The Sin of Envy (also long)

[Jim Ferer]

No: HPFGUIDX 1715

My dear La Belle Dame, in the hope your attitude is trending 
reasonable today:

Dear Peg:

A nice essay. JKR is teaching good moral lessons throughout her
books, 
about friendship, teamwork, and the nature of good and evil. You have 
touched on others.  You might say she has been addressing gluttony
all 
along with Dudley; some of the others we have yet to see.

Speaking of Dudley and the Dursleys, there is a really glaring
example 
of envy there: Aunt Petunia's envy of her late sister. Eleven years 
after her sister's death, it still rankles Petunia that Lily was 
special and treated special, at least in Petunia's eyes.  The
jealousy 
helped turn her to hostility towards Lily's son. What happened to 
Petunia is the kind of thing that we don't want to happen to Ron.

We can't talk about envy without dealing with Ron. Ron's feelings are 
more complex than just envy.  He's trying to develop self-esteem in
an 
environment where it must seem everybody else does better: Two Head 
Boys and a quidditch star for brothers and an academic superstar and 
dead-lock on for Head Girl for a friend and possible girlfriend (who 
rubs salt in the wound by going out with a world-class Quidditch 
star). Just to top it off,his best friend is the most famous wizard
of 
his generation.  I'm not proud of it, but if I had been in Ron's
shoes 
I don't think I could have handled it.  I think that kind of envy is
a 
different quality than mere envy of toys and possessions. It cuts 
right to your worth as a human being. It turns some people to
jealousy 
and hostility and others to depression and anxiety. What saves Ron,
at 
least for now, are his friends and his loving family. BTW, we have to 
give Harry a pass for his behavior toward Ron -- tremendous stress, 
and nobody likes it when people don't believe them. But what is Ron's 
future?

I think what Cedric had that Harry really envied was peace. Cedric
was 
popular without the burden of notoriety.  He had a little fame but
not 
too much.  People looked at Cedric without their eyes flicking up to 
his forehead.  Cedric doesn't appear to have a lot of self-doubt, 
either. Harry knows somewhere Cho would have gone with him if he'd 
gotten up his nerve to ask first.  We haven't seen anything to
suggest 
Harry envies Cedric his looks or physique too much.

Look forward to the rest of your series! Keep writing them, and don't 
worry about how long they are!