Ending WAS : Compassionate hero

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 176066

> >>Betsy Hp:
> > <SNIP>
> > What you're saying, Alla (and correct me if I'm wrong) is that 
> > your "personality" didn't change despite all the culture-shock 
> > experienced.
> > <snip>
> > But "ideology" is something quite different.  That's more the 
> > belief system you work under. 
> > <SNIP>

> >>Alla:
> Not hundred percent sure what my friend was talking about, since he 
> was talking in general about child's character, will have to ask    
> him, but I was definitely talking about both, including my belief   
> system.
> <snip> 
> For example - I was always, always against death penalty since     
> early teens, I still am.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Aha! ::pounces while chortling madly:: But early teens is too late!  
We're talking about something set at age eleven.  Any truth learned, 
any idea gained, any way of life explored doesn't count a bit if it 
occurs after age eleven.

Of course that's if, and only if, the Sorting is ideological in 
nature. 

> >>lizzyben:
> <snip>
> If we're going w/Slytherin=evil racism, there's NO reason
> that ideology should still be supported by the school. If we're
> going w/Slytherin as "water" house, an essential part of the whole,
> there's NO way that they should be segregated & stigmatized the way
> that they are. JKR wants to have it both ways.

Betsy Hp:
I think that's exactly JKR's problem.  And as Mr. Miyagi tells us, 
trying to have things both ways leaves you squished like a bug.

> >>Betsy Hp:
> <SNIP>
> > The problem, IMO, is that with Slytherin house JKR has conflated 
> > personality with ideology. And by condemning one, she's condemned 
> > the other.  And that's bigotry.
> > <snip>

> >>Alla:
> I refuse to enter into debate whether it is bigotry or not, because 
> this is something I am sure we will not change each other minds on, 
> but I do want to ask - where in the books do you see JKR condemning 
> Slytherin's personalities?
> 
> Condemning their ideology, their belief system - **totally**, but 
> where do you see condemning personalities?

Betsy Hp:
The scene where the Slytherin house flag was not flying in the RoR, 
and the scene where the entirety of Slytherin house stood up and 
walked out of the school when the battle was met.  And most deeply, 
most horribly, the scene where Dumbledore told Snape that maybe they 
Sorted too early. 

It must be a condemnation of personality.  Unless we're back to 
children being sorted ideologically at age eleven.  Which is stupid 
beyond the telling of it.  "Hmm, we've got a Ku Klux Klan house in 
our school.  Why do so many students hate black people?"  I mean, 
*honestly*!

> >>Alla:
> <snip>
> That is why I love Dumbledore refusing power position ( well now we
> know that he was also afraid that he would be tempted by it), but I
> also thought that he chose to work for longer term changes –       
> changing the hearts of his students. IMO of course.

Betsy Hp:
Heh.  And that's why I think Dumbledore is evil.  He's the 
classic "good man" who does nothing, allowing evil to flourish.  And 
of course, I don't see him working to change the hearts of his 
students.  Other than Harry, most of his students didn't know him.  
And even Harry didn't know him all that well (pretty much the driving 
plot of DH).  

Which, considering I don't see any sort of ideological change in the 
WW may actually be a point in Dumbledore's favor?  Mmm, no.  I think 
I'd have had more respect for him if he'd at least tried and failed.

> >>Magpie:
> <snip>
> Betsy's point, as I read it, was not that she didn't buy the
> epilogue because it was "unrealistic" not to have a huge change (in
> fact she seemed to find this ending believable due to the
> characters' own views on things). She was just answering the idea
> that any other ending besides this one was "unrealistic" because
> there couldn't be any change in 19 years in the real world. In the
> real world there might be and there might not be. Lots of things
> could be realistic.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Yes, exactly.  I see so *many* examples of huge changes that occur 
within a nineteen year time period (though really we're talking a 26 
year time period from Harry arriving at Hogwarts to sending his 
little darlings off themselves).

I met a woman in Berlin a few years after the wall came down who was 
about 6 or so when WWI started.  In her life-time what changes she 
had seen!

Or, I remember watching an old "Partridge Family" rerun where Danny 
(I think? the oldest boy?) had a mad-crush on a feminist girl and one 
of the punch lines was this horrible butch woman trying to push the 
idea of a women's hockey team.  Cue massive audience laughter.  This 
was during the '98 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan, so believe me I 
picked up the irony.

So change can happen quickly.  Sometimes so quickly it's easy to 
forget what our society used to be like.

> >>Magpie:
> In fiction it's more important that they be believable rather than 
> realistic (lots of things in the story aren't realistic).

Betsy Hp:
True.  And honestly, the epilogue *is* believable given the passivity 
of our heroes.  And also given their place in the WW.  I mean, 
they're golden.  Why would they change things?

[Political aside: Thanks to both Hickengruendler and Renee for 
clarifying my admittedly simplistic statement about German political 
rules.]

Betsy Hp