[HPforGrownups] Harry's anger (was Re: Draco's anger.)

[Jocelyn Grunow]

No: HPFGUIDX 122352

On Wednesday, January 19, 2005, at 10:03 am, Geoff Bannister wrote:
> I think, Jocelyn, that we are saying the same thing in reality. I
> said that where we learn and grow is by realising that we failed....
> You said that we fail to learn and grow if we deny a failure. These
> are two sides of the same coin.

I agree totally.  I apologise that I failed to make clear in my last 
post that I completely agreed with your point.  I wanted to expand upon 
it to show explicitly that this growth depends on accepting 
responsibility for the failure.

> Harry has a clear realisation of what has happened...
> <snip>Harry has failed. He knows that he has failed.<snip>

I actually thought that this was so, but when I carefully read your 
quotes I am now not so sure.  Harry is so overwhelmed and distressed by 
what he has seen that I am not sure he has room to realise that he is 
at fault because of the way in which he learned the information.  
Possibly that knowledge underlies some of Harry's misery, and his quiet 
acceptance of Snape's violent reaction, but I don't see anywhere in 
your quotes where the book states that he knows this behaviour was a 
failure on his part.

What it does state is that he is unhappy because he relates to Snape 
and not to his idealised father in these memories.  His belief in his 
'golden parents' is tarnished.

I do wish that somewhere in all his misery, we were told that the 
thought flashed across Harry's mind "I should never have done it.  I 
knew it was wrong."  But then, that wouldn't be JKR's style, would it?

Jocelyn

PS: Certainly JKR would not, in this century, be able to get away the 
preachy tone of CS Lewis in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader when Lucy 
reads the 'spell to let you know what your friends think of you', hears 
her friend saying something nasty about her and is rebuked for her 
action by Aslan.
"Child, I think you have been eavesdropping."
"Eavesdropping?"
"You listened to what your two schoolfellows were saying about you."
"Oh, that? I never thought that was eavesdropping, Aslan.  Wasn't it 
magic?"
"Spying on people by magic is the same as spying on them in any other 
way. <snip>"