No: HPFGUIDX 16982
I was intrigued by the article Rebecca quoted (the one from Emmaus
Bible College) and think it makes some good points, though I
immediately thought of the same thing Lyda wrote: his success in GoF,
at least, has little to do with rulebreaking. In general, I would say
that JKR affirms the spirit rather than the letter, and =is= quite
disparaging of those who insist upon the letter of the law; they are
variously shown to be fools, to interfere with what is really
important (e.g. Snape delaying Harry's getting to Dumbledore when
Crouch Sr. is wandering the grounds talking to trees), etc. And I
agree that Ron and Harry are often operating at Kohlberg's stage 6,
but sometimes it's much more self-serving than that; they break rules
because the rules are in the way of their doing something that they
just want to do, e.g. the midnight duel in PS/SS, Harry's first stroll
in the Invisibility Cloak, his going to Hogsmeade in PA. Also,
sometimes Harry is pushed to a moral crisis (break the rules in order
to do what's really important, e.g. his big speech in PS/SS where he
lays out what you might call the principled rulebreaker's credo: what
do points and expulsion matter if Voldemort returns to power?) that
could have been averted if he would just confide in an adult.
McGonagall told them to shoo, but if they really insisted on
explaining all they knew to her ("Hagrid told some stranger how to get
by Fluffy!") she would have listened. Then we would have no
story--but the point is, if JKR wanted to convey that a bit more trust
in authority was warranted, she could have had McGonagall come visit
Harry in the hospital wing and say, "you know, if you'd told me what
was going on, I would have helped."
The thing is, I disagree with the article author's general stance on
rules. I =approve= of the message that abiding by rules is inferior
to living by the spirit of the law and being guided by conscience. I
can't really relate to the view that equates good religious life with
general obedience to rules. I have lots of respect for the rule, not
so much of Law in and of itself, but of the will of the community
expressed in its laws and rules--that's why I forked over my money to
the IRS without a complaint yesterday. (Well, I complained about the
confusing forms. But not about the principle of paying taxes!) But
I have never been in sync with the strain of American religious
thought that puts a high emphasis on obedience to the government or
any other principality or power, or even on obedience to parents (you
see it a lot in Mormonism and fundamentalism). A lot of my spiritual
heroes are principled rulebreakers: Jesus, Thoreau, Gandhi, Martin
Luther King, Dorothy Day, the Berrigans--conscientious practitioners
of civil disobedience, every one. I'm not saying Harry has a
well-thought-out philosophy of civil disobedience, but his actions
illustrate its principles.
Rebecca wrote:
>I assumed that the Beauxbatons students were continuing to have their
lessons in French in that enormous horse-drawn
>carriage of Madame Maxime's, and the Durmstrang students were having
lessons
>in Bulgarian (or Russian, or whatever) on the ship
Oh, me too. I was just saying that one explanation of why the TWT
lasts an entire school year =could= be that it's not just a tournament
for three (four) champions; it's an exchange year for two dozen
students; but we don't really see the students taking advantage of a
year at a different school.
Heidi wrote:
>they were supposed to have DaDA with the Slytherins and
>Durmstrang students, but the Durmstrangers got to be exempt and were
>all working on a project with Karkaroff - isn't that odd?
LOL!
Penny wrote:
>I have the *perception* (not based on solid canon evidence) that Ron
is jealous of
>Harry's money because Harry inherited it; that Ron wishes desperately
>that he *had* money *without needing to do anything to get it*.
I can see that. It just isn't my perception. I don't see Ron's
jealousy as being at all that developed, or his thoughts about Harry's
money being that detailed--he just hates being poor: the humiliation
of secondhand stuff (sharpened by his archenemy's being rich and
rubbing his face in it), the contant money worries in his family.
I really related to JKR when she said in some interview that the
wonderful thing about her financial success is the absence of worry.
This is the kind of insight that goes into Ron's "must be nice, being
able to lose a pocketful of gold and not notice" bit--it's not that he
spends his time meditating gloomily on how much money Harry has, but
that when this kind of thing happens he realizes the gulf between his
experience and that of someone who doesn't have to count every Sickle.
It could come up a lot if Harry were the type to buy a lot of
expensive things or be thoughtless about spending money ("Harry, I'm
so sorry--I smashed your vial of unicorn horn!" "Ah, don't worry,
plenty more where that came from").
Morag wrote:
>I particularly like Ron's reaction to a 50p piece "That's money?
*Weird!*"
I would probably respond the same way!
I once went to Canada with a friend who repeatedly and loudly referred
to their paper money as "purple chickens" (FYI, Canadian bills are a
variety of colors, unlike the US's rather boring
green-for-every-denomination, and yes, there was a robin on the, IIRC,
$2 bill). It was embarrassing at the time, touring Ottawa with the
Ugly American, but my husband and I still privately refer to Canadian
money as purple chickens.
Ebony wrote:
>The idea of there being a symbiotic relationship between house-elves
and
>their masters bothers me a great deal. The same rhetoric was used in
this
>country less than a generation ago, and extended back throughout our
entire
>history as a nation. ("They like being slaves! Look, they're happy
and
>singing and dancing." "I treat my slaves well... they're practically
>members of the family.")
A big amen to this and the entire post, but I had to snip it to be a
good list citizen.
I just reread the beginning of CoS today. I recommend the chapter
"Dobby's Warning" to anyone who is thinking house-elves don't have it
so bad or that they want things to stay the way they are.
dasienko wrote:
>Maybe Harry will die as a wizard, but live on as a squib.
Oh, that would be so sad. Never to play Quidditch again . . . ?! A
fate worse than death!
Amy Z
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"Damn it, all this eye-twinkling is making my pupils itch."
--Dumbledore, "The Magical Mystika Tour," Rave
www.fanfiction.net/index.fic?action=story-read&storyid=93315
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