A question about Butterbeer

[David <dfrankiswork@netscape.net>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51740

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "sagelyone <sagelyone at y...>" 
<sagelyone at y...> wrote:
 
> I have a random question about butterbeer. Is it alcoholic? 

I see butterbeer as both alcoholic and non-alcoholic.

I think it's an example of a class of things in HP that represent 
some sort of childhood longing:

- chocolate is medicine;
- singing rude words to carols is allowed;
- the headmaster tells off-colour jokes and mocks his staff;
- the headmaster approves of sweets (candy (US), lollies (Aus)).

So, I'd see butterbeer as representing the idea that there is a 
drink which gives the pleasure you can get from alcohol, without the 
side effects, so children can drink it.

Since we know that, in reality, it is precisely the things about 
alcohol that make it pleasurable that also make it dangerous and 
destructive, it is essentially a contradiction in terms.

It is also IMO typical of JKR that she has to toy with her own 
conception, and introduce the effect on Winky.  No matter how 
complex the construct she makes, she is always looking for just one 
more twist...

David, who wonders if this is why, at bottom, the books are getting 
ever longer