Harry's "coming of age" (Was: Suspension of disbelief -Idiots of War)

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 182425

Pippin wrote: 
>  <snip> 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. <snip>

Carol responds:
Thanks for the canon here, and I agree with you on this point, but I
do wish we had more than Fudge's word and Scrimgeour's silence as
evidence that the invulnerabilty was real rather than commony
believed. (He does conjure a shield to protect himself from
Dumbledore's spells even though he isn't hurt by them; DD has his own
reasons for not trying to kill LV; he knows that at worst an AK from
the Elder Wand would vaporize LV. But would it even do that much?
"Can't be killed" implies that it wouldn't. After all, the AK that
destroyed his body before was his own, perhaps amplified by the
ancient magic that caused his body to rip apart rather than fall to
the ground unmarked as is usual with AKs.) It would be helpful, for
example, if a renegade DE attempted to AK LV and he was unharmed by
the spell. As it is, his greatest weapon appears to be terror (backed
by a very fast wand arm or the ability to cast multiple AKs at
once--I'm thinking of the dead DEs after the cup Horcrux is stolen)
and a willingness to torture or even kill his own followers. 

To reiterate, I agree with you, but I think that JKR could have done
more to establish that invulnerability. I'm not sure that Harry's
being the only person who survived after LV decided to kill him counts
or not; we do, at least, have a powerful witch, Amelia Bones, who
tried to fight back and lost, but like much of Voldemort's magic,
that's off page.

Pippin: 
> 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.

Carol responds:

Here I don't quite agree. The main reason that McGonagall (an Order
member) and Flitwick (a possible Order member) and Sprout and Slughorn
(teachers opposed to Voldemort--admittedly, in Slughorn's case, it
took a while to arouse his courage) are alive and free when Voldemort
attacks Hogwarts is that Snape kept them on as staff members (a real
DE would have sent them to Azkaban and staffed the school with other
Voldemort supporters). Also, of course, Voldemort is sidetracked from
his takeover by his quest the Elder Wand. He was probably counting on
Bellatrix to kill tonks and Lupin (Mad-Eye was already dead). As for
Mr. weasley, he could be controlled by threats to his daughter, who
was still at school. (Once Snape allowed her to go home for Easter
vacation, she and the rest of her family went into hiding.) At any
rate, if LV had won the Battle of Hogwarts, he would probably have
turned his attention to the survivng Order members--possibly including
Snape, if he hadn't been killed by Nagini.

Pippin: 
> 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. 

Carol responds:
Your first sentence makes a good point (though they show up so late
that there's not much to do--Harry reveals his presence almost
immediately). The second sentence, though, is a matter of opinion: a
bigger moment for which reader? And while I understand the concept of
eucatastrophe, I don't understand your last sentence at all. When does
Harry feel warmth and happiness as his classmates are expelled and why
would that qualify as a "false eucatastrophe"?

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. 

Carol responds:

Agreed so far.

Pippin: 
> 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. 

Carol responds:
I'm not sure that being captain of a Quidditch team (and Seeker before
that) really qualifies as working with other people. The Seeker is all
alone (occasionally dodging Bludgers but mostly watching for the
Snitch and keeping an eye on the rival Seeker) while the game goes on
below them (basically giving the spectators something to watch until
the Seeker wins the game--or, at any rate, ends it). As for being
captain, that's not so much working with others as getting others to
work together and telling them what to do.

Harrry only reluctantly allowed Ron and Hermione to go with him (they
took rather desperate measures, especially Hermione's sending her
parents to Australia with their memories altered, to insure that he
didn't go on the Horcrux hunt alone, and, of course, he repulsed
Lupin's request to accompany them. He also at first refused help from
Neville and the DA, just as he had resisted Luna's Neville's, and
Ginny's help back in OoP, only to be rebuked by Neville's "I don't see
why you can't trust us. Everyone in this room's been fighting and
they've been driven in here because the Carrows were hunting them
down. everyone in here's loyal to Dumbledore--loyal to you" (DH Am.
ed. 583). He doesn't tell them about the Horcruxes, but he does accept
Ron's advice and let them help. (Had he not done so, he would never
have learned that the lost Ravenclaw object was the diadem that Xeno
Lovegood had been trying in his eccentric way to recreate). There's a
whole paragraph in which Harry has an epiphany of sorts regarding
Dumbledore's propensity for "secrets and lies" ("was he turning into
Dumbledore, keeping his secrets clutched to his chest, afraid to
trust?"). Of course, Harry hasn't yet learned the full truth about
either Dumbledore or the one man he trusted (and revealed some of his
secrets to, Severus Snape, but it's a beginning. And later Harry asks
Neville to "kill the snake" (again, not explaining that it's a
Horcrux--rather like DD's policy of telling people only as much as
they need to know). Harry is learning that he doesn't need to do
everything himself.

As for learning to work with people whether or not you approve of
them, I don't think that's what it's about. He knows that he has to
sacrifice himself even though Dumbledore has "betrayed" him, and he
silently slides into an understanding and empathy for Snape that leads
to a public vindication of the man he had intended to seek revenge on
for nearly a year.

I think that Harry learns to trust others and not to judge by
appearances (whether it's the appearance of ineptitude in Neville or
of treachery in Snape). And he learns to forgive Dumbledore for being
considerably less than perfect.

Carol, for whom "The Prince's Tale," "King's Cross," and the epilogue
are as important as indicators of Harry's progress as "The Forest Again"