Neville and the Canary Creams

[ssk7882]

No: HPFGUIDX 36459

Porphyria wrote (as an addendum to her excellent post on Lupin's 
teaching skills, to which I can add nothing but agreements):

> Elkins' original concern, if I understood her correctly, was 
> whether Neville himself feels *condescended to*. 

Yes, that was precisely my concern, and I believe that it originated 
for me in the way that Lupin uses Neville's first name in the boggart 
sequence.  He addresses Neville by name in very nearly every sentence 
that he speaks to him, and that really did made me squirm just a bit 
as a reader.  It's the way that one talks to a much younger child -- 
or to a dog.

It is also, of course, the way that one talks to a frightened person, 
or to someone in crisis, which I'm sure is the reason that Lupin does 
it in the first place.  Neville *is* frightened -- far more of being 
put on the spot in front of the entire class, IMNSHO, than of the 
boggart itself -- and he's known to have some problems with attention 
and focus, particularly when under stress.  I assume that Lupin's 
repeated use of his first name was intended not merely as a form of
reassurance, but also as a means of keeping Neville's attention 
anchored on the task at hand.

And it works.  Neville does indeed manage to stay well enough 
focused, despite his nervousness, to fend off the boggart, and I 
agree with Porphyria that his self-esteem is clearly bolstered -- in 
the short term, at any rate -- by the experience.

But, but, but.

But.

> I don't think this is the reaction of someone who feels that they 
> are being pitied; I don't think Neville is second guessing Lupin's 
> treatment of him at all at this point. Whether he ponders it at 
> length in private is anyone's guess...

Yes.  It *is* anyone's guess at this pont in the game, and this was 
the reason that I took some pains to qualify my reading of Neville as 
intensely (and quite possibly utterly unreasonably) personal.  I have 
alluded elsewhere (messages 34381, 34856) to my anxiety with Neville 
as a character, an anxiety which is rooted in my uneasy suspicion 
that while JKR certainly knows how to depict Neville-types from an 
external perspective, she doesn't really "get" them on a deeper 
level -- doesn't understand how they think, has little insight into 
the real challenges facing them, does not deduce correctly the nature 
of their internal lives.

>From the perspective of many types of orthodox analysis, of course, 
this is an absurd notion: as the author, JKR is free to declare 
Neville's internal life to be whatever she imagines it to be; so long 
as the character remains internally consistent, the author cannot 
be "wrong."  

>From the point of view of a slightly different type of engagement 
with the text, on the other hand, authors *can* err when it comes to 
character, and this was the perspective from which I was speaking 
when I wrote my original throw-away comment about Lupin's boggart 
lesson.  I later backed off from that approach -- and stated far more 
explicitly my personal bias -- largely because I had then gone from 
speaking to Kimberley to speaking to David, someone I was guessing, 
on the basis of some of his previous writings, might feel a bit more
comfortable with a far more academic/analytical and far less 
popular/"fannish" (personalized, interactive, extrapolative, 
rebellious) approach to the text.

But if I may return briefly to the realms of the personal, my reading 
that Neville might indeed have considered Lupin's pedagogy to be 
pitying or condescending was based on identification and familiarity 
with my own responses when faced with similar behavior at that age.  
I remember all too well the strange mixture of emotions that that 
sort of thing used to inspired in me: a peculiar blend of gratitude, 
irritation, and a certain degree of sympathetic (and even at times 
somewhat contemptuous) bemusement over the oblivious habits of well-
intended adults.  Most of my housemates, themselves Neville-types as 
children (what can I say?  we tend to stick together), instinctively 
read the scene much as I did.

Does JKR's Neville feel the same way though?  Oh, probably not.  As 
I've said elsewhere, I suspect that my reading of Neville and JKR's 
intended reading are widely divergent.

Does canon *exclude* the possibility that he perceives condescension 
in how he is treated by others, and that this bothers him?

No.  I don't think that it does.  In fact, I think that in places, it 
supports it.

