OoP: Was Question for JKR

[Jesta Hijinx]

No: HPFGUIDX 65703

I'm not JKR, but...I have some thoughts.  Always.  :-)  I *just* now got my 
account cleared out enough to be able to address some of these things:

>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?
>
Hm - not to diss your opinion, but the whole 'sweet kid', 'turns sour' and 
'went wrong' all sound *very* slanted to me.  Don't feel bad - I feel 
parents who puzzle about this with their own kids are being very unrealistic 
and naive.  :-)  I don't think Harry was a 'sweet kid', I think he was 
repressed, overly shy and insecure because of being abused.  i don't think 
he's "turned sour", I think he's growing up and getting the male 
testosteronal "anchorless rage" thing going.  One thing I'll say for JKR:  
at least she tried to show Harry reasonably attaching those feelings of 
anger to specific causes - what's worrisome to me are adolescents who are 
just endlessly, ragingly angry and don't know why and no one, including 
them, even thinks that's a problem and tries to get them help.  :-(  I'd be 
more worried if Harry were just smashing things and people up, like Dudley.  
*He's* the one who's turned weird, if you ask me - not that I haven't seen 
that, but he's cruising for a fall, now that he's started deceiving his 
doting mama and papa.

I think the only thing that's "gone wrong" with Harry is an unsound decision 
on Dumbledore's part to leave him on his own all summer, with good 
intentions, but with absolutely no one to talk to or get his grief out with 
about Cedric's death.  Some of that manifests itself in his utter 
cluelessness in dealing with Cho later on:  yes, some of that is about not 
understanding girls very well yet, but at least 50% is about not 
understanding grief properly.  Harry does not understand that it's not 
talking about Cedric that *creates* the grief in Cho:  the grief is always 
there.  There's nothing at all unnatural, weird or wrong about Cho wanting 
to connect with Harry and grow closer to him by confiding in him about her 
grief about Cedric and wanting to know more about since harry was *there*.  
Harry's big blunder is *trying to stop her talking for his own selfish 
purposes - because it makes *him* feel uncomfortable*.  But in the grand 
scheme of things, the thing with Cho is minor compared to letting the grief 
and anger build up in Harry.

>2. How could James be a bully at fifteen and a model Head Boy at seventeen?
>
Easy.  He can change.  All humans can.  I'm guessing wizards can as well.  
And I doubt, anyway, that he was a *model* Head Boy a la Percy.  I'm sure he 
had his own style about it.  And part of me thinks...maybe Lily was such a 
positive influence on him that he made an effort to win her over at last.  
Although the modern sensibility is to discourage young women from trying to 
rescue and reform bad boys, there are some young men who flaunt being bad 
boys precisely because they want rescuing - they can't quite take 
responsibility for becoming nicer and kinder themselves directly, because 
that might make them look weak in front of their buddies - but if a *girl* 
is the reason and the influence, well, that's ennobling in many people's 
eyes.

>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."
>
Maybe he focused on the positive part of what James ultimately became, and 
not the bully he was at 15.  Also, rightly or wrongly, Harry already tended 
to identify strongly with his father; it would not have beent he wisest move 
on Dumbledore's part to disillusion him so abruptly.

>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.)
>
That was weird, huh?

>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.)
>
I thought that was weird, too.

>7. Now that Black and James have been shown to be as bad as Snape (or 
>worse), 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?
>
I'm guessing Mr. Dumbledore would remind us:  it's in our *choices*.  :-)  
Virtue is *such* a malleable characteristic; while monolithic characters who 
act one way always are the stuff of heroic fiction, the reality is that day 
to day people make choices based on such things as whether they're tired or 
their blood sugar is low at times.  Minor ones but they can affect others' 
judgment of their virtuousness - like snapping at their child in public 
rather than reasoning patiently with them for once.  I commend JKR for her 
courageous depiction of plenty of less than perfect people around Harry.  
He'll end up, I think, having to create and sculpt what he wants his own 
character to be rather than rely on aping or copying anyone else, alive or 
dead.

>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?
>
I need to re-read the prophecy:  much hinges on the wording here, and I'm 
still a little confused by it.

>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?
>
Good question, and you're not alone from what I've read, but I'm not on that 
particular trolley ride.  :-)

Felinia

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