Trio Rising (was Re: McGonagall in OOTP )

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 118784


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "littleleahstill" 
<cmjohnstone at h...> wrote:
> 
 I do believe McGonagall does her 
> best within character to stick up for  her students- not only at 
some 
> professional risk, but, as we see in the 'stunning' scene, at 
actual 
> physical risk.
> 

Oh, I certainly agree that McGonagall does what she can within the 
bounds of her character.  But that is precisely my point.

Look, let's go at this another way.  One problem any author faces who 
wants to write an adventure story featuring kids is what to do with 
the adults.  To put it simply, if the adults in the story act the way 
they should, then the adventure can't happen since the kids can't get 
into the kind of dangerous situations the adventure requires.  Now, 
there are a couple of ways to deal with this.  The first, and most 
common I suppose, is to send the kids somewhere where there ARE no 
adults.  This is the tack Madeleine L'Engle takes in "A Wrinkle in 
Time" and C.S. Lewis employs in "The Lion, The Witch, and the 
Wardrobe."  The other option is to make the adults fundamentally 
incompetent, if not downright malicious.  This is the tack JKR takes.
The adults, by and large, aren't evil -- but they are flawed in ways 
that cripple them at key points in the plot.  Thus Snape is too 
bitter, McGonagall too stern and unbending, Dumbledore too detached, 
Sirius too erratic, and Remus too passive to really step in and do 
their "job" as adults at crucial moments in the HP saga, particularly 
in OOTP.

And therein, I think, lies the interest in the trio.  The adults are 
all, in some sense, "finished products."  Although one cannot 
preclude growth and change, still there is a sense in which the 
adults have already realized what potential they might have had.  
They can't really aspire to be that much better than they already 
are.  If they could, the story would be about them, which it ain't.

The trio, on the other hand, is in a sense potential incarnate.  Sure 
they aren't perfect and will never be perfect, but they have every 
possibility of rising above the adults and surpassing them.  Thus Ron 
is interesting because he can surpass Remus and avoid the trap of 
passivity, self-doubt, and "second-fiddleness" that is such a problem 
for the adult.  Hermione has the chance to grow beyond the flaws that 
so incapacitated McGonagall at key moments in OOTP.  And Harry is 
much more interesting than Snape because he has the potential to be 
so much greater than Severus, and yes, to move beyond the flaws that 
Dumbledore has evinced.

Any coming of age story is about the changing of eras.  As the trio 
comes of age, they will almost certainly surpass the adults in key 
ways (although not, obviously, in all ways as of yet).  I would not 
be surprised to see examples of this in the upcoming books.  There is 
a somewhat sad counter-trend, however.  The era of the trio is 
dawning, but that means the time of the adults is passing.  The 
adults, simply because they ARE adults in a series where the heroes 
are the kids, are doomed to be falling stars.  Merlin must vanish so 
that Arthur can take ascendancy, Gandalf and Bilbo fade away to leave 
center stage to Frodo and Sam, and Obi-Wan falls so that Luke can 
rise to his destiny.  In a similar way Dumbledore, Remus, McGonagall, 
and Snape, although they certainly have important roles yet to play, 
must inevitably decline so that Harry, Ron, and Hermione can come 
into their own.

Lupinlore