[HPforGrownups] Re: A Harry Failure

[Melanie L Ellis]

No: HPFGUIDX 58959

On Fri, 30 May 2003 10:06:20 EDT maisaura2 at aol.com writes:
>  Harry probably doesn't seek grown up 
> intervention in  part because from his pre-Hogwarts experience, adults
are 
> disinterested at  best (school teachers, Mrs. Figg <eg>) or at worst,
the enemy 
> (Marge, Vernon and  Petunia).  He's not a confiding sort.  Ron and
Hermione have had 
> more  positive relationships with adults, one assumes, yet they join in

> Harry's secrecy as  well. 

I know that I had and still have a hard time asking for help from anyone.
I'm *extrememely* independent, and while I think some of it is just in my
nature to be so, I think a good part of it also harks back to the fact
that I was in foster care for the first 6 months of my life. From what
the foster mom told my adoptive mother when they were finally able to
take me home, it sounds like all they did was feed me and prop me in
front of the the TV. It's hard to create an ability to bond with others
when you don't get it early in life, and I think Harry is having the same
problems after 10 years of constant emotional abuse from his "family". 

>Harry had the key to the  2nd task  in his own bedroom, but, as Bart,
Jr. points out, Harry was too 
> arrogant to ask  for assistance from others.  (And maybe too arrogant
to ask for the 
> help of a  near-Squib like Neville?)

I don't think it was arrogance on Harry's part. He knew that the
champions were supposed to work things out for themselves and was trying
to live up to the supposed spirit of the tournament. He really struggled
with himself about whether or not to tell Cedric about the dragons, and I
think it was at least in part because he knew he wasn't supposed to be
telling. He didn't know that "cheating" was a long-established custom in
the tournament. Even after relaxing about it enough to share the egg's
song with Ron and Hermoine, I think he still didn't want to spread the
word about it too far, and that's why he didn't ask anyone else for help.
I think Crouch Jr's accusation of arrogance was just designed to make
Harry feel bad and question himself even more than he already does.


Melanie Ellis
Alabama Homeschool Message Board
http://pub77.ezboard.com/balabamahomeschoolmessageboard

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