What Does It Mean To "Like" A Character? -- "Types" -- Hagrid

[lucky_kari]

No: HPFGUIDX 34081

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

This is getting so interesting. So much interesting than my 
Shakespeare class! :-)

> LOL!  You have an extraordinarily well-developed sense of fair 
play, 
> Eileen.  I'm sincerely impressed.

Thankyou very much for the compliment. I hope I live up to it. 

> But one thing that we Americans (I'm assuming here -- please don't 
> hurt me if I'm wrong!) might want to keep in mind about that scene 

is 
> that capital punishment has not been a legal penalty for murder in 
> Great Britain for quite a number of years now.  So while it is 
still 
> a political issue of sorts (there are people in Britain who 
advocate 
> the resumption of the death penalty), it's hardly the flaming-hot, 
> red-button, "let's-not-go-there-if-we-want-to-avoid-a-screaming-
> argument" sort of topic that it can be here in the US.

Actually, I'm not an American, but a Canadian, and capital punishment 
has not been a legal penalty for murder for quite a number of years 
either.  There's also many people who want to bring it back. Yet, as 
you paint the British picture, it's not really a red-button argument 
here either. Nowdays, people debate it at leisure and rationally. 
Even so, it struck me as unduly political. 

> However, I see your point.  It is awkward, to say the least, when
> a political hot topic intrudes without warning in a work of 
fiction, 
> worse still if the author happens to disagree with you, and worse 
> *still* if she chooses to express her disapproval by placing your 
> beliefs in the mouth of a character who is not only generally 
> portrayed as Wrong About Everything Under the Sun, but is also an 
> object of mockery and disdain.
> Rowling hasn't done that to me yet, but other authors certainly 

have, 
> and there's no question about it: it can hurt, and it can anger. 

In fact, it has occured to me that many of the people who oppose 
Harry Potter on what seem frivolous grounds (witchcraft, order vs. 
chaos etc.) seem to be turned off by such things. I know people whose 
major problem with the books was actually rooted in a hostility they 
felt Rowling harboured against the ordinary middle class. 
 
> Unfortunately, it's also hard to avoid -- and the further from the 
> mainstream your deepest-held beliefs happen to be, the less
> avoidable it becomes.  The best remedy that I'm aware of is simply 
> to learn to swallow the indignation and read on. (Although throwing 
> the book across the room can also prove gratifying, in its way.)

Or, if like me, you hold an impossible mish-mash of deepest-held 
beliefs, it becomes completely unavoidable.  Authors whom I love in 
one respect offend me deeply in others. OTOH, I sometimes offend 
other people, "How can you believe X, and not believe Y?" 

> (Just develop thick skin.  Right.  Sage advice.  And yet...and 
> yet...and yet I can still remember with unpleasant vividness just
> how horribly angry and resentful I felt towards C.S. Lewis over
> this sort of thing when reading the Narnia books as a child.  It's
> *visceral,* my memory of that anger.  Physical.  And that was 
nearly 
> thirty *years* ago, for heaven's sake!  It's weird, that.  And 

surely 
> not altogether healthy.  Just a moment -- must pop a sedative.  
> There.  Ah.  Better.)

C.S. Lewis.... Please, don't put me in mind of that. I loved Lewis 
when I was around 8, and then after I began to understand him better, 
I just could not tolerate him for years. Only recently was I able to 
pick up the Narnia Chronicles again, and enjoy them for all the 
things  I did like in them. 

>Attachments are far more
> often, it seems to me, formed on the basis of things like 
> sense of humour, and temperamental compatability, and shared
> interests, and even shared dislikes than they are on any
> strict accounting of moral virtues.

I think though that, there is a moral factor in it. We may not get on 
with the most virtuous people, but we stick with friends because of 
their loyalty, generousity, encouragement etc. Which may well explain 
why the trio gets along so well with Hagrid. 

