The redeemed individual in HP
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deathtocapslockDeclaration: I do not agree with all statements made in this article and, as a non-American, am hardly a political expert, so this link does not mean endorsement of any 'non-HP things.'
Why is this article worth reading?
What stood out to me was the interesting reading of OoTF. It has always been my least favorite HP book. After waiting for years for its publication, I remember practically suffering and wanting to shut the book down every time Dolores Umbridge or Harry's anger made an appearance. Since one of the two, of most often their combination, are ubiquitous in OoTF, you may imagine the 'joy' of reading.
Renee Gorman's interpretation of Harry's evolution in OoTF at last reconciled me to this part of the series.
QUOTE from the article
Harry’s frustration stems from both the fact that he knows the truth and that he is being punished for his virtue: an injustice that is difficult to swallow. But he is also battling with his loss of popularity and celebrity. Though Harry consistently claims to hate the limelight—and though he genuinely does at times—he also secretly prizes his famous persona.
When Harry makes the reckless choice to leave Hogwarts and save Sirius after seeing a vision of Sirius captured by Voldemort, he has the following heated exchange with Hermione, the wisest of his peers.
“OK,” she said, looking frightened yet determined, “I’ve just got to say this—”
“What?”
“You … this isn’t a criticism, Harry! But you do … sort of … I mean—don’t you think you’ve got a bit of a—a—saving-people thing!” she said.
He glared at her.
“And what’s that supposed to mean, a ‘saving-people thing?”
Hermione hits a nerve here. But Harry ignores her warning and charges ahead to try to save Sirius. But, consciously or not, at this moment, Harry is also trying to save his own famous heroic persona. He gets his wish. After Sirius dies and Voldemort flees from a battle with Dumbledore, the truth is revealed, and Harry is once more the apple of the magical world’s eye—but it does not make him happy, after all.
This is partly because of his grief at losing Sirius, but also because that part of Harry that secretly prized acclamation dies along with his Godfather. It is no coincidence that this book is called The Order of the Phoenix because Harry emerges from the ashes of this tragedy a better man. Sirius had to die so that Harry could sacrifice himself for the right reason and finally defeat Voldemort.
Why is this article worth reading?
What stood out to me was the interesting reading of OoTF. It has always been my least favorite HP book. After waiting for years for its publication, I remember practically suffering and wanting to shut the book down every time Dolores Umbridge or Harry's anger made an appearance. Since one of the two, of most often their combination, are ubiquitous in OoTF, you may imagine the 'joy' of reading.
Renee Gorman's interpretation of Harry's evolution in OoTF at last reconciled me to this part of the series.
QUOTE from the article
Harry’s frustration stems from both the fact that he knows the truth and that he is being punished for his virtue: an injustice that is difficult to swallow. But he is also battling with his loss of popularity and celebrity. Though Harry consistently claims to hate the limelight—and though he genuinely does at times—he also secretly prizes his famous persona.
When Harry makes the reckless choice to leave Hogwarts and save Sirius after seeing a vision of Sirius captured by Voldemort, he has the following heated exchange with Hermione, the wisest of his peers.
“OK,” she said, looking frightened yet determined, “I’ve just got to say this—”
“What?”
“You … this isn’t a criticism, Harry! But you do … sort of … I mean—don’t you think you’ve got a bit of a—a—saving-people thing!” she said.
He glared at her.
“And what’s that supposed to mean, a ‘saving-people thing?”
Hermione hits a nerve here. But Harry ignores her warning and charges ahead to try to save Sirius. But, consciously or not, at this moment, Harry is also trying to save his own famous heroic persona. He gets his wish. After Sirius dies and Voldemort flees from a battle with Dumbledore, the truth is revealed, and Harry is once more the apple of the magical world’s eye—but it does not make him happy, after all.
This is partly because of his grief at losing Sirius, but also because that part of Harry that secretly prized acclamation dies along with his Godfather. It is no coincidence that this book is called The Order of the Phoenix because Harry emerges from the ashes of this tragedy a better man. Sirius had to die so that Harry could sacrifice himself for the right reason and finally defeat Voldemort.
