[HPforGrownups] Harry and Cedric (was Envy/Respect)

[Jen Faulkner]

No: HPFGUIDX 13184

On Wed, 28 Feb 2001, Hillman, Lee wrote:


> I can certainly see how they could be interpreted in a slash context, but I
> respectfully disagree. 

Not to quibble, but as I stated before, my reading here really is
unrelated to slash.  (And believe me, I'm not surprised that people are
going to disagree with me on this!)

> I agree. But for the reasons having to do with Cho, not for any latent
> homosexual tendency. He's relieved because now the worry and the doubt are
> over.

Possibly.  I think you can read his relief either way.  But the
important point is that he does feel relief at the refusal, which
contrasts with his intense reaction when finding out that it's Cedric
she's going with.  I was merely trying to establish here that the
refusal on its own did not create the intense emotion.

> Absolutely.  It's called jealousy. 

Oh, quite.  The rivalry between Harry and Cedric is the core of my
reading.  I'm not making an argument, though one could, I think, that
Harry's feelings for Cho are a result of transferring his feelings for
Cedric onto her.  Instead, I'm focusing on the nature of the
rival-relationship itself as tinged with eroticism.  But rivals *must*
be jealous of one another.

> Not of Cho for going with Cedric, but Cedric for going with Cho.

But, I would argue, it's not so simple as that.  Harry is certainly
jealous that Cedric, and not he, is going with Cho.  I wouldn't deny
that.  However, (love) triangles are funny structures, because by their
nature they set up a connection between the two rivals, mediated through
the presence of the beloved.  And since Harry repeatedly casts Cedric in
the role of desired object, I get a distinct sense from the text that
Harry's desire is moving (though not consciously) towards both.  Nor
would I say that Harry is necessarily jealous of Cho.  I see no
evidence of that in the text; mostly he's emotionally uninvested in her
following her refusal.  However, his emotional reactions to Cedric
continue.  But I'm definitely not positing any sort of situation where
his 'real feelings' are the inverse of what he believes he is feeling
(reaction-formation).

> But of all people, to go with Cedric, who is already the object of
> most of the school's admiration (and remember that the Slytherins started a
> campaign to directly compare Cedric with Harry, casting Harry in the
> undesirable spot), is a harder blow. Again, purely in terms of literary
> criticism, I feel it's realistic that Harry fixates not on Cho herself, but
> on the fact of Cedric. 

Yes, Harry has good reasons to be rivals with Cedric, in addition to
their competition for Cho, which I interpret as strengthening my
reading.

> As such, it's also reasonable that he sees Cedric as an object, as
> indeed, so does the rest of the school.

When I say that H. 'sees Cedric as an object', I'm speaking specifically
of H. casting Cedric as an object of others' *desire*.  I would question
the reasonability of that outside of a context of H's own (unexpressed)
desire, and I certainly don't remember anyone else in the text casting
Cedric in that light.

> I interpreted this [H's comments on Ce.'s appearance] as a
> hyperbolic commentary meant to communicate Harry's bitterness over
> the rivalry. 

Hyperbolic?  In what sense?  Is there textual evidence elsewhere that
Ce. is *not* good-looking?  He isn't, to my mind, exaggerating a
negative characteristic of his rival, as he would be if, say, he had
thought: "How can she go out with Cedric?  He's the ugliest person ever
-- Swamp Thing's got it all over him!  His hair looks like straw and his
nose is too big and he hulks when he walks!" :) He isn't questioning the
fitness of Cho's choice at first -- he acknowledges openly Cedric's good
(*desirable*) qualities: skill at Quidditch, good looks, popularity.  
The basis on which he does question her choice is Cedric's intelligence,
not his looks: "Now he suddenly realized Cedric was in fact a useless
pretty boy who didn't have enough brains to fill an eggcup" (GoF 398).  
The hyperbole is in regard to Cedric's stupidity (though there may
indeed be a co-extensive inflation of his good looks).  But his looks
are among the givens about Cedric for Harry.

