JKR sadistic? (Was:Snape & Harry)

[Wanda Sherratt]

No: HPFGUIDX 101274

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "arrowsmithbt" 
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
> The hurt you mention is deliberately placed there by JKR; she's 
admitted as
> much. In one interview she tells of a mother who wrote to her 
saying that
> she  didn't like her children reading such things. JKR responded 
saying that
> in that case they'd better  not read any more of the books, 
because Harry 
> was going to continue to suffer. There must be a reason for all 
this hurt
> you dislike; unless of course  JKR has sadistic tendencies and 
enjoys putting
> Harry through the mill.
> 
I wonder about that myself, though not when it comes to Harry.  I 
think she's got his arc well worked-out.  But I think I detect a bit 
of score-settling in her treatment of other characters, in 
particular, the Marauders.  It's occurred to me that what happens to 
James & Co. is pretty much every unpopular kid's fantasy:  Handsome 
Sirius ends up in jail; Athletic James is forced into hiding and 
then hunted down; of the lesser lights, Pettigrew turns out to be a 
quisling and spends years trapped in a rat's body, and then escapes 
and survives as a miserable Voldemort toady, and Lupin lives on, 
shunned and isolated, hiding an ugly secret.  Even lovely Lily, the 
most popular girl in school, ends up on the dustheap.  Was Rowling 
an ugly duckling or an outsider at school?  Because this is just the 
sort of consoling revenge-fantasy such a kid would think of.  The 
top dogs end up losing everything - it's the classic turn of 
Fortune's Wheel, or the first being last.  

Wanda