Coolness // Portraits

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 182850

> > Pippin:
> > If you got the message, why would you think it needed to be stronger?
> 
> Montavilla47:
> Because I also got it--and stronger--in PS/SS when Harry chose
> the scruffy, uncool Ron over the sleek, seemingly popular Draco.
> (Although, again, it wasn't much of a choice, since Harry disliked
> Draco immediately.)

Pippin:
The format was the same, but the message was different, IMO. Romilda
Vane is to "vanity" as Draco Malfoy is to "bad faith" -- and it's bad
faith, which is a much more important theme for the series as a whole,
that Harry rejects in the first train scene. We already know what
Draco thinks of people with Muggle backgrounds, so we know that Draco
couldn't make a whole-hearted offer of friendship. Even if Harry had
accepted him, Draco would have been caught, like Snape before him,
between warring loyalties. Draco could have rejected his family and
his old ties as Sirius did, but then he wouldn't have had any
connections of "the right sort" to offer.

 JKR shows us that it's easy to reject bad faith when it presents
itself in such an obvious and unattractive way. Harry is right to
think that he should tell who the right sort are for himself, and
right to reject Draco's offer,  but  wrong if he thinks it's always
going to be that easy.

> Montavilla47:
> Very interesting insight, Pippin.  And it makes a lot of sense. 
Except that Harry doesn't really ditch his friends for the Prince's
book.  He  and Ron remain tight throughout the book and the only
tension between them comes from Harry's support for Hermione during
the Ron/Hermione break-up.  

Pippin:
No, Harry doesn't drop his friends  but then he wouldn't necessarily
have dropped Neville and Luna permanently if he'd gone and sat with
his fan club -- Neville was prepared to be a good sport about it, just
as Ron was about the book. But the book does distance Ron from Harry 
-- Ron's got a choice between being a tag-along and finding something
else to occupy himself  while Harry is spending his free time with the
book, and Ron chooses Lavender (another vain pursuit.)

Montavilla:
> As for Hermione, she's "sniffs" at Harry's use of the book and
provides  dire warnings about the Prince's character.  Although, of
course, she  turns out to be right, she's the one who creates any
distance in her  friendship with Harry, while Harry is running after
her to comfort her  about Ron, and making sure that she isn't left lonely.

Pippin:
Luna would have behaved the same way, IMO, if Harry had decided he
wanted Romilda's company, and Harry would have been as concerned for
Luna's loneliness.  

> 
> Montavilla47:
> Again, that makes perfect sense, except that Peter and the Prince's 
> book don't function the same at all.  Peter, as you say, flattered
> James and Sirius by admiring them.  The Prince, however, doesn't
> even know that Harry exists, and any affection Harry feels for him
> is based on what Harry gleans as the Prince's sense of humor,
> intelligence, and creativity.

Pippin:
But the book is the ticket to successful potion-making, praise and
flattery from Slughorn, and even though Harry knows he doesn't deserve
it, and tells himself it's only important because he needs to get that
memory, he still eats it up, and enjoys very much being able to
outshine Hermione and especially Draco.


> Montavilla47:
> I would say that of those students you mention, Harry only shows
> respect for Cedric.  He views Fleur with suspicion or dismissive 
> humor towards her womanly charms, which are a trap he must avoid 
> (noting how often Ron falls for them).  Harry admires Krum's playing 
> skills  during the Quidditch match, but it's Krum that compliments 
> Harry's  flying skills, while Harry is continually noticing Krum's 
> clumsiness,  gruffness, and surliness.
> 
> And, as for Percy, Harry remarks that Percy had always been his
> least favorite Weasley, and often notes Percy's stuffy, pompous
> manner.

Pippin:
The scene where Harry looks up (literally) to the Tri-wizard champions
is canon. As for Percy, Harry's dislike for Percy's manner doesn't
keep him from feeling that he's been slighted not to be made a prefect
himself. 


> > 
> > Pippin:
> > Sure, that's what he believed in theory. But in practice he
thought Hermione was mad to demand respect  for Kreacher.
> 
> Montavilla47:
> No, he believed it in practice.  The first time he meets Dobby in 
> person, he spontaneously gives the elf a Christmas gift, just 
> because it will please.  In GoF, he tells Hermione that the 
> relationship  between an elf and her master has to be respected, 
> no matter politically incorrect it may appear.  In OotP, he goes 
> around the dorm after Hermione has hidden her hats, uncovering 
> them so that the elves have a choice about their own destinies.

Pippin:
He believed it in practice as long as it wasn't inconvenient for him.
 He wasn't about to respect Kreacher's choice to hate Muggleborns or
be loyal to the Black family. And he wanted to respect the Elves'
choice to remain slaves when he knew it wouldn't cost him anything --
he was very concerned about Hermione offering the Elves their freedom
when he thought it would put them off their cooking.

 That it would be wrong to give the Elves an order they would happily
obey and which would  be in their interest as well as his own, such as
fighting for Hogwarts, is not something that would have occurred to
Ron pre-DH. 

