Harry's Politeness & JKR's Diction

[Heather Moore]

No: HPFGUIDX 29371

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)" <catlady at w...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Megan" <virtualworldofhp at y...> wrote:
> 
> > I know the Dursleys would only expect Harry to address them with
> > respoect (pre-wizardness, I suppose), but I would think this 
> > prolonged agony of mistreatment would only turn Harry bitter and 
> > make him more like Dudley in terms of politeness. 
> 
> That Harry is polite despite the way he was treated for 9 and a half 
> years out of his only 11 is just like how he cares about people and 
> fairness and is against violence despite those life experiences. In 
> the Muggle world, it is known that abused children are less damaged 
> by the abuse if they have ONE significant adult in their life who 
> treats them with kindness and respect. My theory is that Lily 
> used her witch powers to leave an image of herself in baby Harry's 
> mind, kind of an 'imaginary mommy' like some people have an 
> 'imaginary friend', and this image of Lily talked to him 
> a lot (and hugged him but not exactly tactilely) when he was alone 
> in his cupboard, telling him that he was a good kid who didn't 
> deserve to be treated so badly, reminding him that there are other 
> people in the world who aren't mean like the Dursleys, and so 
> on.
> 
> In fact, Harry's resistance to Imperius in GoF was described as 'a 
> voice in his head' asked why should he obey "Moody", and I cried 
> out: "That's Lily in his head!"
> 
> > Along the lines of Harry's politness, the Weasley parents are 
> > always named "Mr. Weasley" and "Mrs. Weasley" in every book so far. 
>  
> I'm so old (just turned 44) that when I was a child, the idea that 
> grown-ups HAD first names didn't feel very real to us children, 
> so I took the narrator saying Mr. Weasley and Mrs. Weasley just 
> because that is how Harry thinks of them as just another, but 
> charming, reminder of how very young Harry is.  


  Also note that Arabella Figg could easily have been magically influencing Harry during his years with the Dursleys. He was not, appearances to the contrary, actually left to his own sole devices while growing up, but instead had at least one (and probably more) of Dumbledore and McGonagall's peers watching closely over him.