How do the books affect children? (was: Why down on all the characters?)

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 179632

Steph:
> I make a distinction between people like Fred and George, who are
the really cool, popular kids, with Harry, who, while being important
and appreciated at times for his Quidditch skills and ability to fight
off Voldemort, doesn't have people knocking down his door to be
friends with him, at least not until HBP <snip>
I'm not disputing at all that he's important.  I just disagree that
people want to be buddy-buddy with him, except for the usual suspects.
<snip>

Carol responds:
While I largely agree with you, I do dispute Harry's importance. He's
famous, certainly. People goggle at his scar. But after awhile, they
realize that, except for his abilities as a Quidditch player (which
are a little too much, IMO--a natural at Quidditch from age eleven,
never losing a game unless he's affected by Dementors or whatever) and
his tendency to get into trouble or predicaments (e.g., having his
name put into the Goblet of Fire), he's not that different from other
kids. In fact, it's only his tendency to win or lose points for his
House that makes him "important" in the eyes of the other students, or
his occasional availability as a date to an event that would (the
girls think) increase *their* status by association.

But aside from establishing himself as the next Charlie Weasley and
being given a broom and a position on the Quidditch team thanks to
McGonagall, Harry is quickly shown (with a little help from Snape) to
be no Dark wizard in the making and to have no extraordinary knowledge
or powers other than flying (and, as of CoS, Parseltongue)--nothing
that makes him any better at casting spells or making potions than any
other student. Harry and friends promptly lose fifty points each for
Gryffindor, making them unpopular in their own House until they regain
those points at the end of the year, increasing the tension between
Gryffindor and Slytherin (which would have won the House Cup were it
not for those last-minute points). While DD tells Harry that "the
whole school knows" what happened between him and Professor Quirrell,
that's clearly not the case. All the school knows is that Harry (and
Neville0 won points for bravery, Ron for a chess game, and Hermione
for "the cool use of intellect when others were in peril" (SS/PS    ).
In OoP, we find out that no one really knows what happened with "that
Sorcerous Stone" (sorry, American edition; I don't know the British
equivalent), nor do they appear to realize that Voldemort was in the
back of Quirrell's head. 

In CoS, Harry calls a bit of attention to himself by arriving with Ron
in a flying car, but this incident makes no difference in his status
in his own or any other House. True, Colin Creevey follows him around,
but no one else except Lockhart is treating Harry as a celebrity. The
revelation of his ability to speak Parseltongue makes him *notorious*
(which is not the same as important) and causes other students,
especially Muggle-borns, to shun and fear him and, ironically,
increases Draco's jealousy, but it doesn't make him any more important
in terms of his real power, authority, or influence on their lives.
It's all perception. At the end of the year, he and Ron have again
given Gryffindor House points. No one even knows that Harry has
destroyed Memory!Tom and the diary (which even he doesn't know is a
Horcrux). They don't even know that he's killed a Basilisk with the
Sword of Gryffindor, as Michael Corner reveals in OoP (Am. ed.   ).
All they know is that Harry and Ron together earned four hundred
points for Gryffindor, exams are cancelled, and Lockhart is gone.

In PoA, Harry gets special treatment from the MoM as the intended
victim of Sirius Black, but only Draco seems to know that Black is
supposedly after Harry. Harry *loses* a Quidditch match thanks to the
Dementors, and Draco calls attention to this perceived weakness by
making fun of him, but none of this makes Harry *important* except as
a Quidditch player and a symbol to Slytherin of lost House points.
(Even Harry says, in GoF, IIRC, that Slytherin hates him because he's
beaten them at Quidditch so many times.) So, if star athlete =
"important," he's important. But if "important" means that he has
power and influence, it's a bit odd that DD tells him that his word
and Hermione's ("the word or two thirteen-year-old wizards," despite
the fact that Hermione has been fourteen since September) will make no
difference in the MoM's view of Sirius Black's innocence. And no one,
not even Fudge, finds out that Harry and Hermione have used a Time
Turner to save Black (still a wanted fugitive) and Buckbeak. (harry's
mercy to Wormtail will have genuinely important consequences, but *no
one* (except DD) knows it.

In GoF, Harry starts off as just another student (except to the select
few who know that his scar hurts--and he rather stupidly forgets his
dream). It's only when someone puts his name in the Goblet of Fire
that he becomes notorious (again), this time suspected of lying and
cheating by three quarters of the school. When he gets by the
Horntail, he becomes popular again, in the sense that girls want him
as their date to the Yule Ball and most people realize that he didn't
put his own name in the GoF, but no one follows him around the way
they follow Krum and Cedric (or even Cho, who is popular in the usual
sense without ever having been a TWT champion). (Colin Creevey and his
brother are partial exceptions.) Rita Skeeter, of course, makes a big
deal about Harry, but she's only taking advantage of his youth and
celebrity to create a story. He's no more "important" than Britney
Spears in the WW. He just makes good copy. So Harry's "importance"
still rides on whether he'll win or lose the TWT, which might as well
be the Quidditch Cup or the House Cup for all its importance to the
WW. (It certainly doesn't serve the intended purpose of achieving
"international magical cooperation.") And after Harry comes back from
the graveyard with Cedric's dead body, no one believes either him or
DD that Voldemort is back. Instead, many people shun him.