> For an example of this phenomenon, I might cite my own vehement 
> condemnation of Moody for using nasty language to describe 
Karkaroff 
> in the Pensieve scene of GoF, while noting my own utter lack of 
> dismay over Sirius' use of similarly unkind and degrading language 

to 
> refer to Pettigrew in PoA.  And you know what?  Even *writing* 
this, 
> I find myself feeling this overwhelming urge to qualify ("Yes, but 
> you see, Sirius has far more *personal* reason to call 
> Pettigrew 'filth' than Moody does to refer to Karkaroff that way, 

and 
> Sirius has suffered so *badly,* the poor dear, and...and...")  All 

of 
> which has some validity, IMO.  But is the reason I want to say it 
> *really* because it "has validity?"  Or is it simply that I *like*
> Sirius, while I don't like Moody, and so Sirius gets leeway from me,
> while I'm willing to cut Moody not a single lousy break?

That's a funny example, b/c I find it hard to stomach Sirius's 
attitude in that scene, even though I can offer up a million 
justifications for it. There's something about its dehumanization of 
Pettigrew that just sickens me. I also find it difficult to see 
Sirius's POV in the Black/Snape debate. OTOH, I read right past 
Moody's remark without registering any disliking. And on what appears 
to be a third hand,(/me looks down at her hands in amazement), I 
don't feel the same way towards Lupin, whom I very much love, even 
though he was right with Sirius in that scene. 

I said:
>   > 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 schooldays jealousy 
>   > leading to treason.
> 
> I can certainly understand that!
> 
> So, Eileen, do you like Ron?  

Yes!

>In the sense of thinking that you'd
> get on well with him in real life?  

You know, I rather think I would, to some extent. I'm not sure we'd 
be good influences on each other. 11111111

>In the sense of enjoying reading
> about him?  In the sense of feeling personal affection for him?  

Both, though the second might conceal a highly developed self-love. 
There's something about the way Ron can obliviously horrify a room 
full of people within two seconds that comes close to home. I 
especially remember that scene where he was manhandling Pigwig to the 
horror of those girls. I don't manhandle owls, but once I open my 
mouth I rarely feel that people aren't either raising their eyebrows 
or laughing at me. Like Ron, I tend to perform.  OK, enough of 
possibly damaging self-confessions. 

> To which I can only say: Wow.  You guys really are *brave.*
> 
> I had a Snapesque mathematics professor once.  Thirty minutes
> before every class, my stomach would begin to ache.  Ten minutes
> before class, I would start to cry.  And then after every class, I 
> would have to go be violently sick.  After Every Class.  Not an 
> experience I *ever* want to repeat.

It depends, though, how you do in that class. My Snape taught me 
everything I know about English grammar. He hated me with a deep an 
enduring hate from Day 1 for no reason. (Though I can't rule out the 
conclusion that my parents went to school with him, and when he fell 
into evil....)But, I had a talent for that sort of thing that was 
pushed on by such an attitude, not stomped down. There were many 
people in his classes that just fell to pieces. He was as cruel to 
the less innately talented as Snape to Neville, and I can never 
forgive him for that. But I was undoubtably his best student, and 
like Hermione, I picked up everything he taught us immediately, and 
so it became a good experience in the end. In fact, I once had a nigh 
perfect grasp of English grammar. To my regret, I've let it slide 
since I left that private school. I must remind myself, though, it 
was terrible for many others. I've been fortunate in the classes I'm 
weaker in to find kinder teachers, with the exception of a Grade 12 
teacher, who thought it was funny to make sexist remarks all through 
class. I'm not naturally good at Math, so after continual ribbing 
about how women were dumb at Math, I felt completely stifled, and 
started skipping class, not doing assignments, failing tests etc. 
Fortunately, it was a rather experimental school with re-writes and 
such things, so my Dad pulled me out of that abyss, taught me the 
course himself in the last month and a half (at the cost of almost 
all his freetime), so that I got a final mark of 89% and a lesson in 
self-confidence. What get's me about the whole thing was I'm pretty 
sure the teacher didn't mean it. He just thought he was being jovial 
and good-humoured. 

> Then, the most Hagrid-like teacher I ever had, *I* made cry once.  

Ahem, I won't speak to this. /me tries to hide a guilty face, still 
blushing in memory of days past.

Eileen