Moody -- "Types"--Where Are the Bleeding Hearts?

[lucky_kari]

No: HPFGUIDX 34006

A very nice post, if I may say so! 

I wonder if I was a little at fault for this discussion by saying that 
Frank Longbottom somehow reminded me of Donald Rumsfeld. That seems to 
have been taken in two separate ways. :-) 

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "ssk7882" <theennead at a...> wrote:

> So, okay.  Tit-for-tat, and turnabout is fair play, and all of
> that.  I would like to point out, however, that while Moody is 
> a fictional construct, whose tendencies and political inclinations 
> are within the fair scope of discussion here, you and I are real 
> people whose respective philosophies, while they cannot help but
> inform our views, really aren't.

Yes. That's why I TRY to pass over references to politics that creep 
into people's posts. I think one person a few days ago wrote something 
about current affairs that really bothered me, but, if you passed over 
that linkage, the points they made about the wizarding world were 
quite interesting.
 
> But there's an interesting issue here that might bear some
> examining.  On another thread, one about Hagrid, Mahoney
> made a few comments about her feelings for characters based
> not so much on whether they're Good or Bad people, but rather
> on whether they're "Types" that she happens to like in real life.

I found that discussion illuminating as well, since I realized that I 
preferred "Snape" teachers to "Hagrid" teachers all through school, 
probably contributing to my feelings towards the two in fiction. On 
the other hand, the "would I want him/her as a next door neighbour?" 
style of literary analysis (as my Grade 10 English teacher called it) 
only goes so far. Prince Hal in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Parts I and 
II, and Henry V, comes across extremely likeably and Shakespeare 
almost forces you to endorse him, and yet, you would NOT want him as 
your next door neighbour or friend. So, on the principle that fiction 
must be separated from life, I've worked to suspend my original 
dislike of Hagrid. 

> Am I off-base here?  (Suddenly, I feel that I can finally 
> understand why those SHIPping types can get so heated in *their* 
> debates.  I never really understood that before!)

Quite. I sometimes feel personally attacked when somewhere goes after 
a character in which I see a lot of myself. Characters to whom I've 
built a strong personal connection. Ron being castigated for his 
jealousy of those with fame and money really cuts to the quick with 
me. I was brought up in a large family with no money for clothes that 
weren't second-hand, and I was often jealous of classmates who had it 
so much "better". Like Ron, I went (by scholarship) to a high-class 
private school, and saw a lot of people who had it as well-off as 
Harry and Draco. So, even when people were very nice, I always felt 
like Ron must, looking at Harry's new stuff etc. (And, like Fred, 
George, and other Weasleys, most of my siblings were not concerned 
about such silly things.) Therefore, I feel like going into a rage 
when people say things like, "Ron's jealousy proves he's likely to 
betray Harry." I know it's not rational, but I feel it deep down, as 
if I was being accused of my schoodays jealousy leading to treason. 

> But getting back to the Potterverse, where *are* the bleeding
> heart liberals in canon?  Have we actually seen any at all?  

A good question. I agree with your summary that there are no such 
stereotypes among the characters, though I think Vernon Dursley 
complains about what we're calling "bleeding heart liberal" types, 
who'll never learn that the best way to deal with such people is 
capital punishment. I suppose that could be intrepreted as the book's 
support for the opposite position. 

I actually remember being quite shocked that the book would get so 
political there. I am opposed to capital punishment, and have been 
ever since, as a child, I was read Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" and 
was quite taken with Gandalf's speech to Frodo about "pity." (In 
Chapter 3: "The Shadow of the Past" in the book, and at the resting 
place in Moria in the movie.) So, I am not opposed to an author taking 
a position on an issue like that in a book. However, it was the 
practice of putting such a statement in the mouth of the ridiculed and 
stereotyped character that made me uncomfortable with it. I could have 
taken stubborn Percy or obsessed Crouch Sr. saying something like that 
(and indeed, they say much more serious things), but Vernon Dursley? 
All my sense of fairness cries out!

It's probably the same thing I feel when I see supposedly "hilarious" 
articles like this posted to the list:  
http://www.bettybowers.com/harrypotter.html 

"If it were not for battalions of Baptists relentlessly brow-beating 
their children with Bible Study, Bible School, Vacation Bible School 
and Bible Camp, America's children would never have been inured  to 
the implausible enough to swallow J. K. Rowling's far-fetched bunk in 
the first place."

I'm not a Baptist, but my feeling about this sort of humour is the 
same as Vernon Dursley being the person selected to make the 
"argument" against capital punishment. Any thoughts on this? 

Eileen