When Harry met Draco, or Pride and Prejudice (non-SHIP)

[B Arrowsmith]

No: HPFGUIDX 78846

He, He! something to get my teeth into and stretch some underused
mental muscles. Goody! Mind you, the opposite (flat statement, followed
by flat contradiction, followed by personal abuse) also has its  charms.

The posts by Kirstini (78724) and Laura (78747) both raise ideas that
catch my eye.

First Kirstini (heavily snipped)

 > It's often struck me as remarkable that Harry as a child doesn't
 > react more strongly against Muggles when he discovers himself to be
 > a different kind of human being. Growing up, as one listie so wisely
 > pointed out recently (2), Harry has been the victim of blood-
 > prejudice. He is then immediately plunged into a world which is just
 > as casually racist, yet tipped in his favour. Even those characters
 > we now know as very firmly "good" express strong anti-Muggle
 > sentiments.

 > When tested by Draco
 > Malfoy, the first non-Muggle child of his own age he meets, Harry
 > suddenly, shockingly, reveals himself to be a thoroughly decent
 > human being. Perhaps *too* decent, as many list members have often
 > speculated.

I sort of agree, but with different emphases.
Yes, he's been the subject of prejudice in both worlds to a greater or
lesser extent, but the reason the WW is tipped in his favour is not
ethical, it's personal. It's *who* he is, not *what* he is. 
Revealingly, Draco,
in that first meeting, does not know who he is; Draco reduces Harry to
hoi polloi status after Harry has come to believe himself as special. 
(At
that time, remember, Harry does not know about the pureblood/mud-
blood divide, or his place in the spectrum of the caste system.) So the
eternal teenage male ritual of "mines bigger than yours" proceeds apace.
What are  the touchstones, the status symbols, the trump  cards of 
school
boy teenage one-upmanship in the WW? He doesn't know and so can't
respond effectively. He could top Draco with his (almost mythical) 
identity,
but the conversation ends too abruptly. (You can almost imagine his
frustration: "*I* am Harry Potter." Collapse of stout party. "And the
winnah is...!"
 >
 >
 > Harry, therefore, is unconsciously reforming his experience into
 > motivation, that when Draco appears again, a few pages later, Harry
 > can make an overt statement of his own allegiance: " `I can tell who
 > the wrong sort are for myself, thanks.'" (p81), as a direct rebuff
 > to Draco and whatever he stands for. Harry's initial impulse still
 > underlies the five years of rivalry the reader has witnessed – see
 > PoA, p181:
 >
 > ***
 > `…I reckon it's time you ordered a new broom, Harry. There's an
 > order form on the back of  *Which Broomstick*…you could get a Nimbus
 > Two Thousand and One, like Malfoy's got.'
 > `I'm not buying anything Malfoy thinks is good,' said Harry flatly.
 > ***
 > Essentially, then, Harry's political awareness to prejudice
 > originated as a defensive manoeuvre, and perpetuates as a gut
 > reaction. He exhibits similar behaviour in OoP, where his reaction
 > against Umbridge originates in the fact that she is against *him*
 > (that and the fact that she's physically unattractive, I suspect…
 > boys! <g>) – no evidence of progression made from his first ever
 > Potions lesson, where Harry's dislike of Snape grows as a defensive
 > reaction to Snape's unfair treatment of him – a small step from this
 > to accusing him of being an agent of Voldemort, and then again
 > to "never being able to forgive Snape" when he requires a handy
 > scapegoat for Sirius' death <waves to Pip and Catlady>. Ditto
 > Umbridge.

"I can tell what the wrong sort are for myself, thanks."  With an 
unspoken
attachment  "They're nasty little shits that don't recognise my status, 
unlike
the Weasleys." The same goes for Snape, and Umbridge. What DD feared
about the danger to Harrys' personality if brought up in the WW is 
coming
to pass. IMO Harry feels flashes of resentment that his claim to fame 
does
not result in universal admiration and approbation. "I saved the world 
from
Voldemort. I'm famous. How can they rubbish me?" It is almost his raison
d'etre.

Harry is not presented as a thoughtful person, in the broadest meaning
of the phrase. His reactions are instinctive and based on the intensely
personal. He is too pre-occupied to see the wider world and get to grips
with forming an ethical philosophy. He dislikes Draco, Snape, Umbridge
et al because he assumes they react to him as the boy who survived
Voldy rather than as an example of a despised fraction. And for the most
part he is right. Oh, he's aware that there are wider social issues and 
he
aligns himself with the 'right' side, but it seems to be dictated by 
opposing
what his perceived detractors support, rather than reasoning from first
principles.

