Suspension of disbelief -Idiots of War

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 182422


> 
> Betsy Hp:
> Except in this story, the older generation did nothing, died, and 
> left their kid to fix everything.  I mean, Harry's parents didn't 
> even have the presence of mind to arm themselves. 

Pippin:
One of the things I love about canon is that it isn't only the bad
guys who do really dumb things, and it isn't only the good guys who
have phenomenal luck. Pettigrew's escape from the Shrieking Shack was
at least as dependent on circumstances beyond his control as The
Trio's escape from Gringotts. And as you've said yourself, Voldemort
makes so many stupid moves that the more you know about him the harder
it is to be afraid of him -- too bad for James and Lily that they
weren't, then. They thought they could beat him with a simple trick,
much like Harry thought he could outwit Griphook. And they were wrong. 

But what I was really thinking of was Neville, looking so beat up when
McGonagall hadn't a scratch on her. And I thought  Alla's point,
though I can't speak for her, was that it seems so weird and wrong for
Dumbledore to ask these young people to fight for him. As if that was
some weird quirk of Dumbledore's, when really that's the way it's
always been.

  
> Betsy Hp:
> What was unrealistic was JKR had an *entire nation* be paralyzed and 
> powerless.  For *years*.  An Auror or an Order member or any number 
> of WW soldiers feel paralyzed and powerless a time or two? Sure, I 
> can see that.  That they *all* feel paralyzed and powerless and 
> that's all she wrote?  Lame, lame, totally lame.  And also, not 
> believeable.  IMO.

Pippin:

Well, I guess real life is lame. Because  *entire nations* do get
subjugated, and years do pass without effective resistance, or even
any recognition that persecution is taking place. Fail to recognize
that, and you're blaming the victims,IMO -- gee, those guys must have
 been pretty lame or they'd have defended themselves.

However, Voldemort was in power for less than a year before he was
taken out. In VWI, the Ministry was resisting him actively and
ruthlessly. In the interim, most people thought that Voldemort was
finished, and everyone, including Order members, went back to their
chosen lives -- except for Snape. 

 But I got the impression from Dumbledore's confession that the whole
reason for The Order was to find a way to defeat Voldemort without the
indiscriminate killing that is an inevitable part of warfare. Because
Lupin was right, most people would not hold off firing back because
the person firing at them might not be in their right mind. 

Dumbledore's personal story makes it perfectly believable to me that
he would be concerned about that. Of course he would recruit people
who shared his beliefs. That would make them extremely reluctant to
engage the DE's in a shooting war. Even Moody, Sirius tells us, tried
not to kill.

 But as for engaging Voldemort, like it or not, Voldemort was
invulnerable, and everyone knew it -- Fudge tells the PM he can't be
killed, and when Harry dismisses Scrimgeour's offer of auror
protection because the aurors can't stop Voldemort, Scrimgeour has no
answer.

Further, waiting for the right time or the right person is not
helpless passivity -- it's patience, a virtue praised by fairy tales
and military strategists alike.  From the way McGonagall goes off like
a coiled spring, I can't believe  she was holding back from either
complacency or hopelessness. From her actions,  I don't think
Dumbledore's philosophy would have held her back forever either. 


But the Order was blown -- IMO, the only reason McGonagall and the
others were still alive is that Voldemort believed they had given up.
After all, that is what his own supporters had done when their leaders
were gone. Whatever the Order did, it had to be kept secret or
Voldemort would have had them all killed. But it certainly *looks*
like they were preparing people to act, because it's undeniably canon
that there were people prepared to act when the time came.

You can say that JKR just wanted the common people there for the big
moment, but it's still a big moment that she chose for them, not for
Harry, and they show up when Harry is invisible and as far as they
know, already dead. It is indeed the big moment in the book, a bigger
moment than when Harry turns out not to be dead, or even when
Voldemort falls. It is the eucatastrophe, as Tolkien called it, the
moment when impending disaster unexpectedly turns to joy. It stands in
opposition to the false eucatastrophe, when Harry feels such warmth
and happiness as his classmates are expelled. 

> 
> Betsy Hp:
> See, this strikes me as such a cult of personality.  Harry is 
> supposed to blindly trust Dumbledore because without Dumbledore,
he's  got no credibility.  Harry has to do it all on his own because 
> *Dumbledore told him to*.  This is part of the reason I don't see 
> this series as a coming of age tale.  Harry remains Dumbledore's
good little baby boy: obedient even unto death.  And that's how he wins.

Pippin:
Huh? Harry does have a personal belief in Dumbledore at the beginning
of the book, but he's  no longer personally loyal to Dumbledore when
he goes to his "death" -- he's certain Dumbledore betrayed him. But he
agrees with  Dumbledore's philosophy of saving as many lives as
possible, and he goes along with the plan despite its cost to himself
because he can see how it will accomplish that. And he believes that
philosophy not because Dumbledore told him too but because it's what
he's always believed. He does take Dumbledore's word about the
mechanics of the plan, but trusting in an expert's knowledge is hardly
a cult of personality. 


Harry's coming of age was not about learning how to work with other
people. He already knew how to do that -- he was  captain of a
Quidditch team, fergawdsake. His coming of age was about learning that
you need to work with other people regardless of whether you approve
of them.  Dumbledore, for example. 

Pippin