[HPforGrownups] Re: Harry Potter and the Privileges of Birth

[Beck, Jim]

No: HPFGUIDX 29167

David writes:
 
"while plenty are tempted to take Harry as the 'elite of the elite', it is
not universally accepted"
 
It might not be universally accepted, but it is difficult to deny.  By the
end of his fourth year, HP has won the Triwizard Cup and dueled Voldemort to
a standstill, mano a mano, and been invited into the core of what will be
Dumbledore's Churchillian opposition to Fudge's Chamberlain.  This for
someone who is the equivalent of a ninth grader.
 
Malfoy is an aristocrat of the old style, sort of a son of the Earl of
Sandwich.  HP exemplifies some of the aristocratic traits of entitlement and
noblesse oblige, but is of the 20th century variety, and thus must prove
himself worthy of the position.  JKR's view is not quite that of a
meritocrat, because there's more benevolence than Spencerian social
Darwinism in the books.  Arthur Weasley might not be the sharpest knife in
the drawer, but he has a benevolent outlook, thus he may well wind up as
Minister of Magic by the end.  Arthur more than anyone else exemplifies the
kind of person JKR personally wants to see in government.
 
I see the theme of rulebreaking as key.  The rulebreakers (except the evil
Voldemort) tend to be portrayed as right more often than wrong.  The only
major exception to this is rulebreaking to make money.  That kind of
rulebreaking tends to fail, whether it's by Bagman, Fletcher, or the Weasley
twins.  Rulebreaking for moral reasons almost always succeeds in the HP
series.
 
I have no problem with rulebreaking for moral reasons.  But it's problematic
whether it should be so strongly advocated for children.  It's one thing
when Martin Luther King, Jr., or even Daniel Berrigan, does this.  It's
another to have 10-year-olds do it.
 
"Rita Skeeter represents unaccountable individual judgment taken to its
extreme."
 
Close, but that's Voldemort's role, or at least I hope it is.  Voldemort's
philosophy as expressed by Quirrell -- there's no good or evil, only power
and the willingness to use it, is the extreme of individual judgment.
 
-- Bexis
 
 
 
 


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