Debatable ethical issues in OotP and HBP

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 142489

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Magda Grantwich 
<mgrantwich at y...> wrote:

> Ah, yes, Sirius cares so much for Harry.  He LOVES him SO much.  
> God, how lucky Harry is to have such a wonderful godfather!  Makes 
> me break down in sniffles, it really does.  (Excuse me while I find 
> a Kleenex...)
> 
> I guess I'm just a mean rotten person because my response to this
> is...so what?  Molly cares for and loves Harry too, and she's
> certainly not above criticism because of it.  

Silly me, I thought I'd been reading a story where the power of love 
was absolutely front and center, with mystical powers that no other 
form of magic seems to have and overwhelming thematic importance.

So, here's a tangential question that's actually interesting to me, 
at least:

What happens when an author patently thinks something is both worth 
of page time and (even worse) thematically important, but at least 
some of the audience doesn't care about it or doesn't want to accept 
it as such?  Rowling has painted a text picture that at least some of 
us have picked up on that exalts the loving relationship there, and 
has in interviews re-emphasized its importance and all of that.  I 
suppose you *can* read the Sirius/Harry relationship 
with 'objectivity' in mind, although choosing to ignore the love 
aspect of it under the guise of objectivity is only being selective.

But it strikes me that to give it such short shrift may well make it 
hard to read the story coherently in the long run.  Sure, we like to 
talk about how JKR has Edge and the story is complex and morally 
murky, but there's a vein of sentimentality, or at least a grand 
exaltation of love, lurking behind things.  She wants us to take 
things as sincere that we don't necessarily *want* to, and I include 
myself the reader in that.  Harry/Ginny is one of them.  Harry's 
fundamental loyalty to Dumbledore is another.

I'll eat the full measure of crow be I wrong, but who doesn't by now 
suspect that it's going to come down to those sorts of things rather 
than some wands blazing magical skillz showdown, or last minute 
revelations of seekrit plots and agents?  Lily didn't do any special 
magic or rituals or any of that to save baby Harry's life; pure 
emotion, and a positive one at that.

It's not a good series to read cynically if you don't want to be 
disappointed in the end, I think.

-Nora runs off out into the glorious sunshine to administer exams 
(fairly and with no badgering of students as they write, of course)