[HPforGrownups] On the perfection of moral virtues

[Janette]

No: HPFGUIDX 168776

Marion wrote:

> So often I hear from readers the excuse that they don't want their
> 'heroes' to be perfect, that they like to see the characters 'warts and
> all', that they would think 'morally perfect heroes to be unrealistic', and
> they are absolutely right about that.
> However, the bone I have to pick with the 'heroes' of the Potterverse is
> not that they are morally imperfect, rude and self-absorbed little brats,
> but that they *stay* morally imperfect rude and self-absorbed brats. They
> only grow bigger, not better.
> Good children's books have *never* given us morally perfect children as
> the heroes of the story. Well, not in the past hundred years of so. Not that
> I can remember anyway. But they did give us morally imperfect children who
> *learned* from their experiences. That was usually one of the points made in
> the story.




> >huge snip<




> But back to the previous alinea.
> Has Harry ever changed in all those years in attitude? Has he grown as a
> person?
> Personally - and this is my beef with the series - I can't see *any*
> change. Harry was a judgemental, self-absorded, rude eleven-year-old and six
> year later Harry is a judgemental, self-absorded, rude sixteen-year-old.
> I'm still waiting for Harry to *learn*.
> I'm hoping Harry will finally, *finally* realise that he *needs* to
> change, to learn, in Book 7.


montims:

See, I didn't change and grow up until I turned 30 and went to live in
Italy.  I was the same obnoxious, selfopinionated person I was growing up,
although I didn't know it.  Until I met my husband when I was nearly 40, and
he showed me some real hard truths about myself, I still hadn't become a
"well rounded" character.  I find Harry and his friends remarkably mature
for 16 year olds actually...

But just to go back to British children's fiction, I am thinking of Just
William, and Billy Bunter (also set in a boarding school) - I don't recall
them ever changing or maturing...  Many of Enid Blyton's schoolchildren were
bossy and opinionated.  Not many of them changed, to the best of my
recollection...

I agree with Gary in another post that the protagonists are more real to me
BECAUSE they are flawed, and lose their temper, and act recklessly.


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