Trevor incident again WAS: Re: Please explain.

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 144246

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Irene Mikhlin 
<irene_mikhlin at b...> wrote:

<snip>

> What I'm getting to - in my opinion a person is responsible for his 
> own thoughts. The only way Neville could have made his potions 
> experience more pleasant was to become competent.

That's a rather emotionally resilient adult you're describing there.  
And therein lies the rub.

This still, IMO, falls into a variety of no harm no foul--it's just 
shifted the criteria for 'harm'.  In this setup, Neville is only 
harmed because he allows himself to feel harm, to feel picked upon.  
If he could only just *deal* with it himself, he'd be fine.  Does 
that make him weak and soft for not being able to?

What does that do to the agency of a bully, either contemporary 
(Draco) or adult (Snape)?  It seems to fall into the "if you just 
ignore them then they can't hurt you," which is something JKR herself 
is explicitly against on her website.  It makes being hurt 
emotionally by being bullied into moral weakness.

Adults we expect to be able to deal with this, but part of what makes 
children what they are is that they're considerably more vulnerable 
to this sort of thing.  That goes especially for someone like 
Neville, practically orphaned and raised with a heavy burden of 
expectations.  Do I expect Snape to have known about this?  At least 
some.  Mrs. Longbottom seems to be not an unknown quality, and he 
must have known about the fates of Frank and Alice.

With Neville and Potions we have a vicious feedback loop.  He's 
nervous because he's incompetent (he both thinks he is and he blows 
things up on a regular basis); the way Snape acts around him and to 
him in class only makes him more nervous, so he doesn't get more 
competent.  It's like having a heavy load already on your shoulders; 
it makes it so much harder to do anything.  JKR shows Neville doing 
far, far better when Snape is absent--I think that's a deliberate 
design to show what Neville is capable of, when he's not being put 
into a stressful situation.

> No, just as Harry feeling "imprisoned" during the first occlumency 
> lesson was not rational. At this point in time Snape hasn't harmed 
> any of the students or their pets, so the belief is irrational.

Emotions are not always terribly rational (although it's questionable 
to carry out the classic old reason vs. emotion divide), but there is 
a long philosophical tradition of considering them just as valid 
as 'rational' thoughts.  But it's continually emphasized throughout 
the series how powerful emotions both are and can be, and how 
trusting in them (Harry trusts in his heart and it frees him of 
possession) is important.  Emotions need to be engaged with, not just 
thrown aside and dismissed as unimportant.  Many, many of the 
characters are illustrations of this, Snape and Sirius Black chief 
amongst them.  Different reactions to and approaches to emotion, but 
both deeply entwined in them.

-Nora agrees that it's important for all the kids to get control of 
their own emotions and let some harms bounce off of them, but thinks 
too far gone towards Stoicism is not where JKR would take us