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no subject
Date: 2020-08-08 07:16 pm (UTC)Harry never gets better at stopping to think through plans first, learn how to evaluate who might be trustworthy at least for the purposes of a certain mission, or work with people in general. He still rushes off in lone hero mode even when it isn't the best idea. OotP Harry doesn't torture anyone for spitting, unlike his later DH self. And if Rowling wanted us to think that Harry chooses to die for noble reasons because he's become a better person, she really shot herself in the foot when she had him make the decision after learning how Dumbledore had lied and betrayed him by setting him up to have little or no choice in the matter, and then made his honor guard on the way to his death come from an artifact known to induce suicidal despair.
I think the article might have an interesting idea regarding what Rowling meant the story to be, or what the characters might believe, but it doesn't hold up very well.
And the idea that the thing Dumbledore needs redemption for is only something that happened a hundred years ago, and that the incident shaped him into a better man, is... um. Well, that's certainly what Dumbledore would like us to believe, and what Harry seems to accept. But what about all the suffering he's been responsible for over the past 50 years? What's he done to redeem himself from those things?
The whole thing seems to come down to, "Well, the people who did terrible things say they're redeemed now, and I like the narrative of that, so it would be intolerant to hold anything those people did against them, or at least stop putting them up on pedestals and honoring them."
Rowling could have done something interesting with the idea how to live in a world where maybe people you care about or admire do terrible things and don't ever make amends or even fully realize what they've done wrong, or how you deal with someone who's done both terrible and noble things. But she didn't do it very successfully, if she tried. Instead, she let Harry just stop thinking about things once they got uncomfortable and conveniently killed off the most difficult characters so no one would have to deal with them, and pasted on the "mildly flawed but yay really redeemed and noble" facade over nearly everyone as if she hadn't just shown us it was a facade.
no subject
Date: 2020-08-12 09:21 pm (UTC)The second one is the "Magic Is Might" statute in DH, which depicts a witch and wizard seated on twisted human figures. Whatever we think of the statue's morality or artistic merit, this does represent an important moment in wizarding history. Would it be wrong to remove it from the atrium of the Ministry of Magic? Is that canceling our memory of history?
The first is the Fountain of Magical Brethren. For all we know, this statute has great artistic merit and was created by a famous sculptor. It may also commemorate a specific historic event, like the signing of a treaty. The witch and wizard might have been real people with complicated personalities containing both good and bad. Say the wizard negotiated an important peace treaty which saved many lives, abused his wife, and also beat three house-elves to death, and the witch invented a critical healing potion and also was the key Wizengamot member pushing for the law forbidding goblins to carry wands.
We don't know who they are or whether the statue represents an event because even if there is a plaque explaining everything, most people will never read it. Even those who do won't read it every time they pass the statue and think about the historical complexities. Whatever else it means, the statue also stands on its own as a visual symbol, and that might mean that people passing it just get a jolt of memory about "that guy who murdered my great-grandmother" or "that witch who is a major reason I'm treated as a second-class citizen." Or just see the grouping and think, "Yes, human magic-users lording it over their grateful inferiors. That's an accurate representation of the Ministry's beliefs, all right."
If that statue had survived, or if it has been repaired and could be re-installed, would it be wrong to take it out of the atrium? There isn't really a "neutral" option. Leaving it there is a statement that whatever bad things the witch and wizard might have done do not outweigh the good things which justify having a public statue memorializing them, and that species superiority is something which ought to be portrayed in the halls of government. Taking it out says that the wrongs are important enough that they shouldn't be lauded in public.
And it isn't a choice between leaving the statue in the atrium and no one ever seeing it again. There's Option C, the Indiana Jones option: "That belongs in a museum!" That is, a place where people will be interested in the historical context and where it isn't acting as the face of or welcome mat for for the entire government. Would putting the statue in a museum be that intolerant "cancel culture," in the author's opinion?
And if a house-elf, a centaur, and a goblin decided to pull down the symbol of how wizards like to oppress them, would that be wrong?