I'd like to add here, that the whole House-elf arc looked more
optimistic  to me after I'd seen the film "Amazing Grace" -- the
British experience with abolitionism is a whole 'nother kettle of
potion from the US. At least according to the movie, the abolitionists
eventually succeeded by  political maneuvers  rather than by a violent
mass uprising, and there was a real life freed slave who inspired the
movement but died before it succeeded. So I think through the lens of
the British experience, DH  ends with the Elves on track to achieve
their freedom if things happen as they did in real life.

> 
> Montavilla47:
> Again, thank you for pointing out that technique, because it helps
> make sense of JKR's writing.  But, I'm afraid that Harry *doesn't* 
> choose between Snape and Quirrell.  Quirrell's never presented as 
> any kind of a choice (since, as a good mystery writer, JKR is 
> busy hiding him in plain sight).
> 
> Harry never considers *any* one other than Snape as the person
> trying to steal the stone.  

Pippin:

Exactly.
Harry  should decide with *everyone* whether they are acting in good
faith or not. Harry is told that Snape is acting in good faith (by
Hagrid) but refuses to consider  it, even though he knows he hasn't
got any clear evidence otherwise. Nor does he ever consider that
Quirrell might be acting in bad faith about the Stone, although it's
clear to him that Quirrell is hiding something about the turban. 

It will, of course, take seven whole books for Harry to learn that
a)Snape was acting in good faith and 
b) blindly accepting the Sorting Hat's evaluation of someone's
character is not making up your own mind.

Montavilla:
> But, without trying to be too critical about it, I think that JKR
> ended up using the technique of having her heroes make a 
> correct but easy decision to illlustrate the principle early on
> only to have them the correct and easier decision later on.
> 
> For example:
> 
> <snip>
> In OotP, Harry makes the decision to risk his life to save the 
> life of one person.
> 
> In DH, Harry makes the decision to give his life to save 
> thousands of lives.

Pippin:
For some it might be easier to give your life for a thousand  than to
risk it for a few. But not for Harry, he *likes* risk. It's the
certainty of the fatal outcome that makes the DH decision hard.
There's  no risk at all, he knows exactly what will happen when he
meets Voldemort. 

It's different from the graveyard because that wasn't a real choice
-- his odds of survival were not going to be increased if he stayed
hiding behind the gravestone, so it wasn't a decision to accept death,
just a realization that he was facing death already and had nothing to
lose by going out bravely. 



Montavilla:

> 
> In terms of Neville:
<snip>
> 
> So, when Harry decides to sit with Neville and Luna at the
> beginning of HBP, instead of going off with the unattractive,
> pushy, unpleasant stranger, it's such a no-brainer that it 
> hardly counts as a moral message--and yet there seems to
> be no other reason for that moment to exist.

Pippin:
Yet all of that stuff about Neville didn't keep Harry from feeling
embarrassed in OOP when Neville was going on about his pet plant and
covering people with stinksap. Yes, Harry already knew that Neville
was brave, but it still bothered him that Neville was overweight and
dorky. The moment is there to show us that Harry has internalized what
Dumbledore was trying to tell him, that bravery is more important, and
cooler, than having the coolest pets or being good looking or having a
following of silly fangirls like Romilda. (Although, to give Romilda
her due, I don't think she realized that it was Neville Longbottom's
bottom she was looking at or recognized Luna behind the spectrespecs.
She, unlike Draco, is embarrassed when she realizes that she's
insulted Harry's friends.  )

I don't think, BTW, that Draco was offering to become a Harry fanboy
--I think he envisioned himself as Harry's patron and protector, as
his father had been for Snape.  


Montavilla:
> Was the moral that Harry's innocent use of the book
> to improve his potions' marks was vanity that led to
> the danger of nearly killing Draco?  With the final
> blow being the knowledge that Death Eater, 
> Dumbledore killing Snape was the Prince in disguise?
> 
> That seems the obvious moral message to me, but it's
> muddied by a few things:
<snip>
> The book ultimately turned out to be a positive
> thing.  So, the simple moral message that the 
> book reflected the evil, twisted thoughts of a 
> future Death Eater is too easy a judgment.  Likewise,
> the judgment that it showed the carefree, humorous 
> outlook of a "cool" teenager is also too easy.


Pippin:
Exactly. The book was neither completely harmless  nor so dangerous
that there was nothing of value in it -- a bit like its author Snape,
if you think of it. Both Harry and Hermione made an easy, all or
nothing judgment, and they were both wrong. 

I think JKR borrows from the form of the morality play partly to
deconstruct it. Just as the world is too complex to divide into good
people and Death Eaters, the human character is too complex to divide
into vices and virtues. There *is* good and evil, but IMO, JKR thinks
that grown ups ought to sort them out for themselves, not rely on
convenient labels, even hers.
 
I wouldn't weep too much for the loss of the Prince's notes. In  my
experience, people with a habit of scribbling in the margins do not
confine their attentions to just one text. If the potions book had
reams about potions with the occasional charm or hex thrown in, what
would Snape's DADA texts look like?  Snape had that whole
library at Spinner's End, which would fall by wizarding law into the
hands of the Ministry. Wonder what they made of it?

Pippin