Feelings on OoP

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 80111

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Mev532" <mev532 at y...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "msbeadsley" 
<msbeadsley at y...> 
> wrote:
> > "mom31" <mom31 at r...> wrote: <<I've been wondering how everyone 
> else 
> > is feeling about OoP now that we've had time to re-read it and 
let 
> it 
> > sink in.  
> 

Dave:
> A lot of people have criticized this work as 'a downer' or bleak or 
> depressing but in a way these are the aspects that really impressed 
> me about the book. I feel the tone and content of the stories 
> has 'grown up'  as Harry has begun seeing more gray in his 
> previously black and white world. 
> 
> One point that I was impressed with was Harry's emotional state. So 
> many times on television, in movies, or in novels people go through 
> what should be very traumatic experiences and by the next 
> installment they are all better. Real life doesn't work like this! 
> If anyone had gone through what Harry had at the end of GOF he/she 
> would have had emotional problems too. 
> 
> Harry has become a character with more depth, I feel, than many in 
> novels. I thought the moments of furious self justification in 
which 
> he exclaimed (I'm paraphrasing) 'who defeated quirrel? Who killed 
> the basilisk? Who met lord voldemort and lived to tell about it, 
> me!' were realistic, along with his completely conflicting 
> statements about how he had always gotten lucky or had help when 
> Hermione tried to convince him to teach the DA. This kind of 'look 
> at things one way one second, look at them completely differently 
in 
> a different situation/mood' seemed to me such a wonderfully human 
> (and perhaps teenagerish) trait. We all get angry and are often 
> unfair to those that we really owe a lot to.
> 

<snipped>

Geoff:
For me, one of the defining moments in OOTP where Harry's increasing 
maturity comes through is where he admits - half to himself and half 
to Dumbledore - that he is feeling guilty about neglecting to master 
Occlumency. (p.731 UK edition).It is bad enough as an adult trying to 
admit guilt but for someone of Harry's age, it is a high barrier to 
surmount.