OOP: Questions for JKR

[Grey Wolf]

No: HPFGUIDX 63727

The Admiring Skeptic wrote:
> 1. How could Harry come out of eleven years at the Dursleys a sweet 
> kid, and then turn sour in four years at Hogwarts? What went right 
> back then that went wrong since we've known him?
 
Back then he was a child, Harry had been taught to be meek for his own 
good, to be silent, to stay put, to not disturb, not ask questions or 
mention anything that sounded even remotely magical. Some children 
react to this by becoming bullies, mad or worse, and others come out 
like Harry did.

5 years later, Harry has left that behind. He no longer fears the 
Dursleys and there is little they can do to him. He is now an 
adolescent, and is developing a big independent streak coupled with a 
puffed-up sense of his own importance... like all adolescents. He 
hasn't turned sour, just impacient and short tempered. I.e. a normal, 
healthy 15 year old.

> 2. How could James be a bully at fifteen and a model Head Boy at 
> seventeen?

We don't know that he was a model Head Boy. We know that he was so 
intelligent he was bored in the lessons and didn't have to study, which 
is what probably turned him into a bully in the first place - too much 
free time to fill, both in class and outside, coupled with an 
above-average magical power. Hagrid mentions he was a Head Boy when 
talking about his abilities as a wizard, not his respect for others. 

Furthermore, people change *a lot* during adolescency. An idiot in June 
can change over the summer into a perfectly pleasant boy in September. 
James had a year to change between the pensieve scene (which *could* be 
distortioned by Snape anyway) and becoming a Head Boy. A year during 
which Voldemort started or continued his fight for power, which 
could've perfectly matured James along, particularly if it affected him 
personally (death of his grandparents, for example).

> 3. How could Dumbledore encourage Harry to hero-worship James for the 
> past four years if James was such a creep? Dumbledore was always 
> saying things like "Your father would be proud of you."

His father existed beyond his 15th year. We know he and Lily defied 
Voldemort three times and lived to tell the tale. By all acounts he was 
a powerful ally of Dumbledore and a good friend. If we judged everyone 
by how they were when they were 15, Heaven would be *very* empty.
 
> 4. Why does the Ministry let people in so easily? (I'm referring to 
> the midnight run at the end of the book, of course.)

Why not? All you need is a valid reason, to enter an office building 
that is a goverment building. Probably, there are people 24-hours a day 
to attend urgent problems (in fact, we know this to be true since 
Arthur gets calls at all sorts of inconvenient hours, particularly 
during the night). Where are all those people? Considering that a bunch 
of DEs had gone before the DA, I should imagine that most of those 
people are beyond the veil by now (or have been paid to leave their 
posts, or any other reasonable explanaition).

> 5. *my most important question* Why was Dumbledore afraid of 
> Voldemort getting the first prophecy? What use could Voldemort gain 
> from the second half of the prophecy that he didn't already have from 
> the first half? (It's clear why Voldemort *wanted* the second half - 
> because *he* didn't know that it was unhelpful. But Dumbledore should 
> have known.)

How do you know Dumbledore was afraid? It could've been misdirection, 
the weapon being something else. Or bait, to make Voldemort reveal 
himself to the MoM. Or there might be more to the prophecy than it is 
immediately obvious. Like, Voldemort would know not to fear Dumbledore. 
Or that Harry has a power that Voldemort knows not about.

> 6. Why was it safe for Dumbledore to talk to Harry at the end of the 
> book? Wasn't Voldemort still spying through Harry's scar?

In a war of spies, there are two sorts of information: the real one and 
the missinformation. Maybe Harry is being used to pass the wrong sort 
to Voldemort.

> 7. Now that Black and James have been shown to be as bad as Snape (or 
> worse),

Let's see: James torments a fellow fifth year. Snape torments the 
children he is suposed to teach. To me, Snape is still the biggest 
bully. Not to mention that James was 15 and Snape is 30. Maturity 
hasn't brought Snape wisdom, it seems.

> most of the members of the Order no longer look much better 
> than the average Death Eater. In what way are people like Black, 
> James, Snape (he *is* a member), Moody and Mundungus better than 
> Malfoy Sr or Pettigrew? Obviously Dumbledore and Voldemort are not 
> equal (and the Lestranges are not the Weasleys), but is there any 
> difference between the virtuousness of their *average* followers 
> besides where their loyalties lie? What did Malfoy do to the Muggles 
> in GoF that was worse than what James did to Snape? What did Wormtail 
> do to James that was worse than the Prank? Does being fifteen really 
> justify anything? And do we know of any improvement in Sirius's and 
> James's characters since then?

Being 15 justifies a lot. Which is why children under 18 are not judged 
as adults except in the worst sort of crimes. And as another member 
said (sorry, I can't for my life spell his name), while you're picking 
on the *worst* thing James ever did, the DEs have killed people by the 
score, tormented people into insanity and attempted to take over the 
world. Compared to that, the prank and bullying is hardly relevant.

> 8. The first prophecy is just not true! Voldemort has been living for 
> a whole year, even though Harry survives. So yes, "one can live while 
> the other survives." Is this just a case of sloppy wording (Should 
> the prophecy read: they cannot both be alive for more than three 
> years [HP5,6,7] after their first confrontation?), or is it a cover 
> for some big secret?