While it's a matter of interpretation, I don't think the books support the interpretation that these statutes are precious relics which ought to be eternally preserved and appreciated in the Ministry atrium forevermore. In fact, I rather get the feeling that the Fountain of Magical Brethren getting blasted to pieces was seen as a bonus of the fight, and that melting down the Magic Is Might statute might just be one of Kingsley Shacklebolt's first orders as the new Minister. So I don't know what the article's author thinks they're proving, really.
Redemption in the HP books
Date: 2020-08-12 10:20 pm (UTC)/The whole thing seems to come down to, "Well, the people who did terrible things say they're redeemed now/
This speaks to the shallowness of the wizarding world that we are shown in the books. The public alternately loves Harry then reviles him. The same with Dumbledore. The attitude seems very much one of "what have you done for me lately." Dumbledore does many questionable things, especially to Harry. But it's ok because "he had Harry's best interests in mind" and "his heart was in the right place." He was a great man and a noble Gryffindor so he's given a pass. Harry uses an unforgivable because Carrow spits at McGonagall and as Sunnyskywalker pointed out didn't seem to learn from his mistakes.
Then we have Snape, who although is an interesting character he was a horrible human being. He bullied and abused children under his charge and it was all excused away by his work as a "spy" and was caused by his very sad upbringing.
The society seems unwilling to hold anyone accountable for their actions. After the first war, people were content to allow accused Death Eaters to skate on terror attacks and bribe and lie their way out of any significant punishment.
It seems that the theme JK wanted her readers to take away from the books was the idea these flawed people could gain redemption. But the reality of what is in the books shows that you can be a master manipulator, abusive bully, work to overthrow the government, murder, use unforgivables, and generally create mayhem and all you have to do is either twinkle your eyes, play the double agent, throw some money around, or claim that you've changed and all will be forgiven.
This idea of actual redemption is something that I am exploring in a fic I'm writing, we'll see where it goes.
Re: Redemption in the HP books
Date: 2020-08-14 01:24 am (UTC)But another question that doesn't really come up is what happens to a person who did awful things and then is really, truly redeemed and changes their actions for the better. (It doesn't come up, because anyone who gets close to being redeemed promptly dies and conveniently sweeps the question under the rug.) That's great! But do the people who were previously harmed by that person have to name their kids after him or invite him over for dinner, or can they go, "I admire what you've done and forgive you from a distance, but we're not going to be friends"?
It's such a complex set of issues.
Re: Redemption in the HP books
Date: 2020-08-14 04:39 pm (UTC)I had this discussion with my S/O one night. For me, the question at the heart of it is, should one or more good things that a person does completely exonerate them for past crimes? Case in point, when I was an early teen my mom went to this church and there was this older guy (probably 30) who was always trying to talk to the young girls there. Something just seemed off about him, yet he was respected there and did all these good things. Long story short after my mom stopped going to that church they found out that guy had been doing bad things to some of those girls and he was arrested for murdering one of them. At the time the guy's mother was quoted as saying "but my son has done a lot of good things, the church should stand by him." Of course, any reasonable person recognizes that this is just a loving mother who can't believe her son is a monster. But it illustrates what I have always felt about many people in the HP universe, they redeem themselves on the surface only.
This is most blatant in Snape and Dumbledore as well. so many people love them. They both did terrible things and Dumbledore especially appeared to think the ends justified the means. But no reasonable person would excuse Snape's behavior towards children. No one would give him a pass if they were the focus of his abuse, nor would they do so if it was their child.
It almost seems as though JK didn't realize that the unintended, (hopefully) message was that just because Snape was abused and bullied as a child it was ok for him to abuse and bully other children. Because he was a spy for the "light" it balances things out and makes up for every bad thing he did. The inference being you can do wrong and never have to actually change your ways and take the consequences of your actions or make any sort of restitution because as long as you're on the side of "the light" all be forgiven. Sorry, the real world doesn't work that way for most people, or at least it shouldn't. There is nothing going on in my life that gives me the "right" to mistreat another human being.
