hating/loving Harry (reposting for lousey formatting)

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 183605

Catlady:
> > ...altho' some think Harry was a bad guy from
the first time we saw him interacting with Dursleys...

Geoff:
> Now, let me say that, if I read her post aright, the quote did not
originate from her, but who, in their right mind (or sober), would
dream of making such an unbelievable – and dare I say barmy –
comment?

Ceridwen:
I don't think I've ever seen such a thing posted to this group,
though I will bow to Catlady's superior knowledge of the history of
this group. I got the impression that she was distilling an attitude
found in various places, not necessarily that this was said or
written outright. I was under the impression that she was
contrasting various extremes of fandom, really, and not saying that
anyone actually said this.

Geoff:
> I challenge anyone to say that they have never had
a moment of overwhelming anger when they have wanted to lash
out and hurt.

Ceridwen:
That's fine, we've all done that to some extent or another - wanted
to lash out. Maybe some of us did lash out. Maybe some of us
accessed God or meditation or couselling and avoided actually
lashing. But, we're real.

We don't live in books. There is no set ending to our story where we
carry on in the dullness of time after the adventure is over.
Sometimes, justice is done to our satisfaction, sometimes it takes
generations after we're gone to get any sort of closure on a
problem. Fiction is the place where justice triumphs in the end,
where we can see, and have the satisfaction of seeing, an adventure
come full circle. In fiction, wrongs are righted, the just are
rewarded, the unjust are punished, and dark nights of the soul lead
to brighter mornings. We see, we go with the hero/heroine when he or
she passes through this dark night. Seeing someone else as
apparently human as we are, dealing with that stuff, usually worse
than we will ever have it, we get the courage and strength to face
our own darkness and meet the dawn.

I'm glad that Harry survived. I was a member of the IWHTL club. I
did teeter back and forth between wanting Happily Ever After and
wanting the Grey Havens, but I'm glad he lived when he defeated
Voldemort. I expected Voldemort to die in the end, I would have
hated, absolutely hated the entire series if he had lived to become
even more powerful while Harry died. I don't read books for stomach-
dropping moments like that. I read for entertainment.

Geoff:
> Which is a pity. Because if JKR had expanded more, we might just
be having a thread "I'm just wild about Harry" which might have
been a bit lighter, less soul-searching and more Harry-friendly than
some of the current batch.

Ceridwen:
Yes! See, this is what I have problems with. We never saw Harry's
dark night. I never saw his attitude changed, either radically (as
can be done in fiction) or over the period of the seven years/books
(as can also be done in fiction). It probably happened, one doesn't
live into one's thirties without some sort of wake-up. But, this is
fiction. It can, it does, redress wrongs before the end, it can, it
does, satisfy the sense of justice, it can, it does, show the
hero/heroine facing the internal crisis, which is really the most
important crisis, and which then frees that person up to go and slay
the dragon, or the snake-faced monster in this case. I never got
that in HP. Which, as you say, is a pity. I really wanted to love
the series from beginning to end (aside from Umbridge). I don't want
*that* sort of reality, where the story is so open-ended that I have
to pretend something happened which *I* (YMMV) did not see on-page.
Count me as disappointed.

Ceridwen.