Prophecies must be interpreted. The second one talks of the servant 
"chained" for 12 years. Peter had not been chained to anything, 
phisically speaking (neither did Black). But Peter *had* been chained 
in a way. Same here. Harry cannot live his life properly while 
Voldemort is around trying to take over the world and kill Harry while 
he is at it. By that definition, neither will really live until the 
matters between them are solved.

> 9. If Harry had been told at the outset of OoP that he was Destined 
> to battle Voldemort, how would that have helped? It would not have 
> mitigated the scar-connection in any way. Knowing why he had to be 
> kept ignorant and useless would have left him just as angry - at fate 
> rather than at people, but just as angry. Raging at fate would have 
> spoiled his Occlumency lessons just the same, regardless of who was 
> teaching them.

If he had been told at the start, Voldemort wouldn't have spent the 
entire year trying to get hold of the prophecy, and would've moved on 
to the next phase of his plan to take over the WW. Which probably 
involved blood, lots of blood. Last time there were senseless killings 
of muggles and wizard families just to create fear in the population. 
And it worked. Since, if it ain't broken, don't fix it, Voldemort might 
try it again, and Dumbledore just stalled that for a year, giving Harry 
yet another year to prepare.

>     In other words, once it was decided (by JKR) that Harry at 
> fifteen must be an Angry Young Man, nothing Dumbledore could 
> realistically do would have improved the outcome. And JKR clearly 
> wanted Harry to be an Angry Young Man. So why, in her philosophy, if 
> Harry must be an AYM, is Dumbledore blaming himself for anything? 

Dumbledore didn't tell Harry about the prophecy to stop hiom from being 
angry. Whatever the reasons were, they probably won't do that trick. 
Dumbledore blames himself because he should've told Harry once Harry 
was old enough to understand what the prophecy meant, instead of 
keeping him in the dark about an important part of his life.

> So what [here's the crux of the question] does she want from 
> Dumbledore [meaning parents/authority figures]? To have been open 
> with Harry [meaning teenagers]? Why? To not-prevent a year of anger 
> (and its consequences) that she felt Harry[kids in general] had to go 
> through?

I don't try to find the morals of a story before it is finished. But I 
think that a good moral is that it is better to not keep important 
information about people, even if it will make them unhappy. If I'm a 
captain and the ship is sinking, I prefer not to be saved the anguish 
of knowing about it.

> 10. *second most important question* Back in GoF [ancient history], 
> why didn't Crouch Jr. portkey Harry to Voldemort at the beginning of 
> the school year? There is nothing in the books to prevent him from 
> having done it, which creates a plot hole so large that the entire 
> tournement falls into it. (Sure, Crouch Jr would have gotten into 
> trouble with the Ministry, but once Harry was in Voldemort's hands, 
> he could have quit his Hogwarts cover and rejoined Voldemort for 
> protection. Certainly, nothing in the books prevents this.) In any 
> case, the main thing I want to know is: How did JKR and her editors 
> create and overlook such an enormous hole? Was there a ready reason 
> for Crouch's delay that somehow got left out of the books, or was the 
> hole missed completely? And if there was a good reason for Voldemort 
> waiting a whole year to get Harry, was it intrinsic to the plot (if 
> so, how was it left out?) or was it just a pretty patch that would 
> have accomplished nothing besides justifying the story getting 
> stretched over a whole year?

This has been discused to death in this list. For a complete 
explanaition, search the archives. But in short: The MoM can tell when 
a portkey is created. The cup was to be a portkey to take you out of 
the maze (after all, there is no point in backtracing your steps once 
you've won). Crouch!Moody puts in an extra stop, which is camouflaged 
by the fact of the cup already being a portkey. The only portkey in the 
entire year is the one in the cup, so it's the one Crouch uses. 
Creating his own unauthorized portkey and then waiting for a chance to 
have Harry use it might take too long, and the plan is too dire to 
leave it to chance. And also, Voldemort might have been too weak to 
survive the transformation at the start of the year, so they had to 
wait until he was strong enough. And also wait for Harry's "Dursley" 
protection to be at the lowest point. So the best moment is as late as 
possible, which meant using the cup portkey of the last task.

> Do any of you miss JKR's amazing humor besides me?

I think I laughed more in OoP than in any other HP book so far

> Did she really think 50 million readers (counting a few readers per 
> book) all needed such a negative experience to appreciate her story? 
> Or has she lost it? 

Maybe it's you that has missed it? "It unscrews the other way" indeed.

> Once we've been mired, in OoP, in relentless human failings, what do > I need the Wizarding World for? I can see weak humanity 24/7. Once 
> the WW is not a place where people have a magical excuse to be just a 
> touch larger than life, now that the magic has become irrelevant to 
> their characters, the fantasy of HP has become, for me, more like a 
> gimmick than an asset. Are there any other disappointed fans out 
> there? Or am I suffering alone?

I have always enjoyed the books because even though they are fantasy, 
they feel real, so in my case, seeing a very well written parabole of 
our world doesn't dissapoint me.
 
Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf