OOP: Questions for JKR

[m.steinberger]

No: HPFGUIDX 66420

I don't know if Lee sent this to the list or just to me off list, but here's the reply for you all to deal with.

As usual, I thank all of you who reply to me offlist as well as to the list, because I can't check the list all that often and I've stopped the digests until they slow down to only two a day.
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Birgit Kohls <lee_lhs at yahoo.com>
To: m.steinberger <steinber at zahav.net.il>
Sent: Monday, June 30, 2003 2:48 PM
Subject: RE: OOP: Questions for JKR


>
> > > >Lee1:  I'm familiar wth the type of family situation Harry stems
from,
> and
> > > it has nothing to do with "being a nice person" if a kid behaves
> > > nicely.
> >
> > TAS2: I agree that one can behave well on the outside and be horrid
> > on the
> > inside, but I don't think Harry was portrayed that way in HP1-4.
> > There were
> > dozens (hundreds?) of posts on this list commenting on what a nice
> > kid Harry
> > was, and this included the attitude he was displaying. If he was
> > meant to
> > have been seething on the inside and well-behaved on the outside, JKR
> > would
> > have had no trouble writing him that way.
> >
>
> Lee2: Harry never was a nice kid. He was jealous of his cousin. A lot of
> "accidents" happened. He hated his foster family.

TAS3: Hating and being angry are very different. Nice people should hate
evil. They should not get angry at evil because anger is a violent reaction
against perceived offense, and (1) offenses are always aggravated and never
mitigated by violent reactions, and (2) violence (even emotional violence)
is a terrible thing for the perpetrator. It's a form of cutting off your
virtues to spite your opponent.

Lee2: > He behaved nicely.
> Hogwarts was a huge adventure. He was suddenly very special - do you,
> per chance the scene in OOP where Snape asks him if having that bond
> with Voldy makes him feel special? - he got attention and he was
> finally allowed to do stuff he was never allowed to do before.

TAS3: Yes, but that's in the disputed OoP. He didn't feel that way in PS.
And even if it did make him feel special, that's not so terrible. What I
can't stand is his hurting innocent friends because he's in a horrid mood.

> >  Lee1: You also misunderstand the concept about getting angry
> > > because of getting some self esteem. I'm not sure if you are
> > familiar
> > > with the magnitute of bottled up emotions that exist in someone who
> > > has been "kept nice" for all their childhood.
> >
> > TAS2: Actually, I've met some people like that. More than one. Some
> > decide
> > that no matter what it costs them, they're not going to let it cost
> > anyone
> > else. They go to therapy, or work it out exercising, or whatever, and
> > though
> > it takes quite a few years, they resolve the anger without becoming
> > nasty.
> >

> Lee2: But those people were angry before they went into therapy, weren't
> they? They did hurt others before they realized that they had to do
> something about it?

TAS3: No! They ate themselves up but *did not* hurt other people. They
twisted themselves into pretzels to avoid hurting other people. And then
they went to therapy to stop hurting themselves, before too much damage was
done.

> Lee2: That's the entire point: realizing that you have a
> problem. Admitting that you need help. Anger is a lot like a drug in
> that aspect. It's crawling into your system and it's very hard to get
> rid of, especially if you don't read the signs that your surrounding
> sent you.

TAS3: The only good way to get rid of anger is to avoid it in the first
place.

> > > Lee1: In OOP, Harry is
> > > finally able to say "I've had it, not any longer, stop abusing me".
> > > Sure, he's no longer nice and behaved, but he hadn't the privilige
> > of
> > > evjoying your good upbringing.
> >
> > TAS2: That is true. However, as I commented above, JKR wrote Harry in
> > HP1-4
> > (or at least HP1-3) as someone who was magically able to rise above
> > his poor
> > upbringing. *How* he did so has been puzzling many on this list, but
> > not
>
> Lee2: Actually, no. He got himself into trouble, but he wasn't punished
for
> it. There were no consequences until Cedric died. The "last second
> magical escape from trouble", the type of things that makes you
> invincible. And then, boom, the good luck that always kept you from
> disaster, runs out and someone ends up dead.
> The other thing is that Harry is a smart person. He can learn hard if
> he wants. He had to learn a lot about the Wizard world, and learning he
> did. Then the wizard world showed to be not that different from his old
> world after all.

TAS3: His getting himself into trouble is a different issue. I'm discussing
a kid who was sat on for eleven years, but managed to have very little
desire to sit on anyone in return, and what temptation there was was quite
manageable. Harry, with Hermione, has been grabbing the back of Ron's shirt
for four years. No one's had to do that for Harry, because till OoP, he had
very little temper. His getting into trouble has been a function of his lack
of trust in adults (learned from having had Dursleys for role models), and
has nothing to do with being angry, resentful, or full of himself. He never
thought of himself as being very special, but he still followed his own
instincts (breaking rules) because he didn't trust anyone else's guidance
either. In OoP he's suddenly had some conceit grafted onto his formerly
modest personality.

