Werewolf Adventures, Boring Harry

[ftah3]

No: HPFGUIDX 34275

cindysphynx wrote:
> I'm all for absolving Remus of responsibility for his werewolf 
> adventures, but of the remaining three Marauders, I wouldn't pick 
> Sirius to blame.  If anyone was incapable of demonstrating maturity 
> beyond his years, it was Sirius.  The boy was probably so arrogant 
> and immature that he was helpless to resist a good party.  Peter 
> probably couldn't stand up to his three friends under any 
> circumstances.
> 
> James, on the other hand, sounds like the guy who should have put a 
> stop to the adventures.  So if we are going to find someone to 
> blame ::waves at Luke::, I'd lay it on James.  He's dead, so he 
won't 
> mind.

Agreed.  I've been thinking along these lines, if only because James 
seems to be cast as the 'ringleader' ~ but that's a wide shot on my 
part, an assumption I've made based tentatively on the way people 
tell stories about him.  So while I agree...I can't figure out why.  
It's frankly one of those subjects which imho is beyond the need to 
lay blame, but I'm interested in exploring the dynamic of the 
Marauders, and I really *do* wonder the main "who and why" force 
behind the werewolf adventures. 

So, please to explain more of why you'd peg James?  Or is it just 
because he's dead and won't argue?  ;-)

cindysphinx:
> My point, however, is not that characters should be perfect.  I 
have 
> two issues, I think.  First, we have some characters (OK, one 
> character, Hagrid) who just has too many flaws for my tastes.  He's 
> over the top in that department.  
<snip>
> I wish JKR had removed some of Hagrid's flaws.  He still needs to 
do 
> some dumb things to advance the plot and keep it interesting, of 
> course.  If he has to cross-breed skrewts, I guess the students 
have 
> to handle them to keep things interesting.  If he has to leak 
> information in PS/SS, so be it.  But Hagrid doesn't have to drink.  
> He doesn't have to cry.  He doesn't have to give Dudley a pig's 
> tail.  He doesn't have to run and hide when he is upset.  And if he 
> didn't do those things, he wouldn't be boring, IMHO.

<rearranging cindysphinx's post order for purposes of cracking one 
egg at a time>

along the same lines, cindysphinx later in the same post:
> I understand the idea that perfect characters are boring 
characters, 
> but that's not always the case.  Lupin is a great character, and he 
> would still be great if he hadn't made the mistakes he made in the 
> books.  Several of his mistakes (failing to rat on Sirius, 
forgetting 
> his potion) he had to make for the plot.  Sometimes a character has 
> to take one for the team, so that's OK.  The werewolf adventures, 
> however, didn't really enhance his characterization for me and 
could 
> have been omitted.  They really didn't trouble me that much, 
though, 
> so, whatever.

Mea Culpa: the following is an actual opinion expressed in a tongue-
in-cheek fashion.  I'm not good at tongue-in-cheek, but I couldn't 
think of a better way of expressing it.  Pardon begged in advance.

You know, I get the feeling you don't like Hagrid's flaws because 
they're...well, unmanly.  Lupin, Sirius, and even Moody all make 
Manly Mistakes, doing Manly Things which turn out to be contrary to 
the greater good even though they were done for Manly 
Reasons.  Lupin hid his friend's animagus talent because Lupin 
is a Manly Werewolf who has every right to not want his Manly but Not 
Particularly Safe teenage adventures known to Dumbledore.  Sirius put 
Snape's life in danger way back, but for the Manly Reason that he 
thought Snape was a git who needed to build character by having the 
crap scared out of him.  Moody bounced Malfoy around the hall in 
ferret form, but that's a very Manly way of dealing with annoying 
little fleas, i.e. kick butt creatively, showing off a razor-sharp 
sense of humor, fab wizarding skills, and his superiority over the 
mundane rules of the school all at once.

However, Hagrid gets drunk (and worse, is a whiney drunk), cries, 
runs and hides from problems, picks on a kid when his real beef is 
with the father.  Not Manly.  At all.  Big wussy, Hagrid is, 
actually.  *Embarrassing,* really.  The others make mistakes, sure, 
but they don't make fools of themselves.  And if we took away all of 
the flaws you mentioned from Hagrid, the main difference would be 
that he wouldn't go about making an unmanly fool of himself.

Interestingly,

cindysphinx still:
> My feeling is different about the bare-knuckles brawl between 
Arthur 
> and Lucius.  That just felt like a cheap Hollywood stunt to me.  It 
> isn't a criticism of the characters; it is a criticism of the 
> writing.  I wish JKR had accomplished this scene in a more 
inventive 
> way.

They did rather make fools of themselves, didn't they?  ;->

But onto another tangent, I always think of that scene in relation to 
the fight between Darcy and Cleaver in the film of "Bridget Jone's 
Diary," and the explanation for it that we got during...oh, was it 
the director's commentary, or was it one of the little 
explicatory 'making of' things?...on the DVD.  The reasoning for 
making that scene a wussy fight (grappling, 
stumbling, "owowowowow"ing, rather than manly growls and slick upper 
cuts) was that it was a fight between a couple of upper class ponces 
who really have no clue how to fight properly but can't help but go 
all Manly Man at each other (that's a great big paraphrase, natch), 
and look like total fools doing it.

Along the same lines, I liked the little cat fight between Arthur and 
Lucius.  They strut around being all Grown Up and above childish 
things, but can't help giving in to their inner WWF-wannabe and end 
up having a brief & imho really funny wussy fight.  LOL.

I guess I do like the bits where people make embarrassing fools of 
themselves.  And to be honest, I'm not saying that cindysphinx has it 
in for embarrassing fools; rather, this is simply a difference that I 
noticed, with her help, that turned out to be a significant virtue in 
regards Hagrid and the Weasley/Malfoy smackdown, to me.  They go 
outside of the usual exclusionary dignity allowable in fiction and 
bring in aspects of humanity that are very blushworthy and which most 
people, when doing such things, wish they could forget.  Never mind 
the realism aspect, which is imho & in this situation not the point; 
it's simply more interesting, in terms of fleshed out 
characterization, to me.

Mahoney