Somethings not right

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 80809

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "scooting2win" 
<scootingalong at b...> wrote:


Lori:
> I have been out for a little while (family reasons) and was 
> rereading the books, like I've not read them 20 times a piece. But 
> now something is bugging me about them. As we all know, the first 4 
> books were written with amazing speed. The fourth book from what I 
> understand Rowling lost the plot 1/2 way through it. She seemed to 
> do pretty well for something she lost 1/2 way through (and long at 
> that). So here is what I don't understand, in OoP, Rowling has 
Harry 
> going through yet another difficult time. She throws in some pretty 
> ugly people this time and adds some twist. She has always shown 
> Harry as being Emotionally abused. Maybe it's something that 
parents 
> see in the books. We see for 4 years Harry being belittled by his 
> aunt and uncle, and treasured in the wizarding world. This book 
> however, she slides off and has the Wizarding world belittleing him 
> as well. Now what I am having a difficult time with is, she abuses 
> Harry in this book. NOT emotionally, but physically. Umbridges pen! 
> It sent one heck of a message to me, and for little kids reading 
> this book as well. She basically is saying it's ok if someone hurts 
> you, you don't have to tell an adult, you don't have to tell 
anyone, 
> you can keep it a secret! Secrets are not good for small children 
to 
> keep. Especially if the secret includes someone hurting them, or 
> worse things then that. Maybe it's not what she intended but it's 
> there none the less. 


Geoff:
I can see the point of comments re telling an adult but I think Jo 
Rowling has got this spot on. I believe it's very much a male thing 
and I give a couple of examples from my own life to support that.

When I was in London, at the age of 11, I transferred from a primary 
school to a grammar school. I was rather small and, almost as soon as 
I arrived, I was picked on by a Third Year boy who took every 
opportunity to push me, trip me etc. whenever we met in the corridor. 
I can remember trying to avoid him if I saw him in the distance. 
Fortunately, after about five or six weeks, the attraction of shoving 
me around wore off and he left me alone. (As an aside, he went on to 
become a championship boxer and I could never see this name in the 
paper without experiencing a feeling of hate towards him).

I did nothing for two reasons. First, I didn't want to look a wuss if 
I went and complained to my teacher and, second, I had the thought at 
the back of my mind that, if I did, he might then take it out even 
more on me.

A second instance. 10 years ago, I took early retirement from 
teaching. I had been at that time Head of Computing for nearly ten 
years and had built up the Department from nothing to about 50 
machines. At that time, Gates had not managed to corner things to the 
extent that he has now and I was very used to Acorn/BBC machines 
which were widely used in UK schools.

Nowadays, I will sometimes hit a problem and find myself saying to 
myself "You must be able to solve this". Occasionally, I don't and I 
reluctantly ring up my younger son, who is now an IT consultant 
earning £50K pa, an ask him. But I taught him his first programming 
20 years ago and it is very damaging to my (adult) pride to admit I 
have a problem which I can't handle.

I can see variants of these three operating in Harry's mind and there 
is also the point that, if he went to Dumbledore or McGonagall to 
tell them, he would see this as letting Umbridge win – of conceding 
defeat; he would far sooner grit his teeth and plough on. I am always 
surprised that JKR has such a good grasp of the way in which we males 
are conditioned to operate. It may go against the way in which we are 
supposed to deal with bullying but I could see myself in a similar 
situation to Harry's behaving in precisely the same way.