In any case, his magical rescues didn't make him a nice person; he came to
Hogwarts that way. And his losing his magical rescues shouldn't spoil his
niceness because before Hogwarts he had no rescues (from Dudley, Ripper,
etc), and he was nice then anyway. So this is completely besides the point
we've been discussing, which is, What literary cause could justify turning
our formerly long-tempered, considerate, unself-absorbed Harry into a
cranky, inconsiderate, self-involved person? In other words - what are the
literary gains vs the literary losses, and could the gains be gotten any
other way, with fewer losses? And while we're at it - there's the other
question we've been dealing with: Is Harry's new personality out of
character compared to HP1-4 or not? I claim yes, with justifications that
I've provided, and you claim no, with justifications I don't buy yet.
>
> > TAS2: So if for three-four years she believed in the
> > power of
> > "whatever" to help Harry be well-adjusted, why couldn't she identify
> > that
> > "whatever" and keep it working now?
>
> Lee2: Because Harry never was "well adjusted". He never followed orders,
he
> never stayed out of trouble. How often was he told in book 1 or two, or
> even three, to stay behind, not to act? Did he follow? No.

TAS3: Well adjusted, as I wrote above, doesn't mean "obedient." It means
"kind, considerate, and able to handle his own emotions well enough to avoid
hurting innocent people's feelings." I have no need to see an obedient
Harry. I like a think-for-himself Harry much better. But I hate a "don't
think, just lash out at people" Harry, which is what we've gotten in OoP.

> Lee2: The "whatever" was that happened was that plain and simple Harry's
good
> luck run out. No Dumbledore who saves him in the last second from being
> killed by Quireel. No Fawks who prevents that he and Ginny get killed
> by Tom Riddle. Suddenly the magic was gone. People started to talk
> about Harry, but he wasn't the hero any longer. Daily Prophet, anyone?

TAS3: Like I wrote, the rescues were *not* the "whatever" that made Harry a
nice kid on entering Hogwarts. And his OoP miseries might make him feel very
bad, but they didn't need to take over his former ability to be very nice to
anyone who wasn't a sworn enemy. In CoS he treated the suspicious
Hufflepuffs very admirably. I see no gain-loss ratio to justify his
mistreating Seamus.

>
> > TAS2: always
> > the exceptions who do float above their upbringings, and Harry was
> > doing
> > just fine as an exception till now. What happened in HP5 to justify
> > Harry
> > losing his exceptional abilitiy to be well-adjusted? It would be one
> > thing
> > if he had never been well-adjusted and was slowly improving, and his
> > anger
> > in HP5 was as far as he had gotten. But that's not the case.
> >
>
>Lee2:  Voldemort, responsibility for a death (later, two deaths). feeling
> abandomed by Dumbledore. REalization that a lot of what happened was
> his very own fault. Have his friends pointing out a few facts to him
> that he didn't like.
> Book-5-Harry is on the brink, on a path to become Voldemort's equal,
> full of anger and resentment.
> Now, it's his own choice if he's going to accept help or if he will
> follow the road to oblivion.

TAS3: I think everything I've written above will do for responding to this.

>
> > TAS2: I don't agree that he has been a deeply troubled young man, and I
do
> > not
> > admire JKR's having made him one retroactively. Also, I think Harry's
> > been
> > thinking for himself since HP1. (I was thinking for myself from a
> > much
> > earlier age.)
>
> Lee2: Ah yes. I know what type of problems my brothers & I got ourselves
into
> when we were in Harry Potter book 1's age. Yes, we were able to make
> choices, we were able to think. Just that almost all of the time the
> choices we made were lacking the knowledge and experience of a grown
> up.
> We thought the way a ten year old thinks, with our very own logic.
> I admire you for being able to have thought like a grown up at that
> age.

TAS3: Again - getting into trouble is not the issue. Thinking like a grown
up is not either. It's morality, the kind that says, You don't hurt other
people, not even their feelings, except in self-defense. Harry had this for
four years, and now he's lost it.

