Sirius and Prank again? Fools Rush in where Wisemen Fear to Go

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 130065

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

I have to snip out and quote a  little bit in advance:

Irene:

> People will go to extraordinary lengths to find excuses for him, 
> and perform the most amazing mental equilibristics on the way.

I think that if you did a statistical survey of HPfGU over time, one 
character would receive far more apologia than any other.  Far, far 
more, explaining away in positive terms any and all aspects of 
behavior.  But that's a little beside the point--I just found the 
irony delightful.

<snip>

> The truth is that most people are just not prepared to believe that 
> a handsome, clever, popular and (most important) socially fitting 
> boy is a bully. Especially if he chooses his targets carefully. 
> People will go to extraordinary lengths to find excuses for him, 
> and perform the most amazing mental equilibristics on the way.

If I read you correctly, you're saying that Dumbledore and McGonagall 
were both fooled by James et al. because he was handsome, clever, 
etc.  I have a hard time reconciling this with the Dumbledore who's 
very sharp at what's going on around school and very quick to pick up 
on people who are not really what they seem to be--young Tom Riddle 
being a main example.

You read the objections made from a fairly solid canonical basis as 
trying to explain away nasty habits.  But this argument posits its 
own explaining away, one that makes Dumbledore and McGonagall into 
fairly willing dupes/completely biased/or maybe just ignorant.  
There's quite possibly, in contrast, a formulation by which all of 
these aspects fit together--why they're remembered so fondly without 
casting aspersions upon the perceptions of those doing so, but also 
the nasty and cruel behavior perpetrated.

Missing information.  What a drag.

-Nora admits to playing generally with the card of authorial 
attitudes towards characters in mind, but who bets against the author 
in a WiP?