Why to Like and Not Like OoP

[evangelina839]

No: HPFGUIDX 70829

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Doriane" <delwynmarch at y...> wrote:
> Yep. And we know Harry is repressing his feelings because he tells 
> himself once not to think about the graveyard scene. So something's 
> wrong : either he is repressing his feelings and then he should act 
> very nice and agreeable, or else he's not and he should be addressing 
> the things that really bother him. But instead he seems to be 
> exercising some kind of selective control : he doesn't mind blowing 
> up about his friends not telling him much in the letters, or being 
> short-tempered about pretty much everything, but he keeps his major 
> questions for himself : why DD doesn't want to talk to him, how to 
> cope with what happened in the graveyard (in fact, it seems he's 
> pretty much forgotten it ! Come on !!), the recurrent dream about the 
> door at the end of the corridor, etc... He's snapping at his friends 
> for minor things, but he doesn't turn to them for the major stuff. 
> Doesn't seem logical to me.

But it does to me. I was depressed for almost two years, starting at sixteen, and I pretty 
much behaved exactly like that. "Either he is repressing his feelings and then he should 
act very nice and agreeable, or else he's not and he should be addressing the things that 
really bother him"? That was definately not how it worked for me, as the things that 
"really bothered" me were too painful to even think about. I was desperate to get them 
out somehow, but I was completely incapable of even finding words to describe them 
with. So I held them back. I didn't mention them to anyone, and at the same time, just 
knowing that they were there made me ache and it affected my mood very, very much. 
Maybe I never started yelling at people in all-caps, but I was really moody and irritated 
and picking fights with everyone; repressing my feelings obviously didn't make me "nice 
and agreeable". I don't see anything illogical with Harry's behaviour, nor do I have a 
problem with how long his "condition" lasted as mine went on for two years.

As for this discussion otherwise (why to like/not like OOP), I have to add something to 
the likeable aspects of the book: Umbridge's effect on the school. I think in all of the 
other books, I have always found at least one part of it that felt like dead time, mostly 
when something that was simply school related was happening (I actually felt like that 
about the ball in GoF), but I had NO problems with that in OoP, with all the rebellion and 
DA meetings and whatnot. Skiving snackboxes causing all Umbridge's students to faint, 
bleed, vomit and fever... just recalling my mental image of it all makes me grin. :)

evangelina