Envy and Respect/Fudge question.

[Kimberly]

No: HPFGUIDX 13165

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., meboriqua at a... wrote:
> I thought it was sad, too that Cedric died (and somehow felt I 
should 
> have seen the signs - more later if anyone's interested), but I 
think 
> it was a brilliant decision on JKR's part.  Why?
> 
> Harry was devasted to have lost a Quidditc match in PoA when he was 
at 
> his weakest point - to Cedric.
> He loses the first girl he has a serious crush on - to Cedric
> He is the target of ridicule and ostracism when he is chosen as the 
> fourth champion - because Cedric got there first and honestly.
> 
> JKR is creating a realistic and complicated situation because Harry 
> envied Cedric (rightfully so) for being what Harry (as a typical 14 
> year old) wants to be.  Yet Cedric is a good guy - a really good 
guy, 
> and he dies.  Now Harry is left with the guilt of having not liked 
> Cedric too much when he was alive and having been forced to witness 
> his death.
> 
> Isn't life complicated just like that?  I hope I made sense!

Wow!  Great point!  I hadn't really thought about it, but you're right 
on here.  I was crushed by Cedric's death and had to put the book down 
for a few mintes to compose myself before I could go on.  Looking back 
at it in light of what you've said, I think that while in part it's 
because I liked and admired Cedric, and in part because of the 
cold pragmaticism of it, what you mentioned is a big part of why it 
affected me so.
Not only is Ced a good guy, he's the only one who's consistently 
beaten Harry at things that were important to him.  He felt inadequate 
when he compared himself with Cedric, so when Cedric was killed with 
little more than a flick of the wrist (and by Wormtail, who Harry 
knows to be a sniveling coward)... 
It brings home all the more that Harry's strengths are not, stricktly 
speaking, enough to keep him safe from anything Voldemort might try.  


Dai (I think it was Dai) mentioned something about Fudge, and how 
serious it was that Fudge didn't believe Harry, and that's been 
niggling at me.  Fudge knows that (not)Mad-Eye Moody didn't leave the 
Quidditch pitch during the events of the third task, and he knows that 
Cedric is dead.  If he believes that Crouch was acting alone out of 
his own lunacy, then how does he explain Cedric's death?

kimberly