I think a better message to send would have been if Snape had survived the war, admitted that he was wrong, and spent time and effort showing that he had changed and done what he could to make things right. I think that's a great message to send, that everyone should be accountable for the things they do. Forgive my soapboxing, but as has been said before, it's a complex set of issues.
Re: Redemption in the HP books
Date: 2020-08-14 08:41 pm (UTC)If the story was true was Churchill right or wrong in what he chose to do? Well, that could depend. If I was living in Coventry at the time or had a loved one who lived there and they or I was killed then I would definitely feel it was wrong. But how many other people would have died if the Nazis knew the British had cracked the code. There are no easy answers in war it's all shades of gray. Wartime leaders have to make very tough decisions that are mostly paid in the lives of people who trust those leaders to protect them. If a leader has to sacrifice one or more of their people, hopefully, those leaders will sell those lives as dearly as possible. As Obi-Wan said "many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view."
no subject
Date: 2020-08-16 02:18 am (UTC)Does he, though? As the series goes on, if anything, it’s the opposite. Harry was never the most active of protagonists (except where saving people was concerned), but he gets extremely passive and by the end of DH, he’s DD’s sacrificial lamb. Not only that, but he never once questions the trajectory of events that led him to “Dumbledore wants me killed.”
Re: Redemption in the HP books
Date: 2020-08-16 05:25 am (UTC)Re: Redemption in the HP books
Date: 2020-08-16 05:50 pm (UTC)We know what they consider marginally unacceptable teacher behavior: transfiguring a student into an animal and slamming him repeatedly against the stone floor. McGonagall is shocked--but not so shocked that she says she'll talk to Albus about having Moody dismissed immediately. She never says that the ferret incident should have tipped her off that something was wrong with Moody, at least not in our hearing. Rita doesn't use the incident as an example of how bad Hogwarts administration is, suggesting that a lot of parents wouldn't feel it was that big a deal. So I really doubt the other teachers see anything wrong with Snape's approach.
There are literally no other teachers they can look to for alternatives, and the entire population was raised this way and probably has a hard time imagining anything different. This makes it a lot harder for any of the teachers to get enough perspective to go, "Wait, maybe we're actually wrong? Maybe there's another way to handle things?" (And that's even before you factor in their likely over-scheduled, sleep-deprived lives, which can make even normally even-tempered people snappish and unreasonable.) They phased out corporal punishment around 1970, so they are able to make some changes for the better... but only with a lot of time and effort, I would guess.
But having an explanation doesn't make it any less awful for the kids on the receiving end. I would have been like an unfortunate combination of Hermione and Neville in class, and knowing that the teachers maybe genuinely didn't know better and thought they were doing the right thing would not have helped me. Which is one of those difficult situations the books really don't address.
Re: Redemption in the HP books
Date: 2020-08-16 05:59 pm (UTC)And what about situations where there really isn't a right or wrong answer? Like, say you could be 100% sure someone has changed and will no longer do any of the harmful things they used to. This doesn't cancel those out, but you're in no further danger. But what if seeing the person still constantly reminds you of past traumas, and you'd really just rather not? You could force yourself to see them anyway and try to desensitize yourself, and maybe that would even work for some people. But wouldn't moving on with your life without that person in it be just as valid a choice? Not being constantly reminded might also be a way to slowly get over (in the sense of it not hurting as much, not in the sense of erasing it) what's happened. And different people might react differently, so you can't say that everyone should do it one particular way.
Re: Redemption in the HP books
Date: 2020-08-16 06:01 pm (UTC)RE: Re: Redemption in the HP books
Date: 2020-08-18 03:32 am (UTC)Physically picking up a student and bashing him against a wall would: a) be much harder for certain teachers, b) give the student a chance to escape and c) also increase the odds that the teacher would be hurt. Blasting him against a wall repeatedly with a wand, on the other hand, can be done by pretty much anybody. As can inflicting bruises, cuts, etc.
