Harry's developing behaviour - average or unique?

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 118643


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "paul_terzis" 
<paul_terzis at y...> wrote:
> 
Snow:
> > Your post, Geoff, was extraordinary! I appreciate a man's point 
of 
> > view and can agree except where it involves Harry's acute actions 
to 
> > his feelings in OOP. I agree that it could be a typical teenage 
angst 
> > but this boy has voices in his head
that isn't normal in any 
> > spectrum. These voices haven't been exactly pinned down as to 
whom 
> > they are but we do know that a piece of Voldemort is inside of 
Harry. 
> > In this case we are not dealing with a real world conception of 
the 
> > typical teenager, male or female. There is nothing typical about 
> > Harry or his background let alone his future. 
> > It can be typical for any teenager (even those you think would 
> > never
) to behave in an unusual fashion but Harry is different 
> > despite Dumbledore's protective blockers to keep him as normal a 
boy 
> > as he could hope for.  Harry is just not the A typical teenager, 
and 
> > I don't think we should perceive him as such. 
> > Even Dumbledore does not underestimate Harry's behavior as his 
own 
> > when he refuses to look at Harry, for the majority of the year, 
> > because of the intense presence of Voldemort that lies within. 

Paul:
>  I agree with Snow. Harry is not exactly the average teenager. In
> addition to the typical teenage angst, he has some aggravating
> factors. He had been abused emotionally ang mentally enough for a
> lifetime by his "caring family". He faced more than once near-death
> situations. There is a maniac, powerful, evil wizard who with his 
gang
> who consists of sadists murderers seeks to kill Harry and everyone
> near Harry in every possible opportunity. He had already lost his
> parents and his godfather by this maniac. Well to be honest I am
> really surprised that Harry is acting so mildly until now. I was
> expected more violent outbursts from him in OOTP. Maybe JKR tries to
> outline Harry's story as parralel for the dilemmas and opposite for
> the choices to that of Voldermort. Of course that remains to be seen
> in book 6 and book 7.

Geoff:
After I sent my lead post in this thread, which I did after a great 
deal of thought and drafting, I realised that I had in fact set 
myself up with a paradox by naming the thread "average or unique?"

My mind went back to my days at teacher training college when, on one 
occasion, our Maths and Psychology lecturer said to us: "There is no 
such thing as an average person. the normal person does not exist." 
This set us back on our heels until we realised what he meant. Any 
average is an aggregate of results either side of the norm. Our 
references to an average person pre-supposes a set of norms which 
would be considered usual; but no one person conforms to the full 
set. We are /all/ unique which of course I would acknowledge when 
wearing my Christian hat.

The point I was trying to make is that Harry is no more abnormal than 
the average teenager. He has had a very rough passage at times but 
many young people in the Real World have difficult journeys into 
adolescence and can make them equally angry or conversely remarkably 
placid.

When I look at some of the young people I come into regular contact 
with in church organisations, I can highlight both cases. I can quote 
an example of a young teen who has a mother with disabilities and 
helps to get her up and dressed in the morning and to bed at night, 
often on his own. His father has walked out on the family, but he 
still goes on quietly - no shouting or screaming. Maybe in a year or 
so, he may start to kick over the traces; as Paul remarks, Harry has 
been mild for a long period up to his Fifth Year but this is not 
necessarily unique. Again, I think of a church family of seven, four 
of whom are teenagers and every one reacts in a different way to a 
situation - some scream and fuss, some remain calm, others walk away 
pretending the event hasn't happened. The last example is a boy who 
has just seen his parents divorce - very messily, very publicly in 
front of the children. He is very much in CapsLock mode carrying a 
lot of anger to contend with. reminiscent of Harry.

The point I am trying to make is that Harry, although he has been 
dealt a bad hand, is not unique in the way he has reacted. I think by 
the end of OOTP, he is beginning to lose his head of steam. In canon 
I see  evidence that he is starting to wind down gradually:

"Perhaps the reason he wanted to be alone was because he had felt 
isolated from everybody since his talk with Dumbledore. An invisible 
barrier separated him from the rest of the world. He was - he had 
always been - a marked man. It was just that he had never really 
understood what that meant...
And yet sitting here on the edge of the lake, with the terrible 
weight of grief dragging at him, with the loss of Sirius so raw and 
fresh inside, he could not muster any great sense of fear."

(OOTP "The Second War Begins" p. 754 UK edition)

"She walked away from him and, as he watched her go, he found that 
the terrible weight in his stomach seemd to have lessened slightly."

(ibid. p.761)

"Harry nodded. He somehow could not find words to tell them what it 
meant to him to see them all ranged there, on his side. Instead, he 
smiled, raised a hand in farewell, turned around and led the way out 
of the station towards the sunlit street with Uncle Vernon, Aunt 
Petunia and Dudley hurryign along in his wake."

(ibid. p.766)

That smile, for me, is almost like the sun beginning to try to break 
through the heavy storm clouds after rain on the hills above my home; 
things are begining to clear, there is hope that brightness is coming.

Geoff
http://www.aspectsofexmoor.com
Exmoor National Park views, walks and West
Somerset Railway steam and diesel views