[[HPforGrownups] Re: Hagrid's Competence And Other Flaws]

[Ian Diddams]

No: HPFGUIDX 34000

"cindysphynx" <cindysphynx at home.com> wrote:

I'm really enjoying this nquisition into hagrid's character!

I'd place myself in the pro-Hagrid camp, but am intrigued and interested in
the anti-Hagrid arguments, and FWIW see entirely all the points made.

The only thing I'd add is that JKR has shown to be very clever in her use of
character portrayal and plot devices...  the general derogatory tone (from
some) about "mudblood" and "muggle born" and especially in CoS the pure-blood
only concepts introduces/"discusses" the evils/dangers/concerns about ethnic
cleansing and bigotry in general, without using the "real world bigotries" in
front of children.  i.e. it gets children/peoiple thinking about bigotry
outisde the terms of reference in which they may already be tarnished.  

Hagrid - as somebody pointed out - is used as a vehicle to illustrate that
sometimes our friends show these traits...  how do we feel about that?  How do
we justify our friends weaknesses against our enemies' strengths?
(Good use of Snape here...).

FWIW AFAICS Hagrid has now outlived his purpose in the story-line...  he could
be a perfect candidate for the chop.

As for the spiders thing, aside from an opportunity for Harry to learn the
truth about Hagrid ref: CoS, this episode seems almost irrlevant...  rather
like the deathday party and the mirror of erised.  That is, they _appear_ to
be quite weak chapters/episodes on the face of it...  they do serve a purpose
(we learn the cos truth ref hagrid, H&R get to be in the wrong place to see
the cat, we learn about Harry's desires) but other plot devices could have
been used to acheive the same things.  Especially Aragog and the Mirror (which
really was fairly irrelevant).

Unless of course more is to come from these episodes in future books....


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