Rights and Wrongs / Ron / The Mirror of Memory / Animagi

[catlady_de_los_angeles]

No: HPFGUIDX 38420

Pippin wrote:

> Although Dumbledore doubtless disapproves of the Dursleys, he 
> upholds their right to be Harry's guardians, and their right to 
> raise him as they see fit. 
(snip)
> Much of the conflict in the story revolves around how universally
> those rights should be applied -- do House Elves have a right to 
> liberty? Do Muggles have the rights of "beings"?

Such as, does baby Harry have a right not to be abused even tho' his 
closest adult relatives want to abuse him? 

Athena wrote:

> It doesn't leave any real avenue in school anyway for [Ron] to 
> distinguish himself because he'll be compared with the successes
> of any of the other brothers in anything he does.

I keep TELLING Ron, even tho' he keeps not listening to a word I say, 
that he should try for distinction in some direction that none of his 
brothers have tried. And such directions DO exist, even at school: my 
first suggestion was to take up a musical instruments. Especially 
guitar. When I was that age, any boy who could carry a tune in a 
bucket and strum a few chords to accompany himself would have many 
kids clustered around him requesting their favorite songs. This 
improved those boys' chances of getting laid. Okay, so maybe Ron's 
as tone-deaf as I am. He could try to use the strategic talent 
that makes him a good chess player to become a good poker player 
and, by winning a lot of money off richer students, solve both his 
poverty problem and his ordinariness problem simultaneously. Chess 
ability doesn't translate to poker? (I wouldn't know; I can't play 
either.) Well, he should try what he can do with chess. Start a 
chess club at Hogwarts? Enter chess tournaments with adult wizards? 
Get his picture in the Daily Prophet for beating some well-respected 
adult player, or at least for winning the under-17 section?

Elkins, your long essay on the dangers of digging things up and 
Neville's rejection of warrior culture is absolutely wonderful. You 
should take a lit class so you could turn it in as a term paper and 
get an A. Btw, it reminded me of something other people have said. 
USAmericans are much condemned for having no history, for being 
ignorant of history, for destroying history (by tearing down old 
places to build new places; my home, Los Angeles, is particularly 
inclined to this). But they come back from visits to the Middle East, 
Former Yugoslavia, etc, praising how much better Americans get along 
with each other (our 1992 'civil disturbance' killed fewer people and 
damaged less property than the Bosnian war!) than the people there. 
There is a connection. It would be good to remember enough history 
not to make the same mistakes over again (altho' I remember Senate 
and House debating on Bush I's declaration of war on Iraq -- is the 
mistake to be avoided that of Chamberlain at Munich, or that of LBJ 
at 'Gulf of Tonkin'?) but it is bad to remember history as a series 
of grievances that must be avenged.

Draco384 asked:

> Does it ever specify in in any of  the books how certain
> individuals ended up with their respective animagus forms? 
> Specifically, was it implied in PoA that James Potter and Sirius
> Black CHOSE to be a Stag and Dog? Or, does one end up with their 
> animagus form by simply performing the spell and then waiting to
> see what happens?

It isn't specified in any of the novels so far, but I am sure that 
JKR said in an interview that you cannot CHOOSE your Animagus 
form, you just get a form that reflects your personality. However, I 
went to Mike the Goat's wonderful search engine at
http://www.geocities.com/aberforths_goat/ and all it found for me 
was http://www.scholastic.com/harrypotter/author/transcript2.htm :

Q: If you were Animagus, what kind of animal would you be?
A: I'd like to be an otter — that's my favourite animal. It would
be depressing if I turned out to be a slug or something.