I'm sorry if I came across as patronizing, that truly wasn't my intent. I put the information on language acquisition in there because I've been banging my head against a lot of people lately who really don't seem to expect babies to be aware of much of anything, so it was more a general PSA to anyone reading the thread. Sorry again if it came across as directed at you personally :(
My larger point, which I really should have made clearer, was that Harry didn't have to understand that his mother was dead, or even the concept of 'death' in order to understand from her obvious, and loud, display of distress that Something Bad was happening. And at that age, infants really don't have a concept of 'other people,' so Harry really should have reacted to anything upsetting his mother that badly as something that was directly upsetting to him. Unless he had reason to think that such a display of stress and fear was 'normal' or some kind of fun game and not actually something to be upset about. So yes, I agree completely that his non-plussed reaction to Lily going into a complete meltdown strongly supports the events of Liberacorpus! or worse as a common occurrence.
...which I thought I put in my reply above but now realized I didn't. I really shouldn't post when I'm that tired. Anyway, the idea that Harry didn't react because as far as he knew, from his limited experience, this was normal was the reason I kept bringing up the fact that in the anecdotes offered as counterexamples there was evidence that the initial events really didn't present any obvious stimuli indicating something was Wrong to an infant that looks at the surface without actually reasoning out what they're seeing. An older child would understand that their mother had died, but if an infant only feels their mother slump slightly before another caretaker picks them up? Why wouldn't this be part of the normal 'Mommy fell asleep so Daddy/Grandpa/Auntie is playing with me now' routine? And in both cases presented, the infants *did* freak out when it became clear that this *wasn't* part of the established routine.
As for excusing the scene because Rowling's a bad writer... if we don't give her a pass for the rest of the series, why should we here?
I apologize to everyone if it feels that I'm beating a dead horse over this scene, but Harry's behavior here freaked me out more than anything else written into these books, which have already been established as nightmare inducing in their own right.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: A RL Similar Situation
Date: 2011-11-18 07:09 pm (UTC)My larger point, which I really should have made clearer, was that Harry didn't have to understand that his mother was dead, or even the concept of 'death' in order to understand from her obvious, and loud, display of distress that Something Bad was happening. And at that age, infants really don't have a concept of 'other people,' so Harry really should have reacted to anything upsetting his mother that badly as something that was directly upsetting to him. Unless he had reason to think that such a display of stress and fear was 'normal' or some kind of fun game and not actually something to be upset about. So yes, I agree completely that his non-plussed reaction to Lily going into a complete meltdown strongly supports the events of Liberacorpus! or worse as a common occurrence.
...which I thought I put in my reply above but now realized I didn't. I really shouldn't post when I'm that tired. Anyway, the idea that Harry didn't react because as far as he knew, from his limited experience, this was normal was the reason I kept bringing up the fact that in the anecdotes offered as counterexamples there was evidence that the initial events really didn't present any obvious stimuli indicating something was Wrong to an infant that looks at the surface without actually reasoning out what they're seeing. An older child would understand that their mother had died, but if an infant only feels their mother slump slightly before another caretaker picks them up? Why wouldn't this be part of the normal 'Mommy fell asleep so Daddy/Grandpa/Auntie is playing with me now' routine? And in both cases presented, the infants *did* freak out when it became clear that this *wasn't* part of the established routine.
As for excusing the scene because Rowling's a bad writer... if we don't give her a pass for the rest of the series, why should we here?
I apologize to everyone if it feels that I'm beating a dead horse over this scene, but Harry's behavior here freaked me out more than anything else written into these books, which have already been established as nightmare inducing in their own right.