Snape, Harry, Dumbledore, and flaws in the books

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 106191


Pippin wrote :
> It's a painful chapter to read for me, too, but not because Harry 
> seems out of character. In fact he acts very much in character for 
> a fifteen year old boy.

Del replies :
Yes, he acts as a typical 15-year-old. That's my problem. Harry pretty
much never acted as a typical boy before, in critical situations. He
was always more mature, more calm, more *adult*. That's the way he was
during the first 4 books, and then suddenly kaboom ! He's just a
15-year-old. That's what I meant by "out of character".

I'm not saying it's an impossible discrepancy either. I know that in
the eyes of many readers, Harry's change of behaviour looked very
true-to-life. But somehow JKR never managed to bend *my* vision (I
felt like climbing up the walls out of frustration when reading the
first chapters of OoP, and even though the frustration got slightly
better as I read on, the feeling of being detached from Harry, of not
understanding him anymore, only grew worse), and so I'm not able to
read the scene the right way. It doesn't work for me, that's all.

Del