[HPforGrownups] Re: Harry's Lies

[Tayla]

No: HPFGUIDX 125317


Tayla: Please bear with me, I have just spent the better part of 5 hours going through all of the posts from the past two days, and honestly, I can keep silent no longer. 

Alla Wrote:

Do you agree that Harry is lying because he knows that Molly 
dissaproves of twins' venture and that by association she will "stop 
loving Harry", if she learns about that?

Do you think that in this instance Harry's lying could be looked at 
as the scars of his abusive upbringing showing up - namely his 
inability to trust that adult can held PERMANENT genuine affection 
for him even if said adult ( Molly in that instance) can disagree 
with his actions?


Tayla Responds: 

I don’t believe that Harry fears losing love from Molly. I don’t even think that Harry realizes that Molly DOES love him! This is a boy who has grown up without love, and therefore, I don’t think he is capable of seeing that love coming from ANYONE. I think that the reason that he doesn’t tell Molly about the money is for so many reasons, First, he felt that what the twins would do with the money would help, even just a little bit. He realizes that humor and fun is going to be hard to come by, and he tells the twins such. Second, while he knows that Molly doesn’t approve of their venture, I think that he realizes more so that Molly, being the proud woman that she is, would not approve of taking money from Harry MORE. Harry keeps getting this money, which makes him uncomfortable when he is around people who are financially struggling, literally thrown back at him. He keeps trying to help out with his own money, and it keeps getting denied. By keeping it from Molly, till the deed was
 already done, it prevents an even more awkward situation of having your gift returned to you. 

Harry knows what it is like to have nothing, he identifies with the Weasly’s, probably more than they could ever understand considering they have seen his vault. Harry’s money has ALWAYS made him feel uncomfortable when he has been with the Weaslys.




bboyminn:

Life is never black and white, we all live in shades of gray. To judge the characters in the books, you can't look just at Snape and Harry's relationship to judge Snape. We need to judge Snape across his past, present, and future. The same is true of Dumbledore. We can point to
many mistakes Dumbledore has made, many things that Dumbledore did that people think were horribly wrong. But again, he should not be judged on those specific events, but across the arc of his life, and across the arc of his full character.

We should not judge Harry on the little white lies that we all tell, but on the quality of character he displays when it really counts. 

As long as we see this awareness of his action in Harry's internal landscape, and as long as Harry is aware of his lying, we and Harry are OK. We know that underneath the moment is someone of conscience. The time to start worrying is when these little things pass by and
Harry doesn't give them a seconds thought, when the sense of right and wrong are lost, then it time to worry and wonder.

Just calling it like I see it.

Tayla Responds:

Bravo! We all, as readers can speculate as to the motives to the characters, however we do not know what they have done, the mistakes they have made, or how these characters have developed to maturity. We are seeing things through the eyes of children, and that is something that needs to stay in our minds. While yes, these children are highly intelligent, they still have their own growing up to do, and as such, do not see things the way we adults see them. We are only now, with OOTP starting to get some more information about people like Snape, James and the others, however that information is incomplete. Through the eyes HRH, we see the unfairness of Snape’s treatment to THEM in his class, but we do not know if that is the way that Snape treats ALL Gryfindors. Therefore, we are seeing it the way they see it, with their perspective of what is fair during THEIR class.

For we, the readers, we cannot look down our noses at Harry for the lies that he has made thus far, because we are all guilty of doing the same, for whatever reasons we have. For Harry, in many respects, it is a matter of comfort (I really don’t want to tell this person because it makes me uncomfortable), or a matter of, “Oh geez, I know what they are going to say, and I really can’t deal with their response right now!” Is it wrong, IMO, no. However, I am not going to deny the fact that there have been times when I have wanted to reach through the pages of the book and strangle Harry for NOT going to DD! 


Tayla