Naama wrote:

> Moreover, my sense of Neville is that he feels so weak, luckless 
> and skill-less that he is humbly grateful for any help or kind 
> attention that comes his way. . . . He's very lovable that way and 
> very pitiable too - like a lost child in a panicky search for 
> someone to lean on. . . . To me, what is so heart rending about 
> Neville is that he has no self-belief at all.

He certainly does not have nearly as much self-belief as he needs.  
If he did, then he would have stuck to his guns in PS/SS, rather than 
being suckered into parroting other people's notions of what he 
should say and do and be.

However, the picture of Neville that you are painting strikes me as 
inconsistent with what we learn about him in GoF: namely, that he is 
not, in fact, nearly as emotionally transparent as Harry (or the 
reader) initially imagines him to be.  He is keeping secrets.  He has 
a hidden inner life.  And far from seeking out others to lean on, he 
in fact tries to gloss over his vulnerability when Hermione actively 
offers him a shoulder.  He is obviously appreciative of her in many 
ways, and he likes her well enough to ask her to a ball.  He is 
perfectly willing to beg for her assistance when he believes his 
pet's life to be in danger.  But in the corridor outside of that DADA 
class, Neville effectively rejects her.

And once we realize this about Neville, many of his actions 
throughout the previous three volumes start to appear in a somewhat 
different light, IMO.  His utter silence, for example, at the 
beginning of the first book, while Hermione is parading him around 
from compartment to compartment, helping him to find his toad.  The 
fact that while Harry obviously assumes that his reaction to winning 
the House Cup for Gryffindor at the end of PS/SS is one of undiluted 
pleasure at finally receiving some praise -- and while this is 
certainly the interpretation encouraged in the reader -- the text 
never actually gives so much as a glimpse of a happy or pleased 
expression on his face during the event: he is, in fact, merely 
described as "white with shock."  The fact that he never once 
mentions to any of his classmates that he has "lost" his list of 
passwords.  The way that he chooses to curl up to sleep on the floor 
outside of the Gryffindor common room when he cannot remember how to 
get in, rather than seeking out the relevant authority to let him 
in.  The way that he seems so often to vanish from the narrative
view -- one moment he's there, the next moment he's not.  The fact 
that although he would seem to have no friends at all, other than 
perhaps Hermione, we only see him press his company on any of the 
protagonists twice in four novels: once in PS/SS, when he is 
terrified of the Bloody Baron; and once in PoA, when he and Harry are 
the only students in their year still in Hogwarts.  

Not to mention, of course, the fact that the Sorting Hat took a very 
long time with him.

Neville does indeed send an unspoken but clear message that he is 
vulnerable, and that he is in a position neither to resent the form 
in which any help might be given nor to defend himself against those 
who would take advantage of his vulnerability.  But the message that 
one sends through ones demeanor and the message that one sends 
through ones actions are not always aligned -- and both of these are 
even more often misaligned with ones own personal thoughts on the 
matter.  In Neville's case, I see a very strong disconjunct there, 
and to my mind, this grants him a certain degree of indeterminacy as 
a character, which in turn makes him rather intriguing.  What *does* 
Neville think about?  What *are* his real opinions?  His real 
motivations?  We really just don't know.  He's a highly opaque 
character who has been masquerading for three books as an extremely 
transparent one, and that makes you wonder (or it makes me wonder, at 
any rate) what else might be going on there.


Elirtai wrote, on JKR's character list:

> Neville's entry is not only hard to read, it has no symbols or 
> house at all.

There, now.  You see?  Didn't I just tell you that Neville was a 
strikingly indeterminate character?  <vbg> 


Naama signed off with:

> Naama, horrified to suddenly realize that Neville is no. 1 
> candidate for Forthcoming Death (but would sacrifice Neville in a 
> minute if it would save Hagrid) 

You'd trade Neville for Hagrid?  Gee whiz.  No wonder the poor kid 
has self-esteem issues.  ;-)

But I feel fairly certain that Neville's safe until Book Seven.


-- Elkins