[HPforGrownups] Abstemiousness with truth - the careful fantasy world of Potter

[Carol Bainbridge]

No: HPFGUIDX 43502

At 8/30/02 04:34 AM, darkthirty wrote:

>The hardest thing to accept about the apparent magical world of Harry
>Potter is that, in spite of Dumbledore's reticence regarding the
>reason Voldemort wants Harry dead, in spite of "the restricted
>section," which, I point out, contains information essential to the
>so-called heroes' quest, in spite of so many characters being
>mysteries, as they say, to other characters, as Black and Snape, for
>instance, are, or Neville is to the trio, signs both of
>intransigence, in the first case, or betraying every sign of
>Rowling's unravelling of facts on a "need to know" basis - that is,
>in the context of her literary career, in terms of making the
>series "make sense" at the end of it all - as is the case with
>Neville, in spite of Hermione's secret use of the Time Turner, a
>secret that proved quite dangerous, in particular to Hermione, and a
>secrecy that had to be pierced in order to complete the given quest,
>all of these ignorances involving core aspects of the story, Harry
>and the trio can still succeed.

Mighty long sentence, but if I understand you correctly, you don't think 
that in reality the trio would be successful.  My only answer to that is 
that the books are not reality.  They are fiction.  And not just any kind 
of fiction, but specifically fantasy.  How real should a fantasy have to 
be?  Personally, I don't have a problem with any of the "in spite of's" you 
mention.  We won't know how all of it fits together until JKR's last book 
in the series comes out.  Perhaps then all the loose ends will be neatly 
tied up.  If not, it gives readers more to speculate about, or if they'd 
rather, criticize her for.

>How is this possible? Are we to assume fate, a grossly misunderstood
>concept in my opinion, being myself something of a secular calvinist,
>declares that Harry and the trio will succeed whether or not those
>around them attempt to keep them in the dark, to impose, in a way,
>ignorance upon them? Do we really believe Harry's successful
>encounters so far have been written beforehand, and the outcome
>assured?

Does this ultimately matter?  Isn't that a question about life in general, 
not just the HP series?  Isn't this central to the question of will and 
self-determination, destiny, etc., in life?  IS Harry destined to 
succeed?  I don't know.  It would certainly be an odd series if it ended 
around book 6 with Harry's failure.  It would be pretty odd if he failed in 
book 7 as well.  And if he didn't encounter any difficulties, didn't have 
to beat any odds, what kind of story would it be?  What kinds of questions 
would be raised?  This is yet another aspect of Rowling's story that I love 
so much.  She writes in such a simple style, with lots of humor, but 
underneath it all lie plenty of serious questions about life.

>His response to the 2nd task seems central here. His success
>depends upon some inner quality, which may or may not be connected to
>his so-called magical qualities, that makes him stay. He goes through
>no internal debate. His staying was not quite a decision; rather, as
>he later reflects, it was an action, the right one, we agree, made in
>ignorance. A bit of pathos.

But Harry is still young.  Not many young people reflect on their behavior 
or agonize over right or wrong.  They know what is right and what is wrong 
and they act on it.  As they get older and learn more of the world, they 
need more reasons for their behavior and have to make more conscious moral 
decisions.  As I mentioned in another post, Mark Twain did similar things 
in Huckleberry Finn.  Huck instinctively behaved in what we would consider 
a "right" way, when he decided to help Jim, the slave, escape, in spite of 
the fact that he knew it was a crime to do so.  Beyond that he didn't think 
about it much.  Later, he begins to reflect on the decision.  He came to 
the same conclusion -- that he would help Jim -- but this time it was a 
conscious one which resulted from reasoning.  I suspect that we may see 
Harry do the same sort of thing as the series progresses.  He behaves 
instinctively the right way and later will come to understand why those 
actions are right.

>Let me try to demonstrate my reading of Rowling like this - The so-
>called magical world of Harry Potter is, on one level, on perhaps the
>most fundamental level, unequivocally nothing more than the extended
>fantasy-world of an abused boy stuck in a closet. I cannot state this
>strongly enough. <snip> This too, in my reading, seems as much an inwards 
>pressure
>as an outwards one.

Certainly everyone is allowed his or her interpretation of a book.  I don't 
buy this particular interpretation, but then I'm not fond of  this type of 
psychological deconstruction of literary texts.

>Do we agree with Dumbledore's assessment that Harry should grow up
>away from what we are supposed to believe are the horrifying and
>dangerous consequences of fame, and be, rather, reared by people who
>hate what he represents, mistrust and abuse him? Of course not.

I assume you are referring to sending Harry back to the Dursleys for the 
summer holidays? I don't think Dumbledore knew just how bad the Dursleys 
would be to Harry.  He isn't exactly omnipotent, is he?  McGonagall told 
him at the beginning that the Dursleys were the worst sort of Muggle, but 
that technically isn't true.  The worst sort of Muggle would be the type to 
chain a boy up in a basement, physically torture him, keep him out of 
school, and possibly end up killing him.  Granted, the Dursleys are not 
nice to Harry and are quite mean, but they could certainly be far worse.

>So we
>must accept that Dumbledore's assurance about the safety of the
>Dursley's house is true - otherwise, he's just being a stupid old man
>who assumes family is more important than human rights.

I don't think Dumbledore was concerned so much with family as he was with 
relative normality.  He felt that it would be best for Harry to grow up 
away from the fame he would have in the wizard world, which meant he'd have 
to grow up with Muggles and the Dursleys were the only family Harry had 
left.  I don't think human rights was an issue at all.

>This so-
>called safety certainly looks like the rationalization of someone in
>a hopeless and helpless situation to me. And for someone deprived of
>information, of ways of obtaining it, someone for whom the paths to
>knowledge are closed, ignorance might seem strength. In a real way,
>however, for such a person, ignorance would surely be some measure of
>protection. Ignorance about one's actual hopeless and helpless
>situation, the extent of it, or rather, intensity of it.

Are you saying that Harry was actually hopeless and helpless?  I'm not 
clear as to who the someone is who is rationalizing.  Personally, I don't 
think Dumbledore was so far off in his thinking about keeping Harry away 
from all the fame in the wizard world.  We all know what fame can do when 
children grow up with it, particularly when they the fame comes from 
something they either didn't do or aren't aware of doing.  Many don't 
handle it very well.

>I'm not sure how much of this line Rowling is conscious of when she
>writes. I have no intention in this post of addressing that
>particular moot area.

One method of literary criticism is to see a text as a reflection of an 
author's subconscious.  I think this can be fun and interesting, but I 
don't think it adds all that much to an understanding of the text.  What we 
may learn is something about the author, but we don't learn a whole lot 
more about the text itself.

Carol Bainbridge
(kaityf at jorsm.com)

http://www.lcag.org