Re: Redemption in the HP books
Date: 2020-08-18 07:40 pm (UTC)McGonagall drags Draco off by his ear, so she isn't entirely averse to laying hands on a student as of 1991. And she tells Moody that transfiguring students is not allowed, not that bashing them about is not allowed. That's... an interesting set of priorities. Just because they can heal most injuries quickly doesn't make the injuries not excruciatingly painful. But that doesn't bother her that we ever hear.
She's both a teacher and the deputy headmistress, so she sets the bar for what is acceptable for the rest of the teaching staff. And according to McGonagall, calling your students stupid and incompetent in public and setting them up to be horribly murdered are acceptable. So... yeah, I don't think the teachers would find much of anything that any Hogwarts teacher does out of line, sadly.
RE: Re: Redemption in the HP books
Date: 2020-08-19 02:20 am (UTC)And the last three books got steadily worse, such that I can’t really understand adult fans who stick to the surface-level reading of the text.
Even at a very basic level, without getting into the nitty-gritty of Muggle-wizard relations, events and timelines (IOW, definitely not up to the standard of all the write-ups here, because I haven’t touched DH probably since it came out), I struggle with reading Harry straightforwardly as the good, obedient sacrificial lamb, the Dursleys as some kind of bastion of lampoonable, Telegraph-reading middle class, and Tom as the supposed Dark Lord. I can think of a dozen ways Tom could’ve killed Harry.
The first scene of PS with owls, fireworks and wizards just rampaging around proclaiming “Ding dong, the Dark Lord’s dead!” is hard to reconcile with the news that there is, in fact, a Statute of Secrecy and the flagrant abuses of power that go on, not to mention supposed anti-Muggle sentiment that we never hear about. Doylistly, do we have a Statue? Or don’t we? Are they prejudiced against Muggles? Or aren’t they? If so, why? If not, why not? If so, what inconvenience does being so secluded cause them? You can’t have your cake and eat it too, Rowling. You can’t have your two hidden worlds and then tell us the magic users (or Gryffs, or whatever) are the good guys and their world is amazing and they don’t need Muggles, but also show them egregiously violating nearly every law/rule/moral code there is. Or if you do, that can be your moral tale: whet has happened to wizards during their seclusion and what the two societies can teach each other. Or how the wizards can lawfully keep from being subsumed into wider Muggle society.
Not “the power of love”, which sounds like something from a New Age magazine.
There’s a lot of potential in that first scene, too. It implies some kind of ending, both to Lord Voldemort’s oppression (as we are supposed to believe it) and the Statute of Secrecy. If the narrative had taken that kind of direction it would’ve been - or could’ve been, anyway - much more compelling.
Harry, in this scenario, wouldn’t have been the POV character. The entire conflict would be, “Well, magic exists. What implications does this have for the entire Muggle and magical world, and how slowly can we reveal ourselves? How will Muggles adapt to us?”
Instead Rowling... sort of... stubbornly inserts Harry into the middle of this caricature of a family and... I don’t even know, honestly, why she bothers. If the explicit point of Harry’s journey was for him to overcome his trauma (actual PTSD) and learn to make friends or whatever during PS and maybe realise the Dursleys weren’t normal, okay, fine, I could’ve bought that. If Dumbledore had been subtly, Snapeishly presented as manipulative, again, fine. Instead we see him gallivant off to Hogwarts to solve puzzles and learn magic. He’s a different character at Hogwarts and at the Dursleys’ according to authorial fiat. The reason Dahl works so well is because his heroes (e.g. Matilda) break rules that are unfair. Harry breaks perfectly reasonable rules and we’re expected to believe it’s a harmless little escapade because he managed to escape detention by the skin of his teeth.
Given Rowling’s recent open letter and her generation, I wonder if HP wasn’t a way for her to bleed off some internalised misogyny or something. HP is very male-centric and very... it encourages (stereo)typically ‘toxic male/macho’ traits like aggression, braggadocio, violence, rushing in to the rescue, bluster, rule-breaking and valuing bravery even in its female characters (Hermione, mainly, but also Ginny). If Harry and the WW are the Ideal Mascot for anything, perhaps toxic masculinity might be it. Talk about trickle-down effects.
