Slippery perception in HP (was Dumbledore and other leaders)

[Lenore]

No: HPFGUIDX 181899


>Lee:
> > So hang the legalities and Apparate out anyway.
>Lenore:
> > I totally agree. They could have easily had the Seven Apparitions,
Lee:
>A nit first (not so much picking, just pointing out): it's apparAtion,
>not apparItion.

Lenore:
You are quite correct.  I was surprised to see my own mistake;
my focus must have been elsewhere at the time.

[snip]
Lee:
Thanks for the defense, Lenore. However, I wasn't offended or off-put
at all, just caught by surprise. In fact, several others have now echoed
the original complaint.
>I feel like I'm staring at one of those SIRDS MagicEye images that were
>so popular ten years ago. Everyone around me is telling me they see
>an image but I, stare as I might, can't see it. I believe it's there,
>because everyone else says so, but blimey if I can see it.

Lenore:
If a poster *believed* you were placing a subtle snarky message
which was *personally* directed to them, or to something they
had written, then I could understand how they might be peeved.

But that still seems a stretch to me, and it presupposes that one's
deductive perception of someone else's intention is mostly, or
usually, or always correct.  A coworker once came to work in a
very angry mood toward me because she had had a dream in
which I had done something suspicious.  I kept pointing out to
her that it was HER dream but, there again, was that huge
disconnect between perception (hers) and intention (mine).

Perception is both fascinating and problematic for such reasons.
It is what makes us all bonkers.

Lee:
>I'm really finding it interesting as an example of the disconnect
>between what an author writes and what an audience might perceive
>in spite of the author's best intentions. Perhaps this is the same
>disconnect that exists between JKR's interviews and the canon.

Lenore:
This topic really is pertinent to the HP series itself, apart from the
interviews. I've wanted to start a thread on it many times. I got interested
in the HP books in the first place because I noticed how utterly confused
and tangled the characters' perceptions were, and I thought JKR must
really be going somewhere with that. I thought it would make a powerful
point if she could show the reader just how slippery perception can be.

Was she making that very point by showing the story mostly through the
Harry filter, which was rarely reliable?  It might be interesting to recall
instances where JKR clearly shows a cause-and-effect relationship
between faulty perception and imprudent action   After the Ministry
battle in OoP, Harry does question the path his perceptions and
actions took. But would he have done that if Sirius had not died?

The other situation which pops into my mind at the moment actually
makes the opposite point--that faulty perception doesn't do any harm,
nor does it have much effect on outcomes  That was when Hermione
was 100 percent certain that Snape was cursing Harry's broom. She
hurried to interrupt his spell and, indeed, she did interrupt the curse
at the same time (thanks to a mysterious Benevolent Fate apparently
predestined for the Trio alone). <g>

It has bothered me that Hermione and Harry were allowed to hold
incredible distortions of perception, and events would still unfold
just fine for them... but that is not quite how the mind works. IMO.
Lenore