[HPforGrownups] Re: Molly and Missing Weasley

[Amanda]

No: HPFGUIDX 37458

Barbara Jebenstreit, who is just *begging* for a cool list nickname, said

> The first time I read "The Dark Mark", I couldn't understand Molly's
> reaction at all. (The first time, I was reading the German translation
> where - IMHO - the ambiguity of the end of "The Dark Mark" gets lots in an
> inaccurate translation). The scene seemed totally exagerrated and out of
> character. This is a mother of seven children, I thought. With that many
> children, at least one should always be in trouble, ill or something like
> this. As much as I adore JKR, I thought the scene was below her usual
> standard. Well, it happens to the best I thought, and moved on to the next
> where everything was again in order.
>
> But the scene takes on a totally different, hackle raising quality if you
> consider the possibility of a dead Weasley child.

<snip the rest of the great post>

Bravo! Well stated. I have also always thought Molly's reaction a bit
extreme, given the reactions we have seen from her to some of the twins' or
Ron's escapades. This was true fright, as opposed to Mom Being Extremely
Mad, and I know the difference, having more than a few child-induced gray
hairs myself. And I agree that a prior experience with having a child done
great harm while she wasn't there to protect it could bring on this
intensity. [It also may explain part of why she mothers Harry so; his mother
*was* there to try to save him, and failed...it doesn't *all* have to come
from a Universal Mom stereotype.]

The main objection to the Missing Child theory in the past was that Ron
didn't mention it. I believe that Ron doesn't know. In my family, sure, we
all would, we'd talk about it, but that's how *we* deal with things. But
plenty of families do not process grief that way, and might wait until a
very young child was older to explain, and then spend years not finding the
right time.

There are loads of other things that Ron doesn't know about the Voldemort
years; I likened it before to my own generation/age (I'm 37) and the Vietnam
war. It ended when I was in the first grade; I know next to nothing about
the particulars. I happen to have grown up in the window when those who were
involved just wanted to leave that part of their lives behind them, and
those who wrote history books did not yet include it, it was too recent. It
was not a topic of discussion at our house, it was either something for
discussion to take you away from or not something you discussed in front of
children my age.

So I find nothing particularly peculiar in Ron's ignorance of the Voldemort
years. They were horrific, and they are the recent past. All the adults in
the wizarding world were deeply affected, to the point where this is still
not what they chat about over scones and tea. And the history that the
Hogwarts children are learning will get them to the Voldemort years sometime
in what, their seventh year?, at the rate Binns is going.

But back to the Missing Weasley child(ren). Other objections, harder to
explain away, were two: (1) that the clock in the Burrow, whose description
I cannot find at the moment (rrrrgh!) shows if any Weasley is in mortal
peril; a glance at the clock should have reassured Molly. Counters to this
ran: dead is not mortal peril; it wouldn't register on the clock, and so
Molly could still be terrified; or, Molly is so wacked out by the resurgence
of her former experience that she either simply didn't think of it, couldn't
bear to look at it, or did and doesn't trust it. (2) If Arthur knew that
Molly was likely to have such a reaction, and it seems he did, then he could
have Apparated to the Burrow, reassured her, and Apparated back to the
children. Counters to this were that Arthur might not have wanted to leave
them, given that one of them is Harry Potter and the perpetrators of the
Dark Mark were still at large. [He could have sent Percy....had Percy
already gone someplace else? sorry, long time since I read this and I've no
time tonight].

Anyway, bravo again; I do think this supports the theory nicely. Molly is
not a castaway character, but rather central; I don't believe JKR would be
sloppy or casual about any details of her reactions. Molly reacted very
strongly because JKR wanted her to, and there was a reason.

--Amanda