Harry and Charlie

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 183217

> Montavilla47:
> I think what JKR tends to do is veer from one side to the other. 
There are times in her stories where it seems obvious that we're
supposed to be reading HP like we'd read a Roald Dahl story--and take
no more mind of  Draco being bounced up and down than Veruca Salt
dropping in the nut  bin.  
<snip>
> And, having crossed the line from sympathizing with the good
> guys, and sympathizing with the bad ones, I looked back
> and saw that there were a lot more of these odd jujitsu
> passages, where the person who is supposed to look bad
> ends up looking nicer than the heroes.
> 
> But, it would be easy for JKR to have made her "bad" characters
> so unsympathetic that I wouldn't even notice.  So, kudos to her
> for creating sympathetic bad guys.
>

Pippin:
I don't think the point is to develop the "right" amount of sympathy
for a character in the reader. I think the point is for the reader to
realize how much the sense of sympathy or compassion is dependent on
(and may be manipulated through) context. We sense from the context
that a report of suffering is not to be taken seriously, or that the
suffering was in some sense deserved, and this affects our reactions.

It may be obvious from the immediate context that we're supposed to
think the ton tongue toffee incident screamingly funny (I have to
admit I did) -- but I think we're also supposed to notice that our
view of it changes when we have a different context.

Pippin