[HPforGrownups] Identifying with Muggles/Support for parents of Muggleborns; Magic late in life

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 158123

> Marion:
 We never hear of Montegue's parents visiting *him* when he's debilitated in 
hospital either. But Montegue is a very, very minor character.

Magpie:
Actually, we do hear of them visiting him, making the lack of Muggle parents 
during the basilisk year all the more glaring.  Dean and Hermione have both 
openly talked about keeping their parents in the dark about what's going on. 
Hermione decides what her parents need to know, what they will "understand" 
and even decides to cancel her trip home when her parents have planned a ski 
trip by, apparently, sending them a letter telling them she's staying at 
school at the last minute when she's really going to Grimauld Place.

> phoenixgod2000:

> As for literature, no, they don't seem to have much (that we know
> of) but I don't blame them.  With magic, their lives are more
> interesting than book I can think of.  Charlie wrangles Dragons for
> gods sake.  Bill is freakin' Indian Jones marrying a fairy
> princess.  Dumbledore is Gandalf the Grey come to life. In world
> with hundreds of prophecies, ghosts that teach classes, Olypmic
> events performed against dragons, magic is all the mystery and
> fantasy anyone could ever want.
>
> And for them it's real.
>
> I wouldn't read much either.

Ken:

The success of Gilderoy Lockheart's books would argue otherwise.
As in the Muggle world the many live mundane lives. The few live
exciting lives and write books for the rest of us.


Magpie:
Well, as somebody who actually likes to read this exchange is incredibly 
depressing.  Books are not all about exciting people relating their exciting 
lives to us poor boring folk.  Literature covers ordinary lives as well, and 
finds extraordinary things there.  People write extraorindary things without 
ever leaving their own small town or throwing in a single dragon. There's 
plenty of Muggles who work with exotic animals or play extreme sports--they 
aren't generally also revered authors.

Ken:
Really the only thing charming about the Potterverse is that against all 
odds we do meet some very nice people there. And then *we* seem to spend all 
our time trying to make these nice people out to be horrid, bigoted 
monsters!

Magpie:
I like looking at the flaws in the "nice people" in the books and get pretty 
impatient when describing something imo accurately in a scene gets people up 
in arms about making somebody nice into a monster.  Or where people act like 
there's something amiss when different people have different reactions to 
characters in scenes.  One of JKR's talents is the way she writes scenes in 
ways that are truly ambiguous, where her "good guys" do behave in ways that 
are flat-out wrong.  Or at least complex enough that there's room for 
different reactions.  Nobody in real life is liked by everyone all the time. 
And sometimes people insisting their reading is the only one that's right 
are wrong.
-m