Dirty!Harry and Stoned!Harry

[dicentra63]

No: HPFGUIDX 43444

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "ssk7882" <skelkins at a...> wrote:
> I wrote:
> 
> > > By intervening to insist upon the recognition of a higher moral 
> > > code than "he deserves it," Harry is acting as an agent of 
> > > transformative and redemptive moral change, one which can serve 
> > > to heal both the wounds of injustice and the wounds of the 
past. 
> 
> Dicentra replied:
> 
> > As true as all this is, it seems so incongruous that Harry was on 
> > the verge of killing Sirius only an hour or so earlier. 
> 
> Ah.  But he *didn't,* now, did he?  Once he was actually armed and 
> therefore could do real damage, he balked. 

Yes, he did.  As you said, he stood there trying to convince himself 
to blast him.  And when Lupin bursts in, ending Harry's chance, he's 
disappointed with himself.

"Harry stood there, feeling suddenly empty. He hadn't done it. His 
nerve had failed him."

At this point, Harry's understanding of his actions is simply that he 
wasn't brave enough or decisive enough.  *We* know he didn't do it 
because he's not a killer.  But he doesn't seem to have that insight 
here. 

Dicentra: 
> > So what changed? What persuaded Harry within that short time to 
> > recognize this higher moral code? 
>
Elkins: 
Well, I don't know that it's all that short a time, really.  I'd say 
that actually, Harry is dealing with the question of "desserts"  
throughout the entire novel.  So he's really been working on it all 
year, in a way.  By the time he hits the Shack, I'd say that he's 
already made a start on rejecting the moral code of vengeance.  He 
*does* balk rather than killing Sirius, after all.  He attacks Sirius 
out of fury when he is unarmed, and when Sirius seems to be an active 
threat.  But when he has a wand in his hand, and Sirius is doing 
nothing but lying there on his back staring up at him? He balks.

Dicentra:
Which he interprets a sign of weakness.  And yet he decides to save 
Sirius and Remus from becoming killers later on.  It occurs to me 
that he might have understood that if he *had* killed Sirius, unarmed 
and sprawling on the floor, that would have made him a plain old 
killer.  So when he sees the pathetic Peter on the floor, he sees the 
same situation and notices the parallel.  

And yet we don't see these particular wheels turing in Harry's head.  
Most of the narration of the Shrieking Shack is simply a retelling of 
the action and the speech.  Harry's only thoughts seem to be those of 
confusion and disbelief.  If he does make a connection in the Shack 
between his not killing Sirius and their not killing Peter, *we don't 
see it.*  It appears that the narrator vacated Harry's head for a 
bit, at least on this point.  We *should* see Harry making a decision 
to intervene, but instead we only see him jump in front of Peter.  
And later, we don't see Harry think about what he did, except when he 
tells Dumbledore he thought he might have done the wrong thing.  I 
can't help think that in an earlier draft, JKR might have shown these 
things but later took them out.  I wonder why.

--Dicentra, who already knows about "show vs. tell"