RE: Re: Redemption in the HP books
Date: 2020-08-19 02:22 am (UTC)God, every time I reply to anything here it turns into a big tangent, but there you go.
Re: Redemption in the HP books
Date: 2020-08-20 03:02 am (UTC)Like, Harry not understanding the difference between reasonable and unreasonable rules makes sense given his background. The Dursleys were arbitrary and unfair, and apparently somehow convinced his primary school teachers to join in a bit, so it's no surprise that Harry instinctively feels that rules are arbitrary and unfair and designed solely to oppress him.
What's frustrating is that the books reinforce this. I don't expect Harry to have worked out every issue by the time he's 17, because who would, but could there have been a little more acknowledgement that Harry benefiting from favoritism and being exempted from rules whenever Dumbledore or McGonagall found it convenient was also not good for him? I felt like he ended the series with so many of his old problems magnified plus getting some new ones that he was going to have serious trouble just being a person coping with life. That's an incredibly depressing way to leave a protagonist. And then the epilogue had to go and rub our noses in some of the wizarding world's major problems not having changed a bit and still being thought of as jokes. So it isn't just Harry; it's his whole society. "All was well," my foot.
no subject
Date: 2020-08-20 03:05 am (UTC)RE: Re: Redemption in the HP books
Date: 2020-08-20 01:31 pm (UTC)E.g. something like “Harry hated rules. The Dursleys always had too many rules. Why shouldn’t he sneak out and duel Malfoy?”. Then if someone reliable had later come and told Harry that he couldn’t just break whatever rules he wanted, and he’d reflected on his behaviour and *learned* that his rule-breaking tendencies were because of trauma, then yes, absolutely. Or if he’d suffered some freaking consequences - like, actual consequences, not detention. The closest he comes is the Pensieve incident... which makes no sense for all the reasons we discussed on Ao3, and is more about ethics, etiquette and unspoken rules besides. But if we take that at face value for a sec, that’s where I think he has a moment of... God, I don’t even want to say empathy or understanding that some things are private, because what he thinks is “He had never seen Snape so angry”. Not remorse that he shouldn’t have intruded. I suspect a large cause of his reaction there was not guilt for prying into other people’s memories, but shock that his father & Sirius were bullies and that Snape is incandescent.
But the mentor figure (Dumbledore) is the one who gives him the Cloak and, presumably, hides the mirror where students can find it, not to mention following Harry to the Mirror of Erised in the middle of the night. The only people who actually object to Harry’s special treatment are Slytherins, who are painted to be ‘evil’ and anti-Harry. And that’s not even getting started on the lack of any psychologists in HP, or any equivalent system, e.g. a Lorien-Novalis style school with an emphasis on rehabilitation.
Yeah, Harry develops a cruel and passive streak towards the end. He’s disturbingly indifferent towards everything. Seriously, compare the writing in PS to the, um... the bloated mess that is DH.
Re: Redemption in the HP books
Date: 2020-08-22 02:37 am (UTC)And that's the sort of thing that really ought to be addressed in fiction one way or another. There are a lot of different ways it could be addressed. It doesn't have to include a long, Dumbledorean speech explaining it or Harry spending a chapter analyzing everything he's done for the past six books, and it could include some (well-handled) uncertainty and ambiguity. But it should matter somehow.
Re: Re: Redemption in the HP books
Date: 2020-08-22 06:40 am (UTC)RE: Re: Re: Redemption in the HP books
Date: 2020-08-22 11:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-22 11:49 pm (UTC)I think it was oneandthetruth who pointed out, in their DH spork/commentary, that Harry drifts along pretty much the entire series looking for a parent figure, someone to pass responsibility to. He even brings it up in DH. And no wonder, if he’s never received the tailored magical training or guidance necessary to actually defeat Voldemort. Not to mention that he would’ve needed to catch up on six years of basically every subject except DADA.
