Ending WAS : Compassionate hero

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 176030

> >>Julie:
> <snip>
> If you applied this philosophy of writing off children
> by age eleven and assuming there's no point in trying to
> influence them or change them, then the real world would
> be a very scary place. (Oh, wait...we do, and it is!--
> though on occasion there are those who don't write them
> off, as with the true story of The Freedom Diaries...)
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Wait, what?  Where do you get that?  Has no one on this list been to 
college? That's not a judgement call on people's intelligence, it's 
just... it's so classic that kids go off to college and get 
introduced to new ideas and take themselves in completely different 
directions than they'd ever imagined going. 

I've read several articles in the New Yorker lately on certain 
philosophers, scientists, artists who had one world view as children 
(the world view their parents taught them) and then left home and 
either at college or while traveling in a foreign culture or going to 
a big city, met up with a completely different world view, had their 
preconceptions shaken up, and went on to become geniuses in their 
field.  It's so common as to almost be a cliche.  And now suddenly 
we're supposed to think anything that suggests such a thing is 
possible is "unrealistic"?

I also question this bizarre notion that societal changes can only 
happen slowly.  Has no one heard of WWII?  Did the Nazis just fade 
away?  Or for goodness sake, the state of race relations in the USA.  
I mean, look at Condeleezza Rice. She was a child in Alabama, subject 
to all the segregation laws of the time.  One of the little girls 
killed in the church bomb of '63 was a friend of hers.  And now she's 
one of the most powerful people in the world.  So why is that sort of 
story being written off as "unrealistic"?

> >>Magpie:
> <snip>
> It reads to me like a happy ending, not an ambiguous one.

> >>Alla:
>  It reads to me as happy ending for the characters, but with plenty
> of room for change left in the society level.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Honestly, there's not anything I can see in the epilogue that points 
to "room for change".  Mainly because Harry and co. don't see 
anything wrong with their world.  Nora spoke of what needs to happen 
for societies to change, and one of the key things is for someone to 
look at the world they live in and a feel a massive swelling of 
discontent.  (Heh.  Sometimes that discontent will actually manifest 
*after* age eleven.  Which is just crazy talk I know, but it happens, 
I swear! <eg>)  

Harry and co. are the definition of content (OBHWF, after all).  So 
if any changes *do* occur within the WW, they're not going to be a 
part of it.  Well, they'll play a part I'm sure.  They'll be the guys 
standing on the school steps trying to keep the "unworthy" children 
from entering.  

Betsy Hp (who rather prefers her books more uplifting, thanks)