In OoP, Harry becomes "important" to the MoM not for himself but for
the uses to which DD puts him, and Fudge and Umbridge seek to
discredit him in order to discredit Dumbledore. (Fudge, of course,
doesn't know that Umbridge sent the Dementors after him.) No one at
Hogwarts believes that Voldemort is back; Harry even loses his
never-close friendship with Seamus after insulting Seamus's mother,
who believes that Harry is dangerous (as does half of the WW). But
thinking that Harry is deluded, subject to fits, and possibly violent
again makes him *notorious,* not important. If he were important, he'd
have more influence and be believed. Later, *Hermione* recruits some
two dozen students (not quite a tenth of the student body if we accept
the 280 figure) to attend a meeting, but most of them are motivated to
attend because of Umbridge's inept teaching, not because of Harry's
"importance." They have to be convincec by bits of testimony (he flwe
past dragons, etc.) that he can teach them more than Umbridge can.
(Zacharias Smith, and perhaps others, attends to find out what
happened to Cedric; Harry does not present one iota of evidence that
Voldemort--or Wormtail--murdered Cedric. He refuses to talk about that
subject at all. Marietta, too, remains unconvinced that Voldemort is
back and evidently believes that DD is out to overthrow the MoM.)
True, a few DA members, mostly Weasleys, believe Harry and decide to
call the group Dumbledore's Army, but the group as a whole seems to
see itself as opposing Umbridge and the Ministry rather than opposing
Voldemort. Only Ernie, Neville, and Luna actually ever say that they
believe Harry. And of these people, only Ginny, Luna, Neville (who has
good reasons of his own to oppose Voldemort and the DEs) join HRH in
the supposed rescue mission that turns into the Battle of the DoM.
(The Order and the DEs know that Harry is "important," at least to
Voldemort, but I'm talking about his fellow students.) And until the
end of OoP, not even Harry himself knows that he's the Chosen One who
must (he thinks) either murder Voldemort or be murdered by him.

In HBP, Harry becomes important as a symbol. (Scrimgeour wants him to
act as a kind of mascot, but doesn't really believe that Harry is the
Chosen One. He's only interested, as far as I can tell, in Harry's
propaganda value.) Not Harry himself but the appearance of Voldemort
in the MoM has managed to convince soon to be ex-Minister Fudge that
Voldie is back, but Harry's participation in the battle doesn't seem
to affect people's view of him except that they realize that he's
neither an attention seeker or a liar. Draco, who has himself gone on
to what he thinks is a more important mission, contents himself with
Petrifying Harry and stamping on his face and hand, after which he
largely ignores him until the Sectumsempra confrontation. Slughorn, of
course, wants to "collect" Harry, and membership in the Slug Club
increases his status to the extent that girls want him as a date to
Slughorn's party (a Quidditch victory adds to his status), but no one
at Hogwarts really seems to think of him as the Chosen One or to pay
much attention to Voldemort at all (except for those students whose
family members are murdered, or Draco, who is being directly
threatened. And after Snape "murders" Dumbledore, only a select few
adults, mostly Order members, listens to Harry's version of events.

DH is, of course, another matter altogether. Harry's true mission is
unknown, but everyone (except perhaps those who believe the Ministry
propaganda that Harry killed DD) regards him as the Chosen One, a
symbol of hope. He is at last more than a celebrity, more than the boy
who determines whether or not Gryffindor will win the Quidditch or
House Cup. He is, at last, important in the true sense, becoming "the
one with the power" to defeat Voldemort.

More important, IMO, Harry himself learns to appreciate the
contributions of other people, from Neville to Snape, and to share the
Horcrux destruction with Ron and Hermione. (I won't count Crabbe's
accidental contribution.) In the end, Harry chooses *not* to be
"important," relinquishing the opportunity to gain power and glory by
wielding the Elder Wand, becoming "Just Harry," husband, father, and
Auror. (I'll just ignore the rubbish about Harry's becoming an Auror
at seventeen without even finishing his Hogwarts education or taking
three years of Auror training and becoming head of the Auror office at
twenty-seven. It's not in the books, so it's not canon.)

Carol, who forgot to add Dobby to Harry's fan club, but as his opinion
has no influence even over the House Elves, I don't think it hurts my
argument that Harry's celebrity does not make him *important* except
in terms of gaining or losing points for Gryffindor