Harry's character. Was: re: Thewlis said what??

[Pernille]

First of all thanks for answering and welcome to the club :)
Your post cleared some things up, but I still kind of feel like I 
need a mans view on this. You see unlike you I don't have that many 
male friends....to be honest I have none, (male friends that is). So 
male thought is still kind of a mystery to me. 
So once again I ask for a male member to share his thoughts about 
this.

Take Care
Pernille



--- In HPFGU-Movie at yahoogroups.com, Sherry Garfio <sgarfio at y...> 
wrote:


> Hello, just joined this group (although I've been a member of the 
main list and
> OTChatter for a long time).  I'm not a boy either, but I have 
always had mostly
> male friends and now I have a son.  I and most people I've spoken 
with feel
> that JKR has done a wonderful job of portraying an adolescent boy 
in Harry (and
> Ron as well, and the relationship between the two).  A couple of my 
adult
> friends changed that opinion after reading OotP, saying that he was 
way too
> emotional for a 15-year-old boy, but I had a friend at that age who 
was going
> through some tough times and he reacted very similarly.  The girly 
reaction
> would have been crying, not lashing out at friends as Harry did.  
To give a
> more concrete example, I'll mention my very favorite scene in the 
whole series
> so far: in PS/SS when Harry gives Neville his last Chocolate Frog 
to comfort
> him after Malfoy put the Leg Locker curse on him.  Is that or is 
that not the
> very epitome of boyish empathy?
> 
> OTOH, there was a paper given at Nimbus 2003 whose thesis is that 
Harry and
> Hermione are gender-swapped, and therefore Harry is a feminine 
hero.  I have
> not read this paper, if anybody has any information on how to get 
it, I would
> be most interested.  The abstract I read states that Harry has 
traditionally
> feminine qualities (soft-spoken, polite, insecure) while Hermione 
has
> traditionally masculine qualities (bossy, logical, assertive).  The 
abstract
> can be found at http://www.hp2003.org/nimbuspgmtrack.html#gender - 
click on the
> abstract for "Emeric Switch on Gender: Harry and Hermione's 
Transgendered
> Heroism".
> 
> I'm not sure I agree with your assertion that most authors make 
their main
> characters the same sex as they are.  One of my favorite authors 
when I was a
> teenager was S.E. Hinton (a woman) whose books had almost 
exclusively male main
> characters, and in fact were written in the first person from a 
boy's point of
> view (The Outsiders; That Was Then, This Is Now; Rumble Fish; 
Tex).  She, like
> JKR, published with her initials because she didn't want to make it 
too obvious
> that she was a woman, and her books mostly appeal to boys.  There 
are probably
> a lot more women who write about male main characters than men who 
write about
> female main characters.  I don't have any data to back that up, 
it's just the
> impression I get from what I've read.  As for why JKR made her hero 
a boy, she
> has said in interviews that he popped into her head fully formed, 
and he was
> always a boy.
> 
> Sherry
> 
> 
> =====
> "Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims 
are identical and our hearts are open."
>     -- Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 		
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