This passage, in my view, *is* a homoerotic one, because Harry is
viewing Cedric (though it is troped through the guise of Cho's
subjectivity) as an object of erotic desire.

> Correct again, but bear in mind that Cedric IS an object for the whole
> school, not just Harry. 

Again, I'm not sure where in the text this perception is coming from.  I
don't see any evidence that the whole school is treating Cedric as an
object of desire?

> It is natural and not necessarily homoerotic to objectify the rival
> in this case. 

I quite agree that it's natural to place the rival in the position of
desired object.  However, I also see it as natural and unavoidable for
the very act of viewing the rival as an object of desire to be by
definition an erotic act.

> Slytherins support Cedric, Cho's dating Cedric, everybody loves
> Cedric, so why shouldn't Fleur (the most sexually attractive girl in
> the school at the moment) also be going after Cedric?

Indeed, there is no reason she shouldn't -- but neither did Ron say
anything about Cedric.  Harry's forcing him into the scene described
because of his own fixation.  This perception that Cedric is the most
desirable/ed object comes from Harry, not from outside.

> It's bitterness, not sexual desire.

The two are not mutally exclusive (and bear in mind that the erotic and
the sexual are distinct, though related).

> Also bear in mind that he's making a half-baked attempt to console Ron,
> here, and thus the subject of the sentence is rightfully Fleur, not Cedric.

I'm not really sure what you mean by that?  Harry has almost completely
elided Cedric's subjectivity, and in his conversation with Ron, he is
(once again) positioning Cedric as desired object, mediated in this
instance through Fleur's subjectivity rather than Cho's.  (And really,
I'm not sure to what extent, if at all, his words can be said to have
any type of consoling effect intended.)

> He throws in Cedric's name because he feels like he's being unfairly
> compared to him, at every turn. 

That's certainly part of the reason, yes.  But the *context* in which he
throws in Cedric's name is a homoerotic one, in that Harry is viewing
Cedric as an object of (Cho's, Fleur's -- his) desire.

> Again, I think you _could_ interpret it that way, but to do so takes a lot
> of work. I think the more obvious explanation is, in this case, the correct
> one.

You know, it often seems in lit crit that exactly the opposite of
Occam's razor applies: the more convoluted a reading, the more
persuasive the argument for it. *g*  But really, I don't think this is a
particularly labored reading of the passages in question -- I think it
is easily defensible that Harry is viewing Cedric as an object of
desire.  And to my mind, this reading is not in conflict with the more
obvious one that Harry is jealous of Cedric, but a layering of it, a
complication of it.

> Does Harry need a necessary reason? How about, Cedric's constantly being
> held up this year as a paragon of good, an example to emulate? 

The context here, however, is not of a competition with Cedric's
behavior, but using Cedric as a paradigm for an object of desire -- so,
yes, I think Harry needs some sort of reason for doing so.  No one else
is constantly holding up Cedric as a paragon of desirability.

> How about, Cedric's in direct competition with Harry, even "getting
> the girl." How about, he's mad at Cedric? How about, he's trying to
> find something to fault in Cedric to bolster his own waning
> self-confidence? 

All *additional* reasons, yes, that don't negate the homoerotic ones.

> And in this case, I took the term "pretty boy" to be a derogatory
> statement, not a complimentary one.

Indeed, I take it as such also.  In fact, I think the phrase is really a
particularly telling word choice.  The term 'pretty boy' carries with
it, I would say, an entire register of meaning to do with effeminacy and
passivity that easily shades over into the homoerotic -- and is almost
invariably cast as negative.  The term implies a (threat of) loss of
masculinity because the person it is applied to is then automatically
placed in the position of desired object, the 'feminine' position.  By
nature of its meaning, it implies a positive valuation of the person's
looks (they are 'pretty'), but that very valuation is then, inevitably,
a negative thing, because it brings with it effective castration.  A
very negative term, but in the context I don't see how it can but be
homoerotic.

--jen :)

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