DD's Knowledge (was Re: Nice vs. Good, honesty,)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 153316

Pippin:
> > 
> > It seems to me that a lot of Harry's troubles come from trying to
> > parent the adults.  If he hadn't tried to cover up Hagrid's dragon
> > problems, he would've been able to tell McGonagall the truth.
> > If he hadn't been trying to protect McGonagall, he could have
> > told her about Umbridge. If he hadn't been trying to protect 
> > Sirius, he could have used the Mirror. In fact, if he'd  let Sirius 
> > and Lupin deal with Snape and then with Pettigrew in PoA,
> > a whole boatload of troubles might have been avoided. 
> > 
Lupinlore: 
> And yet we have the claim that the series is not very friendly toward 
> childhood and that Harry's duty is to grow up as fast as possible and 
> become a parent himself rather than trying to search for parental 
> figures.  Seems like this is saying that Harry has been doing TOO good 
> of a job of growing up fast and needs to look around a lot harder for 
> parental figures and stay a child longer.  

Pippin:
Well, Harry's problem, IMO, is that his parental instincts have been activated
too soon, because he's basically had to parent himself. There's no way
to undo that, as Dumbledore sadly discovered. But Harry doesn't
have the experience or the mental development to parent wisely, so the
series is, I would say, giving him the opportunity to develop these things
and meanwhile showing how he suffers for the lack of them.

Harry smuggles Norbert out of Hogwarts in order to keep Hagrid from
having to face the just and lawful consequences of illegal dragon-keeping, 
which echoes the Dursleys' indulgence of Dudley.  Harry withholds
information lest people make wrong decisions which are theirs to make,
which echoes the bad parenting decision Dumbledore made when he 
withheld the prophecy. (Re-read PS/SS if you want to grasp the full
irony of Dumbledore's error. Harry already knew,  from the centaurs,
that his death  had been foretold.)

I do think that Dumbledore might at least wonder whether
Harry was bullying Draco. After all, Draco often seems to come out
the worst in these encounters-- he wouldn't be trying to get himself
beaten up, would he?

I don't think Dumbledore would believe that any child deserves the
scar quill. OTOH, he does think scars can be useful -- as evidence,
for example. And there is the fact that Arthur has scars from a 
Hogwarts punishment, and Molly seems to think they're a badge
of honor.  I doubt that Dumbledore would let Dolores use the
quill in front of him. But exposure after the fact might backfire -- there
seems to be no shortage of Aunt Marge's in the WW. We don't
hear of any outcry when corporal punishment is officially reintroduced.

One of the things adults do better than children is navigate between
conflicting goals. Adults understand that in order to prevent a great
evil it is sometimes necessary to tolerate a lesser one. Children, OTOH,
often expect adults to provide them with a perfect world, and throw
Dudley-style tantrums when they don't get it. Which is probably why
Dudley has so many broken toys.:)

Pippin