Why should Harry be expected to listen to anyone at Hogwarts?

Dan Feeney darkthirty at shaw.ca
Mon Jan 24 05:55:49 UTC 2005


No: HPFGUIDX 122855


Pippin:
> ...in OOP... everyone, from Dumbledore on down, very much including 
Harry, ignores this advice and pursues their personal agenda instead 
of the common good.

Dan:
I suppose it's possible, separating threads of the story, to divide 
things into some "common agenda" (to which we have no direct 
connection, or of which we have no direct evidence, which is, in 
other words, "common" only by assumption, as the plethora of theories 
about what's really going on continues on this forum and others) 
and "personal agenda". (Note that I remove the assumed "good" from 
the "common" part of the equation.) I frankly don't see the lines 
dividing this way, however. Or, rather, I don't see them dividing 
neatly along these lines. For example, if the Sorting Hat is some 
kind of founders chorus, then the only real "common" agenda 
is "working together," in a way embodied by the DA, with the notable 
exception of Slytherin (and the IS in opposition).

My question, then, is, what is the "common agenda" beyond what the 
sorting hat sings - what IS the context of all these characters' 
actions? Does Rowling ever supply one? As far as I can tell, only for 
the DE and Voldemort himself - eternal life, in his case.

Amanda:
> Snape pursues the common good: attempts to teach Harry Occlumency. 
Result: Harry does begin to show a little resistance to the dreams
(trace feelings that during the dreams that indicate a "monitor mind" 
separate from the desires of the dream).
> Harry pursues his own agenda: secretly wants the dreams to 
continue, and so does not follow Snape's instructions or really 
concentrate on Occlumency. Result: very little progress and much 
frustration, and the door is opened for Voldemort's manipulations.

Dan:
In this equation, unfortunately, the message then, against everything 
we ourselves feel, as readers (compromised by our desire to see the 
story unfold, to see where the dream goes), and what we will soon 
KNOW to be directly involved with Harry and his future, at the end of 
the dream, is to ignore the content of the dream in favour of some 
idealogical deconstruction of its cause. (It's nothing but a bit of 
undigested Voldepotato, or the like.) It harkens back to older 
discussions about the problematic position of knowledge in the 
series - when, and how, is transparency useful? Is anything ever 
transparent in the series? Is the parcelling of knowledge always 
manipulation? Whether or not, as some have suggested, the memories 
set aside by Snape were a set-up, the pedagogic point is that they 
were available to be viewed so easily BECAUSE they were set aside, 
because they were parcelled. Removed from context, their sense is 
limited, their significance moot. The same holds true for the earlier 
pensieve scene snoop, in GoF, in the Headmaster's office.

Amanda:
> Snape pursues his own agenda: cannot accommodate the violation of 
his personal memories by Harry and refuses to teach him further. 
Result: Harry is left open to Voldemort's manipulation.

Dan:
I don't understand enough about how Occlumency works to judge either 
Snape or Harry's performance. Are we given parameters by which to 
judge this? Maybe Occlumency requires a kind of self-consciousness, 
an understanding of how oneself thinks or percieves things - 
requiring a kind of "working together" that was simply never going to 
happen with Harry and Snape. Learning the discipline, at any rate, 
would certainly provide the opportunity/excuse for asking personal 
questions. Harry's agenda, in this case, then, is to understand Snape 
and his role, and also his own place in the "common". Somehow, this, 
perhaps by way of the opacity of information I referred to above, 
becomes like an attack, according to some.

If this is true, then Harry will always be percieved as headstrong 
and in pursuit of his "personal agenda" - no one is telling him what 
the "common agenda" is.

It makes me wonder that the problematic position of knowledge might 
be either part of Rowling's cosmos itself, or part of the underlying 
theme of the books.

Dan







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