CHAPTER DISCUSSION: Chapter 22 - St. Mungo's Hospital

[hebridean_black_dragn]

No: HPFGUIDX 104476

Hee! Replying to my own message. Hardly surprising, though, since the
reason I chose this chapter to summarize was the fact that it was one
of the most emotionally trying chapters in the book for me . . . as
you'll soon see.

I'd like to address the questions: 1. "Do the adults (and Moody in
particular) really care about Harry as a person, or do they mostly see
him as a pawn in the fight against Voldemort?"

and 2. "To what degree is Harry receiving (or *not* receiving) support
from the adults in his life?"

My answers are 1) they sure don't seem to care about him in this
scene; and 2) not a whole heck of a lot. 

While I was mostly disappointed with Moody, I also think that a great
many of the adults in Harry's life "dropped out" on him in OoP. While
I *was* disturbed by Harry's behaviour in OoP, in some ways it's hard
for me to fault him too much, as he's going through some serious stuff
in this book without a whole lot of support from the adults in his
life. I think the eavesdropped conversation at the end of this chapter
is a good illstration of this. 

In reading OoP, the bedside conversation quoted in the summary was the
single most emotional moment in the book for me (actually my most
emotional moment in the entire series). 

On the surface, perhaps, it doesn't sound so bad. They don't really
say anything awful about Harry. But it's not so much *what* was said
as the *way* it was said. When I read that, I was really struck with
the feeling that they talk about Harry as he if were a stranger, not a
person that they know and about whom they care. When Moody calls him
"the Potter kid," it sounded so *cold* to me, and I felt Moody was
speaking about Harry merely as an aspect of Moody's job as an auror.
Moody sees Harry as something to be "dealt" with, rather than seeing
him as a person. And it seemed clear to me that even if Moody does see
Harry as a "person," there's no affection there for Harry. 

Now, I realise that Moody and Harry haven't really spent much time
together to form a relationship, and perhaps this sort of attitude is
better for an Auror - to not get involved with people emotionally.
Okay, okay, this may be true, but it just really hurt me to hear him
talk about Harry like that, and to know that Harry was hearing it, too. 

I was also less than thrilled with Molly, who doesn't come to his
defense when Moody says they *all* know there's something funny about
Harry. In fact, her response almost makes me think that she agrees,
but that since Dumbledore was worried about Harry, then perhaps *that*
mitigates Harry's "funny-ness" somehow.

In any case, this scene really disturbed me. I was uncomfortable with
the tone of the discussion about Harry, and I also had a lot of anger
and sadness that Harry had to hear them talking about him in this way.
Sure, they didn't know he was listening, but that doesn't make me feel
any better about what they said. I actually had to put the book down
after reading this so I could have a good cry about how DAMNED UNFAIR
it was of all of them to treat Harry this way, when he'd never done
anything to bring this upon himself. I was really angry and hurt on
Harry's behalf.

This was just one of several scenes when I felt the adults in Harry's
life showed that they don't care about him (at least, not as much as
I'd like to see), and that they really didn't offer him the support
they could have. I think that, while Harry did make some huge mistakes
in the book (leading, of course, to huge consequences), a huge chunk
of the blame must lie with the adults in his life who just don't quite
know how to give Harry the help that he needs when he needs it. 


Wendy