Neville and the Canary Creams

[davewitley]

No: HPFGUIDX 36202

Elkins wrote:

> And Neville would seem to feel much the same way.  When Fred tells 
> Hermione that "it's the custard creams you've got to watch--" while 
> Neville has just bit into one of the custard creams, he immediately 
> chokes and spits it out. To my mind, that indicates quite clearly 
> that whatever the twins have done to the sweets, he *really* wants 
> absolutely nothing to do with it.

I don't remember the incident terribly clearly, but we have to 
consider that Neville's choking and spitting are, in fact, overacting 
to enter into the spirit of the joke.
> 
> Yes.  All of my buffoonery over his backstory aside, I, too, love 
> Neville.  I was a weird little semi-autistic space-cadet of a child 
> myself, and so I tend to identify very deeply with him.

Semi-autistic?  You know yourself best, of course, and I know little 
of autism, but Neville?  Forgetful, clumsy, possibly disorganised, 
but (even semi-) autistic?
>
> I'll even let you in on a little secret here.  I thought that 
Lupin's 
> oh-so-blatant "let's bolster Neville's confidence" was kind of 
> condescending too, to tell you the truth.  And you *know* how much 
I 
> adore Lupin!

Surely it had to be blatant, because Snape was blatant.  Lupin's 
remarks, while serving the function of bolstering Neville's 
confidence, were primarily a rebuke to Snape, which therefore had to 
be administered before the same people who were witnesses to Snape's 
remarks.  As a rebuke, it is excellent (despite Lupin's presumed 
personal animus toward Snape) because he contradicts and presents the 
alternative without descending to telling Snape he ought not to 
behave like that - that is left implied, for Snape to put on the cap 
if he thinks it fits.

David