I think that’s why a lot of people gravitate towards mentor fics, because it makes so much more sense for Chosen One tropes than going on adventures, doing some blasting with elementary spells and then dying because his mentor’s dead and he’s just following orders. I wonder if that’s why he is so passive, because the alternative‘s to think for himself. Or, as I’ve read in a number of fics and people have pointed out in this comm, he’s been told that his destiny is to finish Voldie off and so he doesn’t care how he does it — he just sees himself as a tool.
I do wonder what happened to his much-vaunted DADA talent. I can kind of forgive it up until POA, but Harry’s arc from GOF feels like such a con job and a ripoff. It is lazy writing to take the easy way out and just send your hero on an extended camping trip (DH) a completely unnecessary wizarding competition (GOF), an adventure that ends up fruitless because the entire reason he was lured there is by a trick of the enemy and which he doesn’t learn anything from (OOTP) and a treasure hunt in which he is, at best, a passive onlooker (HBP).
This is the main frustration I have with Rowling. She sets up these beautiful little stage sets, like the whole contraption at the end of PS, the entire DA or the fascinating Horntail in GOF, but she never does anything with them. She never returns to them and she never has Harry (or Voldemort) learn from them.
The nearest thing to a fully formed plan Voldie had was the diary in COS.
I’m not saying I wanted OP!Harry, necessarily, but I think this is why there are so many OP!Harry fics because canon gives us... a Harry who gets top marks in DADA but also never bothers to learn Occlumency. She wants to keep him passive but also have him be the one who defeats Voldemort. How does that work?
It all feels very pastede-on-yay.
Yeah, the King’s Cross scene is meant to be his final confrontation with Dumbledore, but he just acts really normal and laps up Dumbledore’s every word.
no subject
Date: 2020-08-24 02:21 am (UTC)But it doesn't mean that he performs brilliantly by any objective standard, just that he is good enough to compensate for the bad teaching and be not entirely terrible.
But why did he give up the DA? His flimsy excuse is that it's because Umbridge is gone and they don't have exams this year or some such. Wasn't he the one who said they had to learn this stuff because Voldemort was back? Do they not still need to practice defense for the same reason? He must have a lot of confidence in Snape's ability to teach DADA... Sheesh, couldn't he even think of a petty reason to keep the club going, like wanting to secretly prove himself a better DADA teacher than Snape?
Passivity and heroism really do seem to correlate strongly for the characters: the less you try to actively accomplish anything, the better you are. Sit back, trust some random person, and do nothing. It's just so weird.
no subject
Date: 2020-08-24 12:04 pm (UTC)I think we are meant to read his giving up the DA because Umbridge has left as logical, but yeah, you’d think Harry of all people would have good reason to keep it going. Another example of Rowling’s episodic (and ‘out of sight, out of mind’) approach to her work.
Absolutely! Harry starts passive (a baby) and continues that way more or less from GOF to DH. I’m fascinated by what was going through Rowling’s head. The closest I can get is ‘Christ figure’, but Christ actively promoted a new religion and died in agony, having been abandoned by Heaven/God. There’s not really any emotion in Harry’s death. He feels like he’s going through the motions.
no subject
Date: 2020-08-25 01:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-08-28 03:35 pm (UTC)I read somewhere (don't remember exactly who it was) some one wrote that part of the reason JKR & HP were so popular was because of the weaknesses in her world building. It not that she is a great world builder, rather she created a great stage and set up which allows for the fan to fill in themselves.
no subject
Date: 2020-09-04 05:43 am (UTC)JKR comes really close to doing this with the excellent obstacle course in PS: she takes Ron’s chess ability and uses it to help him get past the game, and Harry’s Quidditch talent to help him catch the keys. What I meant by sets is that she could’ve brought Norberta back to help Harry kill LV (just an example). She could’ve had Harry bond with Fawkes to help him kill Voldie; hell, what happened to the Mandrakes? Instead each book seems very self-contained and episodic.
Hmm... interesting. I can see that. Harry himself starts off as an everyman character - a calm, quiet, politely curious kid who seems genuinely invested in attending Hogwarts. The idea is for everyone (every kid) to wish they were Harry and lived at Hogwarts.