Post-Hogwarts PTSD (was re: marvin's fanfic)

[ebonyink at hotmail.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 10155

Marvin wrote:
> Well, I was partly being tongue-in-cheek, but it's an obvious 
enough > possibility that I ought to have guessed others would 
have played with> it before now.  One thing about the clothes and 
parties, though...if> other people are going through all the effort 
(for the sake of getting close to you) then the nice clothes and 
adoration are things that people have been known to get used to
> 
> I think I saw someone mention in passing a "seclusion" theory 
or some> such.  Would this be a case in which Harry retires from 
life, a bit like Frodo Baggins, too traumatized by his experience to 
want to be very involved in the world anymore?


Hello--

Jim Ferer (I think) and Jim Flanagan have written both essay 
posts and fanfics to describe this phenomenon.  As I stated 
before, I agree strongly with them.

I also believe that not only would Harry be affected, I think that
his 
entire generation would be traumatized to a certain degree.  I 
tend to think of the Marauders as part of the "Lost Generation"... 
we don't know many of them in canon, but from what we've seen, 
V. didn't just play pattycake the last time around.  

Weren't significant PTSD trends noted in Europe between the 
world wars and Japan post-Hiroshima/Nagasaki?  Holocaust 
survivors also fall into this category (I'm wondering if mass 
post-WWI and Great Depression-induced PTSD aided the rise of 
fascism in Germany)... as do survivors of any genocide.  Last 
semester, I had the privilege of reviewing a volume of 
literacy/technology case studies in which two participants were 
refugees from Somalia and Cambodia.

In my fic, Angelina Johnson is one of many thousands wounded 
in the coming war.  She definitely had to deal with PTSD, and 
she wasn't even on the main front... how much more, then, would 
Neville?  Or Ron?  Or Hermione?   This is why I think close 
interpersonal relationships (never mind shipping for the 
moment) would inevitably form amongst students who were at 
Hogwarts in the nineties under Dumbledore, who at this point is 
the only ultra-prominent wizard who believes that V is back.  It's a 
matter of empathy... you can only understand what someone has 
gone through on a fundamental level if you've walked in their 
shoes for a mile or two.

I also agree with Jim Ferer's premise that if Voldemort is 
defeated, the wizarding world (if not consumed) would have to 
change.  Name a major Muggle war that did not alter human life 
in some way... :::sounds of crickets chirping:::

As for Harry, *if* he can defeat Voldemort *without* getting killed 
and *without* destroying the wizarding world and *without* 
getting completely corrupted by a necessary close proximity to 
pure, unadulterated evil... not only would he have post-traumatic 
stress disorder to deal with... he *would* be regarded as a 
messiah figure.  The question then would be, how would he deal 
with that can of worms?

I'm still trying to form my opinions on that issue.  Thoughts?

--Ebony AKA AngieJ