I don't like him much

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 119951


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "potioncat" <willsonkmom at m...> 
wrote:
> 
> Kneasy wrote: 
> > One of the many definitions of adulthood is being willing to 
> accept 
> > responsibility for one's own actions. OK, he's not an  adult yet, 
> > though some posters seem to think he should be  regarded as such, 
> even though  he has never shown any sign of acting like an adult.
> 
> 
> Potioncat:
> You are dead right here.  Molly is blasted for treating him like a 
> child. Yet hardly anyone thinks he's should be expected to 
> demonstrate maturity around Snape. Harry is a teenager and he acts 
> just like one!  (And the one he acts like lives in my house!)
> 
> >Kneasy: 
> > He'll probably manage it, unless JKR decides to wipe him out, the 
> > all-too-common reward for heroes in the sagas (after all, what's 
> the  use of an ex-hero?). But unless he shows some marked changes I 
> can't see myself ever liking him as a character.
> 
> Potioncat:
> That must make it difficult to read the books!  But he is a 
> teenager.  They are adorable one minute and pains in the...in 
> the...in the elbow the next. I expect he'll turn out OK
> 
> Potioncat, signging off to go hug her teenager.

Geoff:
I set out, in message 118574, to show that in my opinion - which 
is "usually wrong with unerring and boring predictability" - that I 
see Harry as following the progress of a fairly average teenager, 
having studied these strange creatures in their natural habitat for 
over 30 years.

I recall my own teenage years, veering between overweening confidence 
and being downright terrified of getting something miniscule wrong. 
All the guys I knocked around with often considered ourselves as 
being the best thing since sliced bread, the next saviours of the 
world - being far more streetwise than our adult contacts - until 
something unforeseen knocked out the confidence rungs from our 
ladders and down we came. Our parents treated us either as young 
adults or overgrown kids, not being quite sure which we were; we 
didn't know either. Aren't we being just as perverse as Harry or any 
other teen? He is expecting adults to conform to his perceptions of 
how his friends and mentors should behave - and let's face it, the 
way some of them are treating him is way out of line - while we, as 
adults, are expecting him to know all the nuances and interpretations 
of our behaviour which only come with experience over many years.

Thinking about the Wizarding World and the world of Hogwarts, my mind 
was drawn to a quote from "To serve them all my days" by 
R.F.Delderfield. this book, to which I have referred in the past 
traces the history of a young teacher who comes to a public school in 
the west of England in the aftermath of World War I and works his way 
up to become Headmaster. His new wife, who comes into the school when 
he is Head has to find her way around the interplay of characters in 
the school.....

"It's a bit like the Habsburg Court," she said one day, "a frightenly 
complex system of protocol, checks, counterchecks and balances with 
all kinds of silent pressures and intrigues going on and you hovering 
over the safety-valve watching for explosions.." 

What a great description of the relations between adults and teens.

I'm sorry, Kneasy, but I am going to take up a diametrically opposed 
position to you; it wouldn't be so much fun if I didn't, now would 
it? I can see myself in Harry and I can see so many of the boys who 
passed through my hands in school and so many of them have gone on 
and become perfectly normal, reasonable members of society 
afterwards....

Geoff
http://www.aspectsofexmoor.com
Exmoor National Park views, walks and West
Somerset Railway steam and diesel views