort did attack, there were no adult wizards around to protect him, nor, as he learned the hard way, was he allowed to defend himself. Living with muggles meant that he had no access to a floo to escape or call for help, and nobody had given him an alternative means of escaping or sending for help.
Harry didn't know that Mrs. Figg might have information. He didn't know that the Order was guarding him (and then the only guard he met was the incompetent Dung). He didn't know about the blood wards yet.
In other words, for most of the summer, Harry thought that Voldemort could show up at any moment, without warning, and that Dumbledore had left him completely defenseless.
By this point, he's learned that some (though certainly not all!) of those fears were unwarranted, but that Dumbledore had purposefully, and without much explanation, kept him ignorant of the little that was being done to keep him safe. Why, for instance, couldn't he at least have been told that he was being guarded? (Seriously, what kind of adult won't tell a scared kid that someone's watching out for him?)
So, Harry has basically spent these first chapters feeling scared that he's about to die and scared that nobody loves him enough to protect him and/or reassure him that he's safe.
Of course, being the brave Gryffindor he is, he'll never actually admit how scared he's been....
I don't blame Harry at all for being angry with Dumbledore right now. I think he has every reason to feel betrayed by the headmaster. And, since he feels betrayed by Dumbledore, it makes sense that he also feels angry with and betrayed by his friends for obeying Dumbledore's orders.
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Date: 2011-02-14 09:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-14 11:51 pm (UTC)This is something I find so weird about JKR in general. The emotions and behavior of her characters often do make sense, yet she seems to lack any understanding of why they're feeling and acting the way they are.
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Date: 2011-02-14 09:33 pm (UTC)no subject
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