> > TAS2:  How would I react? I'd have written Dumbledore a letter in
> > chapter 1 explaining why it was very important to my emotional
> > stability to
> > get a bit more information and attention than I was receiving, and
> > I'd keep
> > trying to reach him until I got some answers. This sounds less
> > preposterous
> > if you imagine the letter: "Dear Professor D., Hermione and Ron tell
> > me that
> > the reason no one is telling me what is going on with "him" is that
> > you told
> > them not to. I'm sure that you've got lots of very important reasons
> > for
> > this, but please understand that my nerves are about to split from
> > the idea
> > that "he" might be showing up on Privet Drive any moment. If you
> > don't find
> > some way to clue me in, you might have a St. Mungo's patient instead
> > of a
> > student next year. Please answer quick. Yours, Harry."
> >

> Lee2: It's great to know that as a ten year old you were already able to
> ponder such important questions as your emotional stability.
> I can see so many ten year olds writing such letters now, to their
> teachers and parents. Really.
>
> From a writer's POV, I'd congrat you on killing the story. :)
>

TAS3: We're talking about Harry at fifteen. At fifteen I know lots of people
who, after some long thought, would have been able to write such a letter.
And no, it would not have killed the story. It would just have been a very
different story. HP1-4 were great stories, even though Harry's personality
was much closer to the maturity of such a letter than to his HP5 behavior.

>
> > TAS2: I would have preemted the anger and the problems in the first
place.
> > JKR
> > decided not to do that, which is a big shame, becuase she could have
> > demonstrated to millions of kids how it can be done.
> >

> Lee2: And what happens now? The kids TALK about what Harry should've done
> instead. The THINK actively rather than having someone chew it for
> them. They WORK on strategies and address problems. That's the great
> thing about this book. People talk. There are over 8000 grown ups on
> this list alone discussing issues, and I don't know how many kids chat,
> talk in their English classes or just privately about what is going on.

TAS3: They talked before, when Harry behaved better, and the kids wrote lots
of comments about how they became better people by Harry's example. I don't
believe this bad example is at all necessary to achieve any moral lessons
for readers, and I am not at all sure that it isn't counterproductive. Now
HP is not a morality treatise, but until now it was chock full of very
inspiring, uplifting lessons, and now, in my mind, it's lost tons in that
department.

> Lee2: Yes, but again from a writer's POV... This series is laid out to be
7
> books. The plot is spread to the 7 books, and things happen because it
> builds up things for the final chapter of book 7.
> There are a lot of things that could've been handled better to achieve
> a faster resolving of the problems.

TAS3: This is quite by the way, but I think her books would be much better
plotted if she would give up her school-story format and allow climaxes at
less rigid intervals than once a year in June. I think HP4GU should start an
on-line poll/petition to encourage JKR to quit the June-only formula. She
doesn't have to listen to us, but it might be interesting to her to know how
strongly her fans would like her to consider other options. If this comment
doesn't take off on the list, I'll post it separately, by the way.

> Lee2: JKR did fill book 5 with tons of
> clues, pushed certain characters ahead, solved issues of the past and
> raised new questions. A lot of things had to be re-evaluated by Harry
> (and the reader). Yes, I'd wished for an additional 200 or 300 pages to
> resolve those problems that are now carried into book 6 - because I
> don't want to wait for another two years until the next book comes out.

TAS3: I don't know where this comment of your is coming from. I don't have
strong feelings in either direction. More resolutions or fewer are fine with
me. I just wish that this book had gone in a different direction altogether,
with a Harry-personality one year older, but not so radically less
considerate, than it was before. Because his anger is so tightly woven into
the plot, this would require a very different plot, but it could have led to
the same resolution, with Harry learning his and Dumbledore's weaknesses,
learning about his connection to Voldemort, and so on. For the umpteenth
time, being a jerk is not a prerequisite for acheiving these literary goals.


> >> Lee1: Uh... I'm not sure that you and I have read the same book. Apart
> from
> >> the cases where Voldemort directly accessed Harry, the times when
> >> Harry reacted angry where all very well justified.
> >
> >TAS2: Getting angry is *never* justified. It's just understandable.
> >However, in any given case, there is a way to deal with the stress and
> >situation without getting angry.
>
> Lee2: Not everyone has that wonderful self control of yours. I know a lot
of
> people who react every bit as angry in a stressy situation as Harry
> does. And while it might not be RIGHT To act like that, IMO it's
> justified. But hey, that's just me, out of control person that I am. I
> guess that my standards are just below yours in that matter.

TAS3: I consider "right" synonymous with "justified." "Not right" allows
such things as "understandable," and "common," but not "justified" with its
connection to "justice."

> >> Lee1: There was a reason
> >> for him to become angry (and that he blew off like that with all the
> >> stress of learning (homework until past midnight) and the owls
> coming
> >> up... sorry, but the other kids in his year reacted similar. He
> *did*
> >> apologize for that, too.) Then, Harry suffers from nightmares and
> his
> >> scar is constantly aching. I know for sure that nightmares and a
> >> headache make me grumpy. Having to suffer that in a constant row,
> day
> >> after day... I don't know how I would handle that.
> >
> >TAS2: I'd apologise to people in advance and work very hard to be
> >pleasant to people, that's all. Maybe take extra naps, or walks in the
> >fresh air, or ask Madam Pomfrey for some headache potion. Again, this
> >would have been more interesting and useful to readers than watching
> >him step on everyone's toes.
>
>Lee2:  You never blew off steam at anyone in your entire life? Wow, I am
> impressed.

