Harry getting to GP by floo / thestrals (was Re: Good Writing)

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 110955

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "tylerswaxlion" <ctcasares at s...>
wrote:
> Tyler's Lion:
>
> ...edited...
> 
> I've always been struck by the fact that Harry had a magic mirror 
> tht could have let him talk to Sirius.  Yes, it was in his trunk and 
> he was refusing to open it to protect Sirius, but if he *had* used 
> it, Sirius wouldn't be dead.
> 
> I love "the sneaking into Umbridge's office to use the fireplace" 
> scenario, but Sirius should have asked Harry why he didn't just use 
> the mirror.  Harry didn't know about it, but SIRIUS did.  
> 
> On one hand, it feels to me like bad plotting--he didn't open the 
> package and Sirius didn't fill him in on the package b/c then Harry 
> wouldn't have had to use Umbridge's office and wouldn't have talked 
> to Kreacher.

b_boymn:

Let's look at the sequence of event in that conversation between Harry
and Sirius & Lupin.

The initial reaction by Sirius and Lupin is that something must be
disasterously wrong for Harry to contact them so directly. They both
seem in a bit of a panic. Then Harry tells them he /called/ to talk
about his dad, and that really throws them for a loop; I have to
believe they are caught completely off guard by this. 

Then Harry tells them the story of 'Snape's Worst Memory', and Sirus &
Lupin are suitably embarassed by their own actions as young teenagers.
Just as that aspect of the conversation is winding down and there is
the possibility of an opening in which Sirius can mention the mirror,
Harry say that Snape stopped giving him Occlumency lesson, and they
are distracted by the shock of that revelation. Before that can be
resolved, Harry hears Flich coming toward Umbridge's office and the
conversation is cut short.

I have no doubt that Sirius did wonder and fully intended to ask why
Harry wasn't using the mirror, but everytime an opening came, JKR
created another distraction until finally the discussion was cut short.

Others may see this as sloppy writing, but I think she masterfully
crafted a sequence of 'almost there' events. The opportunity for
Sirius to ask was /almost there/ several times, but didn't quite fully
present itself. It's a matter of suspense, tension, and compounding
the mystery.


> 
> On the other, it makes Sirius' loss more painful.  It didn't have to 
> happen, and Harry's mistake in not trusting Sirius is to blame.  And 
> when he tries to contact Sirius after the Veil...that's just heart-
> wrenching.
> 
> Harry didn't just act rashly at the end, charging into the MoM (like 
> a good Griffyndor) he acted rashly in trying to protect his 
> godfather, an adult who really did know better in this circumstance.
> 
> Tyler's Lion

B_Boymn:

Open any newspaper or watch any news broadcast and you will see that
it is full of teenagers acting rashly. Teenagers are impulsive; they
are far more inclined to ask 'what now?' than to ask 'what next?'.
They live very much in the moment and act with very little foresight.
It's not in the nature of teens to look ahead and ponder the potential
consequences of their actions. Also, teens are far more likely to
engage in 'group think'; to act with a group mentality rather than
engage in independant thinking. 

Example: at the moment, flying the car to Hogwarts made perfect sense,
but the minute McGonagall asks them why they didn't send an owl, they
see how flawed the plan was. As a general group, teens are fairly
proficient in hindsight, but seriously flawed in foresight.

I think if they had had a reasonable degree of foresight, even if they
chose to go to the Ministry, they would have sent one person to
Grimmauld Place to get help. But like I said, foresight is not a real
strong point with teens.

Steve/b_boymn (was asian_lovr2, was bboy_mn)