Hermione, now; she's a different story. (Extensive clipping again)

 > It's Hermione, obviously more politically aware, who
 > assists the narrative in building up a clear picture of Umbridge's
 > racist beliefs in the scene where she alerts the others to Umbridge
 > undermining Hagrid.
 >
 > Of the principal characters, Hermione
 > probably has the most in common with the majority of her readers –
 > an affluent, middle-class, (Muggle-born) reasonably privileged child
 > (who likes reading). And yet, as Pip pointed out in her earlier
 > post, this is precisely the demographic which finds itself Other to
 > the WW's prejudice, just as Hermione does in CoS. It's Hermione who
 > introduces the reader to the emotional impact of the WW's particular
 > prejudice, thus involving the reader (by identification) in the
 > theme within their own personal level, and forcing them to confront
 > their own prejudice, as (at the very least) a defensive manoeuvre.
 > Hermione may be a perfect specimen of liberal white womanhood within
 > our own, Muggle sphere, but within the WW she is something set
 > apart.

 > I wonder if Hermione's
 > ethical/political stance is, unconsciously, equally self-defensive?
 > Hermione discovers herself in a world which is perhaps not so
 > inclined to accept her as one of its own. Naturally more confident
 > than Harry, she responds not with resentment, but by trying to
 > change the ethical basis that world is founded upon, encountering as
 > much casual prejudice (ie from Gred and Forge: `They're *happy*,
 > Hermione! They love serving humans' – I'm currently GoF-less, so
 > have no idea if that quote is correct) as exists towards her and her
 > kind from even the most well-intentioned of wizards

I  remember a line from one of Lois Bujolds entertaining Vorkosigan
books "She thinks an egalitarian can cope quite well with an 
aristocracy,
so long as they are one of the aristocrats."

Hermione belongs to the long and distinguished line of social reformers
that, with few exceptions, have been nurtured by the middle class 
notions
of right and wrong. I've no doubt but that her parents discussed social
issues frequently and involved Hermione in them from an early age.
Hermione has right and rectitude on her side. It's in the blood. She is 
for
the underdog as a matter of principle. Unfortunately, it's rather 
difficult to
crusade when the dog, far from being under, has powers that match or
exceed her own and has a place in the society that is rather more secure
than hers is.

In the WW, unlike Muggledom, her position is not commensurate with her
principles. She hasn't yet grasped that (with rare exceptions, Haiti in 
the
1790s, for one) successful social revolutions are instigated from above,
not from below. Radicals further up the social order are the prime 
movers
for the betterment of the oppressed, not other social outcasts. Until 
Hermione
herself gains equality she'll have no chance of influencing the social 
order.

Hermione is the obverse of Harry, everything is principle, the personal 
is
secondary; society has precedence over the individual. She's the
embodiment of Elizabeth Fry, without the money or influence to get
anything done. How frustrating!


Now  Laura (again clipped)

 >
 > It sounds as if you're suggesting that behavior and beliefs, whether
 > good or bad, are the result of unconscious desires on the part of the
 > holder to justify and protect him/herself.  (Sorry for the awkward
 > phrasing-it's the lawyer in me.)  I think it's much more complex than
 > that (and I'm sure you do too-I'm probably simplifying your post).
 >
 >  Intelligent people try to maintain some level of self-awareness (or
 > so they tell me) so that they are always seeking a balance between
 > meeting the needs of self-interest with satisfying higher
 > understandings of right and wrong.  A strong and determined mind can
 > overrule simple self-interest and choose an abstract right.
 >
 > aside to Kneasy:  Remus shakes hands with DD at the end of PoA when
 > he's preparing to leave the school, and with Harry in OoP when the
 > advance guard arrives at Privet Drive.  And I seem to recall Arthur
 > offering to shake hands with Vernon at least once and being ignored.

To a certain extent, yes. But if that abstract 'right' were to their 
marked or
permanent detriment, then expect an explosion.

Truth and rights are nebulous concepts that change with time and 
society.
A right is not a right if it is an imposition on another. Then it is a 
privilege.
So passes the Divine Right of kings, the right to practice suttee, and 
in the
UK, the right to physically defend your home when intruders encroach.
So also passes 'right' in the meaning of correct. Compare and contrast
today with what was considered socially correct a century ago. Do you
  claim that it will not change again in the next century?

Rather than self interest, which carries overtones of financial 
advancement,
I'd prefer self identity - ones perception of ones recognition as an 
individual
and as a member of a group within the social structure. A conflict 
between
that and some higher truth or abstract right can become very messy, with
the 'self' taking precedence every time.

I don't believe that humanity is notably rational. It never has been 
(Heresy!).
It's rationalising. The first reaction is to act instinctively and to 
think up
acceptable reasons why, later. Instinct is a honed survival tool that 
has
served individuals, and by extension society, well for millennia. No 
philosopher
yet has managed to devise a rational society that wouldn't be sheer 
hell  for
at least a proportion of the population. The Law of Unintended 
Consequences
rules in all social constructs.

aside: Yes, I know there  are some handshakes (damn my addiction to
hyperbole), but when they do occur I contend that they are intended as
public signals of acceptability, or, as in the instance of The Leaky 
Cauldron
in PS, a plot device, signaling that Quirrell was not possessed at that 
time.

Kneasy