Double standards and believing

[M.Clifford]

No: HPFGUIDX 120981


> Del wrote:
> 
> > People don't believe in LV's resurrection : bad.
> > Hermione doesn't believe in heliopaths : good.
> > 
> > Luna believes in crumpled-horned snorkacks : bad.
> > Luna believes in resurrection and life after death : good.
>

Dave Witely: 
> I'm not altogether sure whether you're saying that list members 
make these judgements, or whether the text implies them; however, I 
think there's some misdirection by JKR going on here.
> 
> I think the superficial reader is encouraged to think with 
Hermione that Snorkacks and Heliopaths do not exist, but that in a 
future book Luna will turn out to be right about something (I'm 
guessing something to do with Fudge) despite Hermione's 
rationalistic objections.
> 

Valky:
I quite agree with your veiw here, David. The intellectual tete a 
tete of Hermione and Luna has fascinated me from my first read of 
OOtP. They are both *thinkers* and I highly doubt that JKR is 
leading into or even implying now a superiority of either of the two 
minds. Luna challenges the "Hermione institution" of rationality and 
recognised logic, with intuition and imaginative insight. 
Personally, I think it's a fantastic development in the story and 
throughout the next two books I'm sure, as you have said David, that 
we will discover Luna to be as clever, and *right* as Hermione.


Dave: 
> Why are we led feel that scepticism about snorkacks and heliopaths 
> is "good" (I would say "justified" might be a better term) while 
> there may be something in Luna's beliefs about death?
> 
> - Luna's social reactions are often slightly inappropriate.  
> Although this ought not to reflect on her credibility (and in 
> certain types of literature would be a sure pointer to a 
> supernatural acuity of vision) it does do so for many of her 
> peers, and it is hard for the reader not to be influenced by this.
>

Valky:
Personally, rather than feeling led to scepticism about the fantasy 
creatures by Hermiones encounter with Luna, I felt I was pointed to 
a recognition of Hermiones limitations, if you will, a deeper 
outline of where Hermione ends, and the wider WW begins. 


Dave: 
> I find it intriguing that JKR has introduced a theme which allows 
> Hermione to seem like the Dursleys in her dismissal of things 
> outside the range of her understanding.  It has the odd effect of 
> making all the magic we have so far encountered somehow mundane, 
> just another branch of technology.
> 

Valky:
Yes, as you have it. I am pretty sure this is the effect that Jo 
reaches for. The infinity of the WW; beyond what we don't know, 
there is what they don't know. 
To me it is these things that make the WW so real so climb-in-and-
stay-awhile-able.