House Elves/Harry & Jealousy/LOLLIPOPS

[blpurdom at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 26756

I've been unable to read posts since Monday, but I'm caught up now.  
Gracious, I didn't know what I was starting with the post about 
wizarding caste system.  I must disagree, however, with the response 
that said the theory wasn't valid because house-elves aren't human.  
Has everyone read Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them?  Many non-
human magical creatures are said to participate with wizards in 
working out who has what status in the magical world.  Perhaps in 
addition to the canon books, we should start doing 
summaries/questions/discussions based on the school books as well (FB 
and Quidditch Through the Ages).

Since the caste/slavery/housewives thread began with a defense of 
Hermione, I would like to bring it full circle and suggest that 
although she would still make a lousy anthropologist, Hermione's 
heart is in the right place and her attitude toward the house elves 
is another way for JKR to illustrate her basically liberal attitudes; 
also, if Ron doesn't want to completely alienate her, he had better 
change his tune about house elves.  Ron sometimes affects the same 
attitudes that Draco Malfoy does, not because he is rich, but because 
a part of him would like to be.

Which brings us to Harry's jealousy of Ron's family.  I think the 
point has been made well that in CoS he enjoys a wonderful month with 
them and that the twins treat him better than Ron sometimes and Molly 
makes him nicer jumpers, etc.  Part of this seems to be 
overcompensation on their part, to make up for the fact that they 
can't just adopt him and formally make him part of the family 
(although one wonders why not).  

However, we discover in GoF that the thing that Harry is most jealous 
of once he is a Triwizard champion is Ron's ordinariness.  He would 
like to walk about without everyone staring at his forehead; he would 
like to just sit and watch others compete in the Tournament.  In CoS, 
he would like not to be a Parselmouth who is the prime suspect for 
being the Heir of Slytherin.  Harry is jealous of Ron's family, but 
he also is jealous of Ron's unremarkableness, which makes Ron very 
discontented (as evidenced by the Mirror of Erised).  I doubt somehow 
that Ron will achieve all of those things he saw in the Mirror, or 
even that achieving all of them would be good for him (Dumbledore 
cautioned Harry that people often want what is worst for them).  I 
expect this to be a painful lesson for Ron.  (Perhaps Voldemort will 
tempt him with a way to achieve these things?)

So, learning to live without something/someone we cannot have brings 
me to Snape/Lily/James, which has been a pet theory of mine long 
before coming to this list.  I won't expound on that further, since 
others have done so quite eloquently--and because chapters 19 & 20 of 
my fic speak for themselves.  Plus I gave Snape (poor guy) porphyria 
to explain the vampire-like tendencies and his tetchiness.  If only 
JKR would also give him porphyria, I would be able to go about with 
quite a smug expression on my face...
 
--Barb

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