TAS3: Only when I've been directly and falsely accused of hurting other
people on purpose.

>Lee2:  Useful, maybe. Interesting? Not really. He'd still be
perfect-Potter,
> the kid who does everything right.

TAS3: Not at all. Good intentions are very hard to act on and often fail.
That can be very interesting. Harry in OoP has no intentions, good or
otherwise, he just reacts. That is not very interesting to me.

> Lee2: Besides... when was he supposed to take those extra naps and walks
in
> the fresh air? While he was writing his homework? While he was in
> detention? While he was looking up stuff in the library? While he was
> being mocked at? While he was having Occulumency lessons with Snape?

TAS3: There was still plenty of time.

> Lee2: Quiddich (his anger-outlet) was taken away from him.

TAS3: So it's time to grow up and create your own outlets.

> Lee2: Voldemort got more
> and more influence on him through the connection. Most students thought
> he was a liar or insane, or both for having his scar hurting. When he
> *did* ask (to keep his mental stability at the begin of the book) he
> was denied answers and treated like someone who couldn't handle things.

TAS3: So he has to learn how to deal. Not spend 12 months dealing badly so
that afterwards he can learn how to deal. Again, if he had been a nasty kid
to begin with, I'd accept his having to learn to deal slowly. But he was
*not* a nasty kid before. So there's no reason to spend 12 months as a nasty
kid now.

> Lee2: Very trustful. Jumping to conclusions, Harry is great at that, he
> created problems that would've been easily solvable if just a few
> choices had been made differently.

TAS3: He could make all those *interesting* mistakes without being callous.
There are plenty of other personality failings one can have.

> >> Lee1: There are some thing that you can only learn through interaction,
> >> through experience. Maybe you were aware of all the thing right
> away,
> >> but a lot of people don't receive your privilegded upbringing
> >> strategies. They are not raised in patient families and they don't
> >> get the master formulae.

> >TAS2: So why didn't JKR show it to people? I suspect she knows them.

>Lee2:  Uhhh... I think she is just showing people, by showing the
consequences
> of what happens if you don't watch out carefully for those who are
> entrusted to you.
> Besides... What about all those little hints that she gives? Hagrid and
> his care and love for everything. McDonagall - strict but caring. Mrs
> Weasley, caring too much. Snape - seemingly not caring at all.
> Dumbledore, tangled up into to many things to really be able to see
> things trough.
> Sirius - caught up in his own past, but caring for Harry more than life
> itself, spontanious and hot headed. Lupin, trying to balance and ask
> questions first, a source of calm. Ron, full of problems that reflect
> Harry's, but more willing to listen. Hermoine, over-eagerly, but
> caring, providing knowledge and stability.
> Harry, his anger bringing him into trouble, hurting people (Ah, there's
> the Warning, don't act like that kids!), still caring and not a bad
> guy.
> There are many other characters, each of which sends a message that
> hint at the options.

TAS3: I don't think these qualities in the other characters are strong
enough to balance angry-Harry.

> >> Lee1: What JKR wants of the parents? How about understanding that you
have
> >> to trust your teenager to AVOID such reactions? That sometimes,
> >> sitting down and talk, that care and being there is so much more
> >> worth than the best intentions? That you have to give your teenager
> a
> >> chance to pin down their anger and deal with it? From your post I
> >> understand that you raise your kids in such a fashion, and that's a
> >> good thing. I wished that everyone would do. Unfortunately, not
> >> everyone does, and not all teenager have the advantage of having a
> >> strong hand helping them standing up again after their inexperience
> >> and feelings make them stumble.
>>
> >TAS2: Yes- all this exists in real life. The question is what good
> it's
> >doing in HP.

> Lee2: Erm... you see me very surprised here. "What good is it doing in
HP"?
> Well, the characters would surely have lead a more comfortable life,
> much more peaceful... but the reader would not care about the message.
> There would be no discussion, no questions, no rereading and looking
> for the whys and buts.
> These things exist in real life, and Harry Potter is a reflection of
> real life. :)

TAS3: Again, there was plenty of discussion of HP before OoP. Plenty of
readers caring. This series could have gone lots of other ways without
harming any of that.

> Lee2: Just my two cents.
>
> Lee
>
The Admiring Skeptic, valuing your post at a lot more than two cents.





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