Fathers (was: A message?)

[muscatel1988]

No: HPFGUIDX 178941

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "potioncat" <willsonkmom at ...> wrote:

> I read an article about JKR's father selling a signed copy of one of 
> her books. I read it awhile ago and it seems his name is Peter. Now, 
> I can't be certain of it, but I remember thinking "She named the rat 
> after her father?"

Mus:
On checking, I find that her father is called Peter James.  Which is
interesting. <g>

> Potioncat: 
> Back to canon fathers. I'm glad JKR didn't kill off Arthur, and I 
> wonder if it was after she realised how many bad/absent fathers 
> there were in her books that she decided to spare him. 

Mus:
But note that, if we place any credence in the post-DH interviews, it
was precisely Arthur's reprieve that led her killing off Lupin.  so
his saving doesn't alter the net Absent!Daddy headcount.
 
> Montavilla47:
> You didn't mention one father at least: Remus Lupin.  Since he tries
> to run off from his marriage before his son is even born, he comes 
> off little better than Riddle, Sr.

Mus:
I should have said that my list was only partial.  :-)

> Ambition leads fathers to neglect the emotional needs of their wives
> and children, and so, while it helps the family financially and 
> socially, it seems hollow to the people who never get to see Dad. 

<snip> 

> Lucius is the social-climbing father, projecting his own desire for
> status onto Draco (pushing him to get the "best" grades, pushing him
> onto the Quidditch team, trying to manuveur out Dumbledore in order
> to move in a more pro-Draco Headmaster...)

Mus:
But Lucius is in the poorly-populated Engaged!Daddy category.  He's
present in his child's life, accompanying him to Diagon Alley, on the
board of the school and so on.  His buying brooms for the team is
rather reminiscent of MacGonagall's covertly buying one for Harry - in
both cases, purchasing the best equipment is the price of having their
protegé on the team, and Draco does actually make an o.k. Seeker.

We're certainly encouraged to see all this as ulteriorly motivated,
but then we're seeing through the Harry Filter.  As Dumbledore is
revealed as weak, unengaged with anything but his plan, Lucius's
doubts about DD's suitability to head the school actually have a boost
in canon.  

> I got the feeling in the book that Amos Diggory was sort of
> a minor Lucius--not evil, obviously, but too pushy about his
> son. It was almost like Cedric's death was Amos's punishment 
> for his pride.  Then, his grief was a bit overmuch, contrasted
> with the dignity of the mother.  Along with the story of  the
> ambitious, cold Crouch, Sr. (contrasted with the sacrificing
> Mrs. Crouch), I found GoF to be the strongest Good Mommy/
> Bad Daddy book.

Mus:
I missed Crouch too!  To be fair to him, though, we really only have
his son's word for what he was like as a father, and Barty Jnr is
clearly a nutter, filled with loathing for the man who justly
sentenced him to Azkaban.  When we first encounter the two of them
together, in the pensieve court scene, our sympathies lie with Jnr,
and we're touched by his apparent terror and repelled by his father's
coldness(' "Father, I didn't," shrieked the boy in chains below.  "I
didn't, I swear it, Father, don't send me back to the Dementors - " '
[GoF, UK pb: 517]).  When we hear the true voice of Barty Jnr,
straight from his black little heart, crowing of his almost erotic*
delight in Voldemort's service, I don't think that we can take his
word for his father's behaviour at face value.  

What we do know is that he's guilty, and that Crouch Snr is faced with
this realisation in public - is it any wonder that his reaction is so
cold?  Poor bloke's probably in shock, and even his clothes give away
that he's controlled and punctilious.  But he consents to the
jailbreak, and he harbours his son at home, and ultimately dies for it
(killed by his son, his body Transfigured to a bone <shiver>) - do we
really believe that he took a risk like that *solely* because his wife
and his house elf worked on him?  I don't.  He's one of the most
sustained examples of misdirection in the series - from his reaction
when the Dark Mark is conjured to his end at the edge of the forest,
we're constantly shown only half the story.  Are we also being
deceived about his love for his son in spite of his crimes?  Was that
love ultimately to be viewed as a weakness and horribly punished?

(* Re-reading those passages, I'm struck by the similarity between
Barty Jnr's feelings for Voldemort and Bellatrix's - both are exultant
in a way that no other DEs are.  It's downright creepy.)

If your reading of Amos is true, then I'm saddened.  Cedric would be
any father's delight - popular, decent, brave, modest, chosen to
represent his school.  Amos would be *right* to be proud of him.  If
he had to be taken down a notch for that, that's a little dispiriting.

Mus