Suspension of disbelief WAS: Why should we care if Harry's not really needed?

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 182343

Alla (regarding the The Dark is Rising series):

> But  probably the funniest thing to me in the obstacles that Susan 
> Cooper designs for the Light ( although I don't know there are so 
> many of them) is the challenge that Dark brings up in the last book 
> that Bran should not be there.
> Anybody remembers who is the judge of that challenge? Oh that's right 
> the Lady.  Now let's flashback to the second book and tell me, 
> whether anybody already had a hint that Lady is how to put it a 
> little bit biased in favor the Light? Did anybody had any doubt how 
> that challenge be decided? I know that not me, that's for sure.

Montavilla47:

Bear with me, it's probably been thirty-five years since I read that
series.  As I recall, the forces of Dark and Light were somewhat
detached from the mundane, although their struggle had great 
import to our world.  But in the final judgment it was the opinion
of a mortal man that made the difference.

Of all the rest of it, what I mostly remember is that Paul was
pretty dreamy.  And that Will was a decent kid that I liked 
as a character.

Alla:

> So, my point is that majority of authors who write about kids as 
> heroes will require suspension of disbelief to the different degrees 
> and for the most part it will be up to the reader whether they can 
> accept it or not.
> 
> I do not find JKR's world to be the hardest to suspend disbelief. 
> Now, granted at some point I thought that adults contrary to many 
> books I read would be taking bigger role in these series. It ended 
> with the death of Sirius. Not only in a sense that one of my 
> favorites died. To me it signaled that adults, well will not be 
> taking larger roles than I thought they will be.

Montavilla47:
You were quicker than I was.  I didn't see that as a signal, but simply
as a tragic event.  If I recall back to the pre-HBP days, I thought that
Harry would be working more with the adults who were left standing,
and that key to that would be his relationship with Snape--which was
left in a sorry state at the end of OotP (although it was, of course, 
worse at the end of HBP).  

A couple weeks before HBP came out, I discovered fanfic and read
Theowyn's "The Enemy Within," which was such a natural development
of both Occlumency and the Harry/Snape relationship (not as in 
slash, but simply in hateful student/hated teacher) that I couldn't see
how JKR *wouldn't* do something similar.  I think she did, in a 
more sublimated way, with Harry learning about Snape from the potions
book, rather than from forced interactions with the man himself.

But, I did think, because of the introduction of the Order, that they
would have some role to play in the future.  I suppose they did, but 
it wasn't as key a role as I would have liked, given the introduction of
them in the first place.

Nor do I think it would have hurt the series to have had them do
stuff.  There are plenty of fantasy stories in which the kids play
the most important parts, but also have adults along.  Frodo had
Aragorn.  Will had Merriman.  Prince Caspian had his advisers and
courtiers.  The Pevensees had adult beavers to help them out.  
Taran had his friend Flewther (I'm not sure I'm getting that
spelling right), and sometimes Gwydion.  Dido had a whole 
bunch of adult friends. Heck, Luke Skywalker had Han Solo.  None 
of them made the kid less powerful or special, or made the 
stories less exciting.

Alla:
> I think honestly that in large the suspension of disbelief depends on 
> whether one likes the characters. 
> I am also not guessing whether your suspension of disbelief depends 
> on whether you like or dislike the Trio. I am saying that if * I* am 
> faced with the book where I DISlike the child who supposed to do 
> heroics, it is much harder to suspend disbelief. I adore Harry so I 
> totally suspend disbelief sometimes and sometimes what he does is 
> believable to me.

Montavilla47:
I think you're spot on here, Alla.  I liked Harry right up through OotP,
and so I followed along with all the implausibilities and sheer luck and
all that.  Of course, I didn't *quite* see the point that Dumbledore
was making about Harry's amazing ability to love, but I thought that
perhaps JKR was making the case that almost *everyone* has an amazing
capacity to love, even an otherwise emotionally ordinary wizard teenager.

I mean, you couldn't really call Harry's ability to love Cho amazing.  He 
acted like the most insensitive boy imaginable.  He's attracted to her
because she's pretty, but as soon as he discovers that she has 
emotional needs, he loses interest.

But, I went along with it until Harry blew off the D.A.  That was the 
straw that did me in.  The D.A. had been sold to its members as
being really important because V-voldemort was back.  Well, he 
was backer than ever in HBP, but suddenly Harry doesn't see a need
to help his fellow students learn to defend themselves.  Nope, he'd
rather captain the Quidditch team.

It made no sense from a compassionate point of view (since his
friends needed his skills more than ever) or a strategic point of
view (if he was supposed to rid the world of Voldemort, he was 
going to need allies).  And, character-wise, it made Harry
seem like a stuck-up prig.

JMO,

Montavilla47