Veterans Suffering, was Re: CHAPDISC: 34, The Forest Again.

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 185074

 
> lizzyben:
> 
> IIRC, the last line of the epilogue was originally "Only those who 
> loved him could see his scar." Which would at least be a *hint* of 
> green, suggesting that war wounds do not heal & there is an 
> underlying sadness or rememberance even in times of joy. And that 
> many veterans do have internal scars that can only be seen by those 
> they love. OK, it still wouldn't be a veteran story, but at least it 
> would even just suggest that everything isn't happy, happy, perfect 
> families! after a major civil war. As it is, the "all is well" is 
> just awful, sort of erasing any suggestion of lingering pain or
scars  at all. "All is Well!" It's like Rowling couldn't bear even a
hint of  shadow in her happy epilogue - so it ended up just shallow &
slightly creepy.

Pippin:
If you thought there weren't any shadows in the epilogue, then all I
can say is you didn't read the same one I did.

 The last glimpse of Albus as he leaves is a thin face, ablaze with
excitement. Now who does that sound like? He's going to have a
struggle, like his middle namesake, because Hogwarts is no wonderland.
It's like everywhere else -- if you stand up to people you don't know
how to beat, you'll get bullied. And Albus does.   There's a reason
his dad told him not to get into any duels until he knew how.

But  Al isn't likely to encounter a dark wizard bursting out through
the back of someone's head, or a white wizard whose grand plan to win
the war involves getting him killed. Harry knows that, intellectually,
but his feelings don't.

"Harry kept smiling and waving, even though it was like a little
bereavement, watching his son glide away from him...." 

The first time I read that, I thought "bereavement" was a little over
the top for someone watching his middle child go off to school. And so
it is. It's an overreaction, and Harry is as usual hiding it.  But
Ginny can tell that he's upset. 

"He'll be all right" is not something you'd murmur to a dad who was
happily smiling and waving unless you knew that he was putting on a
brave face. 

The original last line, besides telling rather than showing, would
have driven the literalist nit-pickers up a tree.

 Why, they would want to know, is Harry's scar now only visible to
those who love him, when everybody could see it before? 

As written, it's better, IMO. It doesn't try to grab onto the
heartstrings and yank, it just shows us. Those of us who love Harry
can see the scar, as it were. We know better than to think that "All
was well" means that all the WW's problems have been solved.  "All's
well" is the watchman's cry -- it just means there's no emergency at
the moment, and children are safe in their beds.

Pippin