Did Harry Notice?

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 182903


Montavillla47:
To begin with, Pippin.  I thoroughly enjoyed your post and, as usual,
you make sense out of a storyline that made very little sense to me.
Thank you for the insight.  I just wish it didn't take someone 
explaining to me the moral storyline of a children's book!


> Pippin:
> We don't see how James grows out of hexing people for fun,
> but we see how Harry does -- nothing dramatic, no realization that
> he'd even done it. He just stopped as he developed a taste for more
> mature activities, such as snogging Ginny and took on a   man's job
> (in the colloquial sense) of hunting for horcruxes. 

Montavilla47:
Here I have a slight nit to pick.  Harry didn't just grow out of hexing
people.  He had a big dramatic fight with Draco in which Draco 
almost bled to death in front of him.  Then he had several weeks of 
detention--which were only interrupted by Professor Snape killing
Professor Dumbledore.

And hexing people proved to be a handy skill in DH, where Harry
hexes people right and left in the Ministry, the bank, and, notably,
in Ravenclaw Tower.

Pippin:
> We don't see James getting a handle on his thrill-seeking behavior,
> but we watch Sirius struggle with it in OOP. We don't see James trying
> to make the transition from Order member to family man, but we see
> Lupin in DH. And we don't see Lupin enjoying life with his wife and
> son, but we do see James. James goes from a braggart whose idea of
> bravery is brandishing an imaginary sword at a non-existent foe to
> someone who faced a deadly enemy bare-handed and unflinching. 

Montavilla47:
Maybe I'm dense, but that doesn't seem like such a big change to me.
The transition that people are missing are James going from "arrogant
toerag" (which is all that we see of him in the memories) to someone
Lily Evans (protector of the weak and arbitor of all things socially
acceptable) would enjoy dating.  And someone Dumbledore chose
to make Head Boy.

Either James made that transition between the end of the fifth year,
when he was gleefully dangling Snape upside down, or he *didn't*
substantially change and Lily started dating him just because her
hermones overtook her good sense--and Dumbledore gave him the 
Head Boy position because he---well, maybe DD's hormones 
overtook his good sense.  Or maybe it just didn't matter what 
the Gryffindors did to the Slytherins because boys will be boys 
the Snakes are all future Death Eaters anyway.

I have no beef myself with the wandless James at the end.  The
thing that blows me away is the Marauders targeting Snape
after they almost killed him.  (Something Harry does *not* do
with Draco.)   I think that perhaps with the wand moment, 
people are upset because it's the last chance for the story to 
signal that James was something more than an arrogant toerag.

Frankly, I don't care if he wasn't.   But it's a hell of a joke to
play on those who believed the James/Lily hype.


Pippin:
> IMO, the epic is not one of sin and redemption but of moral and
> emotional growth, from Voldemort and his fellow baby-heads, who never
> get the better of their aggressive impulses and are eventually doomed
> by them, to Harry who learns the full power of love at Dobby's grave,
> and thus  can choose to offer a second chance to the man who killed
> his parents even after years of seeking   revenge on him,  and  who
> can choose to return good for evil in giving honor to the memory of a
> man who never honored him in life.

Montavilla47:
Did you think that offer Harry gave LV was a sincere one?  Because it
didn't come that way to me.

> > Mike:
> > Facing Voldemort, knowing he is 
> > more powerful than you and that you are going to die is bravery. 
> > Facing him without your wand, is resignation to your fate. Not 
> > bringing your wand in the first place is foolish, just as Voldemort 
> > noticed. 
> 
> Pippin:
> Foolish? Or just tired and accident prone? Dumbledore made the same
> kind of mistake on the Tower -- he  froze Harry instead of dealing
> with Draco first. I'm sure he realized it was a mistake as soon as
> he'd done it, but it was too late by then. James always had fast
> physical reflexes, but that means the body moves before the brain has
> finished analyzing the situation, not good in this case. James had
> also spent days on end with an active, housebound toddler -- I'm
> worn out just thinking about that. No wonder he was tired!   

Montavilla47:
Funny, but I never took that Dumbledore thing at face value.  I always
assumed that Harry was seeing it as a mistake, but that Dumbledore
allowed himself to be disarmed because he had always intended to talk
Draco down from the murder, rather than use force.  Of course, that
would mean he'd need to live and retrieve his wand (lest Draco 
become its master).