[HPforGrownups] Re: Who Trusts Snape?! (OofP spoilers)

[Scott Santangelo]

No: HPFGUIDX 71217



"T.M. Sommers" <tms2 at mail.ptd.net> wrote:
tigerpatronus wrote:
> 
> He didn't notice that Crouch!Moody was an imposter for nine months, 
> and then it was one dumb act (absconding with Harry), not an 
> accumulation of evidence about his personality or wrong reactions. If 
> the pod people impersonated some old friend I'd fought a war with, I 
> think I'd know. I hope I would. 

No one else did, either.  And what about the impostor's actions 
should have given him away?

> DD also hired Quirrel, a guy with a bad sense of who to hang around 
> with, who was already in thrall to LV. 

Quirrell came to Hogwarts before he met Voldemort.

> And DD hired Lockehart, that poseur. 

We are told that there were no other applicants for the job.

> And DD made Tom Riddle the Head Boy,  

Dippet did that, not Dumbledore.

> And DD thought SB was indeed the mass murderer. 

So did everyone else.  And as far as I know, Sirius never denied 
that he was the murderer (before his escape, that is); at least 
it's never mentioned that he did.

> DD didn't suss out the truth about Wormtail, who lived in his school 
> for almost three years as a rat, either. 

Was he even aware of Scabbers's existence?  Does Dumbledore know 
every pet in the school?

> And DD left HP with the Dursleys, and while there may have 
> been "blood magic" protecting his life, anyone who takes in a 
> child "furiously, bitterly," isn't going to love or nurture that 
> child. If love is Harry's greatest weapon, DD nearly stripped him of 
> it by allowing his formative years to be spent with the Dursleys. 

The choice was not between the Dursleys and some ideal home, but 
between the Dursleys and probable death.

> If 
> this weren't fiction, Harry would be seriously disturbed and have an 
> attachment disorder. He would be a sociopath. 

Surely not every child with an unhappy home becomes a sociopath.
-----------------------

Excellent rebuttals!! I particularly agree with your last point. Children are amazingly resilient, and of course, Harry is a special case to begin with. Life with the Dursley's has (perhaps oddly) made him much less susceptible to deprivations of a variety of types - food, affection, material possessions, relationships. He's done without. That makes life outside of Privet Dr. so much more enjoyable for him. We see him splurging, sharing, and diving-into things where he never had the opportunity with the Dursleys. Those are some of my favorite moments in the series (on the train with Ron for the first time when he buys the entire snack cart), and where readers really "feel" for his situation.

owlery2003



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