Themes in OotP (was Re: Angry Harry in HBP?)

[imamommy at sbcglobal.net]

No: HPFGUIDX 119909


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" 
<dumbledore11214 at y...> wrote:
> 
> > SSSusan:
> 
> snip.
> 
> 
> I know it's fiction and JKR wrote it the way she wanted to write 
it, 
> but I'm getting back to the question which was raised by 
HunterGreen 
> as to whether it was *believable* that so many adults would have 
> failed Harry in this way.  As she said, "the whole situation was 
> horrifically mismanaged" and I agree with that assessment.
> 
> 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Great post, Susan. I absolutely agree that whole situation was 
> horrifically mismanaged as Rebecca said, but I did find a way to 
> rationalise it somehow.
> 
> We have no problem understanding that Dumbledore can make mistakes, 
> right? Well, to me the reason why so many adults failed Harry so 
> badly is simply because they put too much trust in Dumbledore 
> infallibility (is this even a word). You know, we may not agree 
with 
> him personally, but since he is the only wizard Voldemort ever 
> feared, we will do what he says and hope for the best kind of 
thing. 
> Does it make sense?

imamommy:

The other justification I would offer is Harry's biased opinion on 
what was going on, as a literary device.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that the adults in his life could have 
done much better.  I totally agree that DD's mistakes set the stage 
for other adults to make mistakes.  Mrs. Figg herself said that she 
was supposed to watch Harry, but not let him know he was being 
watched.  I don't think she would have told him any more even if he 
had gone to tea.

I think that most teenagers go through a time when they feel like the 
world is against them.  I think a major theme of OoP is Harry finding 
out that the adults in his life are not infallible.  His father 
(pensieve scene), Hagrid (Grawp), Sirius (dying), DD (mistakes to 
great to enumerate here).  I think the adults needed to be written 
this way for us to feel a sense of Harry learning that grown ups make 
mistakes, that even those who love us don't always make the best 
decisions.  We need to feel his abandonment, his frustration, at why 
his world is turned upside down.

Is it believeable?  For me yes.  I accept that DD was in the middle 
of a huge string of screw ups.  Lupin and Sirius didn't get much 
opportunity to talk to Harry, first because of Molly and then because 
of Umbridge's screening.  For those who suggest DD should have 
written Harry about the snake dream, how would a letter have made it 
between Hogwarts and 12GP without Umbridge disovering it?  He could 
have written after Harry returned to school, but then we've still got 
the problem of having things spelled out *in writing* (anyone 
remember when Neville lost the passwords third year?)  Figg and 
McGonagall were following orders from DD, and they are very loyal.

Snape is the link that would have been logical to help Harry, but he 
is exactly the wrong person for this instance.  So Harry feels 
abandoned, helpless, and uninformed.  He and his friends do their 
best to figure it out on their own.

Hmm...for those who like to see sexual symbols in HP, this reminds me 
of a boy discovering his sexuality.  He isn't getting his information 
from parents or responsible adults, so he and his friends do their 
best to come up with answers to his questions.  They don't entirely 
get it right, do they?

Please allow me to quote Dickens:

Ignorance and Want

"'Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,' said
Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe,' but I see
something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding
from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw.' 
 
'It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,' was
the Spirit's sorrowful reply. 'Look here.'
 
>From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children;
wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt
down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.
 
'Oh, Man. look here. Look, look, down here.' exclaimed the Ghost.
 
They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling,
wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where
graceful youth should have filled their features out, and
touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled
hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and
pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat
enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No
change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any
grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has
monsters half so horrible and dread.
 
Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him
in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but
the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie
of such enormous magnitude.
 
'Spirit. are they yours.' Scrooge could say no more.
 
'They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down upon
them. 'And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers.
This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both,
and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy,
for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the
writing be erased. Deny it.' cried the Spirit, stretching out
its hand towards the city. 'Slander those who tell it ye.
Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse.
And abide the end.' 
 
'Have they no refuge or resource.' cried Scrooge.
 
'Are there no prisons.' said the Spirit, turning on him
for the last time with his own words. 'Are there no workhouses.'" 
   - A Christmas Carol, Stave 3: The Second of the Three Spirits

Ignorance is a very dangerous thing. 

imamommy