OotP Harry not a prefect & his Inner Voice

Nora Renka nrenka at yahoo.com
Thu Oct 7 15:44:52 UTC 2004


No: HPFGUIDX 115091


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "delwynmarch" 
<delwynmarch at y...> wrote:
> 
> Cory wrote :
> " The point is, if you want to start assuming things about the 
> characters that aren't in the story, we can make any of the 
> characters into anything we want them to be.  I'm not sure how 
> helpful that is to interpreting the story, though.  Just my 
> opinion, of course."
> 
> Del replies :
> You're perfectly right. Which is why we can't assume that Dean, 
> Seamus and Harry are on the same level academically, or that Harry 
> has better leadership qualities than Dean or Seamus, or that Harry 
> is the only one who can keep a cool head under stress.  Those are 
> assumptions, not facts.

Both are true--but there's a further difference we might make, 
between assumptions from given evidence and assumptions from 
silence.  Of course, it's not provable that Harry is the ONLY one who 
can keep a cool head under stress--but we've had positive evidence, 
in the text, of Harry's abilities, while we haven't of the other 
characters under discussion.  So while we should always keep the door 
open for information to be filled in when we don't know things, or 
when things are simply not described (just because we don't know 
about it doesn't mean it didn't happen or isn't there, in JKR's world-
-that's one of her best ways of springing things on us), I think we 
should generally priviledge what we have positive proof for.  This 
invariably results in reversals and reinterpretations.  Such is the 
fun of reading a WIP, where past events must be continually re-read 
in light of later revelations.

-Nora ponders how different the experience will be for those who get 
to read all seven books at once







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