Harry's Justified Not to Trust (was Harry as Kreacher)

[LadySawall at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 100585

In a message dated 06/09/2004 2:56:57 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Arya writes:
No way.  Harry is justified, IMO.  In fact, since everyone and anyone knows 
Harry's life 
story (especially the teachers) they are guilty of even more for not trying 
to 
understand how Harry is a bit different than a normal, more trusting teen.  
---

Jo Ann:

Here, JKR is using an old game master's trick known in the roleplaying 
circles I frequent as "Lie, lie, tell the truth."  Create a pattern of deceptive 
situations, condition the character to no longer accept anything at face value, 
and then break that pattern when they least expect it.

In this case, the pattern JKR created for Harry was "Following the rules may 
result in horrible things happening."  Just as he was firmly convinced that 
this was always going to be the case, and that he could therefore safely ignore 
the rules--perhaps was even obligated to do so--she (or life, or Voldemort, 
from his POV) pulled the rug out from under him by presenting a situation where 
it was absolutely vital that he do as he was told.

I wonder if JKR has ever played tabletop RPG's...

Jo Ann


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]