Harry's anger

[Sue Wartell]

No: HPFGUIDX 74569


>"tifaheart2001" <tifaheart2001 at yahoo.co.uk> said:
>
>Now anyone who's read OOP can tell that Harry, all year, has some 
>sort of bubbling rage inside him that he lets out on people, right?
>
<snip>

Well, yes, Harry has been angry all year, and frustrated and volatile.  
He's 15.  I've spent the past year with a 15-year-old boy, and even 
without all the troubles besetting Harry, he's been angry - flying into 
a rage over trivia, feeling misunderstood, feeling put upon, feeling as 
if he's being treated like a child, feeling like he's been abandoned to 
make his own way... And he's a very sweet and loving kid, most of the 
time, with family he can rely on and talk to.  I remember being 15, 
vividly, all these years later, and would not go back for _anything_!  
It was, to me, one of the parts of the book that rang most true.  It 
also meant that I needed to take occasional breaks while reading the 
book the first time, to come up for air.

Add to that normal adolescent emotional matrix, the fear that you are 
being possessed, the knowledge that lots of people around you are scared 
of you or think you are crazy, the loss of support from several of the 
people you have counted on ever since starting at Hogwart's (Hagrid and 
Dumbledore, for different reasons), a couple of teachers who take 
inordinate pleasure in administering various sorts of  psychological 
abuse...  No wonder the poor kid is angry.

On the other hand, I do think you have a point.  Voldemort has rage and 
hate enough that it could very well spill over through the connection 
they share, and fan the flames of  Harry's own anger.  And then there 
are the flashes of killing rage that Harry experiences when V. does come 
closer to the surface, as when he looks at Dumbledore and wants to kill 
him.  I think of those as a different matter though, more like when 
Harry finds himself in the snake attacking Arthur Weasley.

I guess all I'm saying is that I don't think anything magical is 
required to explain Harry's anger through most of the book.  I just hope 
he's moving into a more integrated period.  So far, my kid, now 16, 
seems to be a little more at peace - still stressed out a lot of the 
time, but better able to cope.

Sue