Inaugural address and Mandy Croyance on Assumption

[caesian]

No: HPFGUIDX 97686

Mandy_Croyance wrote:
<snipped>
> The truth is that the characters, like normal people, are not always 
> correct. The too are subject to inherit bias and misinformation. 
> Some simply lie. 
<snip>
> Throughout the third book we are led to believe Sirius Black is a 
> dangerous murder who is out to finish destroying the Potter family 
> by killing Harry. Obviously this is nearly the opposite of true. 
<snip) 
Similarly 
> in the fourth book it is not true that Professor Moody is a rough, 
> but good and helpful ex-Auror. At least not the Moody we were led to 
> believe was Moody. In fact through his actions most readers came to 
> like him very much before the revelation that he was Barty Crouch 
> Jr.: Death Eater extraordinaire. <snip>
If we have 
> learned anything it is that things are rarely as they seem. We must 
> also realize that what characters think of situations and each other 
> is also no necessarily true. 
> 
> Mandy Croyance

Caesian replies:
Welcome Mandy!  What an appropriate inaugural address IMHO, because you have hit upon 
perhaps the core appeal of JKR's writing (to me, at least).  The moment when the character 
we have identified with understands that they are wrong!  Not evil, but incorrect, 
misinformed - and most of all - having made the wrong assumptions.  JKR is able to 
involve me, and make me identify with her characters (I *was* Harry in the graveyard the 
first time I read that scene, weren't you?).  Then, like the character we identify with, we 
judge another we presume to know (take Snape for example), but have a blazing moment 
of self-realization (how simple-minded can we be?) when Professor Quirrell appears 
unexpectedly.  

Perhaps it is because I am a scientist, but there is no surer pleasure than the moment you 
realize you have been mistaken - because at least you now know something true!  But I 
think there is a deeper meaning than merely enjoyment: Who are we to judge or condemn 
when even Dumbledore is fooled?  

Caesian - who likes Hermione but laughs when she defends Lockhart to Ron too.