On Letters (was Re: Hmmm. What's your favourite *now*?)

[potioncat]

No: HPFGUIDX 183052


> 
> Montavilla47:
> You're mistaking my meaning, Geoff.  I admit it is easy to mistake 
and
> it seems like I'm bashing Harry.  I don't mean to.  My post was in
> response to (was it Potioncat or Pippin?  I know it was a "P" 
post), who 
> said that JKR was deliberately making Harry into an "Everykid" by 
> having him act in a mediocre way.

Potioncat:
It wasn't me!
Lynda started it!
She was complaining that Harry didn't manage to get a letter.

> Montavilla47:
> My contention was that JKR was mainly interested in that passage 
with
> piling on absurdity upon absurdity to create humor, and that the 
> reader needs to cut Harry a break in terms of his inability to 
snatch and
> read a letter in order to enjoy the joke.

Potioncat:
I think the joke's still there. My point is that Harry doesn't manage 
to get a letter on his own, because if he had, it would have changed 
the whole ballgame. 

We don't see him successfully get the letter and confront his family 
on his own. He doesn't get powers that allow him to control them. He 
may be a wizard, but he's still just an 11-year-old boy. Just like 
every other 11-year old boy who has to follow the stupid rules the 
adults in his life have laid out for him.

Unless we take note of the title of the book we're reading, all we 
know is that Harry is a typical boy who's just learned he's a wizard. 
We don't know he's made of heroic stuff. To see it too soon would 
make him Hero, rather than the boy who does heroic things.

As for mediocre...well, that's Snape's word for him, isn't it?
> 

>Montavilla47 
> James (from the Giant Peach) and Charlie (from the Chocolate 
Factory) 
> are likewise alone, tiny, abused, and poor.  But they both take 
every
> chance they are given, and Charlie persists beyond all reason in
> hoping and trying to get that Golden Ticket.

Potioncat:
But they don't get anything on their own either. Someone/something 
comes along and helps.(I haven't read James, just seen the movie 
version.) Harry persisted in hoping to obtain a letter, too.

(by the way, Lupin and Sprout are in James and the Giant Peach. For 
what it's worth.)