Bothered by JKR likening Harry's trials to the caged disabled Czech kids

[justcarol67]

Dumbledad wrote:
 
I agree, I wasn't questioning her logic, more her taste. No that's 
the wrong word. Her grip on reality. No that's wrong too. There's 
just something that makes me very uneasy about comparing 
real-world suffering to a character in a kids' book as a way of 
illustrating just how bad the real suffering must be.
> > 
Pippin replied: 
Hmmm. I don't think that's what she was trying to do. It wouldn't 
be like JKR to trivialize anyone's suffering. I think she was trying 
to harness some of the indignation that people express on 
Harry's behalf--look how many main list posts have there been 
expressing outrage that the Dursleys and Snape treat Harry so 
badly. JKR must get ten times that in her mailbag every day.
 
Wouldn't it be nice to expend some of that energy on behalf of 
some real children who need help?
 
Pippin
going to find out what she can do

Carol responds:
My own thought was that JKR was trying to use her influence as a
well-known author to get people to help but that she slightly mistook
her audience: Children might respond to the idea that the Czech
children are even worse off than Harry (much worse off, actually), but
adults--those who are actually capable of helping the Caech
children--wouldn't need the comparison. OTOH, I can easily imagine
Charles Dickens writing in the nineteenth century, "Conditions there
are even worse than at Dotheboys Hall." He would quite naturally
expect the majority of Englishmen and -women of his time to know
exactly what he was talking about and to respond with compassion (and
perhaps with money or other form of tangible aid).

I noticed the comparison when I read her message and was slightly
disturbed by it, but not nearly so much as by the plight of those
children, which makes our debates over whether Snape's sarcasm
qualifies as "abuse" seem pointless and trivial. Real abuse, as she
indicates, is worse than anything she, or we, can imagine without
having suffered it ourselves.

Carol