banning Beedle / Ron
Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)
catlady at wicca.net
Mon Apr 27 00:35:19 UTC 2009
No: HPFGUIDX 186336
Potioncat wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/186253>:
<< Which reminds me of a situation in canon. In TTOBTB, DD states that Malfoy wanted one of the tales removed because it promoted a point of view not in keeping with proper wizard teaching. >>
Before DH, it would occasionally come up on list that someone would criticize Dumbledore for failing to use his power as Headmaster of Hogwarts to indoctrinate the students into such elements of a virtuous worldview as knowing that half-Bloods and Muggle-borns have as much magical power, as much intelligence and skill, as much elegance and charisma as Pure-bloods, as knowing that the value of a human being does not depend on how much magic power (nor even wealth) he/she has, as knowing that Muggles are fully human, and so on. Some could come from requiring Muggle Studies, with the curriculum enhanced to emphasis how clever and artistic Muggles are, how powerful their technology and how beautiful their literature; some from History of Magic taught by a less soporific professor than Binns and requiring essays on the Goblin, Centaur, Muggle, etc side of the various events taught in class; some requiring professors to shoehorn it into technical curricula, such as Snape and McGonagall required to mention whenever the potion or spell being taught had been invented by a Muggle-born or used with great success for heroic purposes by a Half-blood...
And whenever I noticed listies saying that, I would say that those are the views of only one faction, not even the majority, of the wizarding community, and Dumbledore would get a lot of complaints from parents on the other side that he was trying to undermine the beliefs, such as wizarding superiority, that they were trying to pass on to their children, possibly enough complaints that the Board of Governors really would remove him.
Because it seems to me that we are shown that the wizarding community views the choice (narrowly) to embrace or abhor Dark Magic, and (more broadly) to try to be good or to try to be evil as a mere personal choice, like which Quidditch team or support or whether to decorate one's home in the most austere Modernism (yuck!) or a pastiche of not very accurate Victorian-style reproductions (yum! Except for the cats clawing everything and knocking everything down).
This bit of BtB, where Lucius tried to have an old, traditional book removed from the Hogwarts library, supports my theory of how much more trouble Dumbledore would receive for educational innovations with the same purpose.
Carol wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/186257>:
<< What annoyed me in the books was that Ron, who had been hailed as a Quidditch champion in OoP ("Weasley is our king") was back to the same old insecurities in HBP with the Felix Felicis episode.
I think probably I can say that 'self-confident' and 'feeling insecure' are opposites; 25-ish years ago I was in a mlist with some people who spoke of 'internal validation' and 'external validation', where 'internal validation' is roughly the same as 'self-confidence'. Presumably there is some sort of premise that humans need validation, so people who lack internal validation seek validation elsewhere i.e. externally. Meaning that people who seek praise or admiration are guilty of feeling insecure.
The above was all explanation of terms that I will use in my reply:
In real life, people who lack self-confidence do not gain it from just one gloriously, intoxicatingly, ecstatically joyous and pleasurable instance of external validation. That high wears off and one gradually goes back to one's normal self. So I never understood why you always complained that Rowling depicted Ron realistically in this matter. It seemed to me obvious all along that << his insecurity [is] a terrible burden that he constantly bears and only occasionally reveals to his friends >> just like in real life. I am struck that it took literary analysis for you to figure this out.
Sartoris22 wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/186260>:
<< Rowling is somehow taking revenge on Sean (the boy on whom Ron is modeled) because Sean never returned her affection. If
Hermione is an idealized version of Rowling , then through Ron, Rowling finally gets Sean, but, boy, does she make him suffer for it. >>
I don't know anything about it, but I've somehow always felt that Joanne had jilted Sean, and the Hermione-Ron ship was her way of showing that she regretted it. I think the author humiliating the character is about her plot ideas, not about Joanne and Sean.
Shelley k12listmomma in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/186265>:
<< And there is another thing- personality. A shy person may have one instance of public success, but that single event may not overcome their shy personality. The event is over, and the person retreats to the place where they feel comfortable. (big snip) We see success and think he should have been changed by that, but some insecurities are much deeper than that. Ron remains immature, and insecure, >>
You hit the nail on the head about Ron remaining insecure despite one big triumph. Your post is so good that I hate that I come on like just disagreement... but I have various little disagreements. I may have a different idea of 'shyness' than you do, but I never thought of Ron as shy. Isn't he perfectly outgoing about talking to strangers (like Harry on the Hogwarts Express first year). Isn't he perfectly willing to speak up in general conversation in the common room? IIRC when Ron and Harry were on the outs in GoF, Ron had other friends to hang with, but Harry had only Hermione.
Ron also remained immature as you wrote, but I think that's not related: normally one doesn't expect one big athletic success to make a young man more mature about considering other people's feelings and thinking through risks before taking them and valuing career success over dating success and all that stuff. I believe a person can grow up to be mature and still be insecure, except in the sense that 'mature' means 'perfect mental health' and therefore no one ever achieves it.
<< very young man, who had anger issues that his 400 lb father didn't warn his kids of the dangers of being overweight and didn't
protect them from repeating that mistake. >>
I know nothing about this case but am of the opinion that if the father had tried to prevent the kids from being overweight, the young man would have had anger issues with his father because the father deprived him of food and bullied him about exercise and withheld his love and made it clear that his son was too fat to be loved. The young man would still have grown up to be obese, because obesity is a fate that cannot be avoided any more than Oedipus's best efforts could avoid killing his father and marrying his mother, and the young man would have blamed the obesity on his father for making physical fitness such an supremely unpleasant experience. And, as I have a generally low opinion of parents, almost all of whom are mere mortal human beings with problems of their own, the father may well deserve the anger for some deeper reason, such as he really didn't love or like his children no matter how hard he tried to.
<< It took a event of blowing his top before his trainer had a good talk with him to get him to face that unresolved issue, and encourage him to have a talk with his dad over it. They did, and it was a moment of healing for this young man. >>
And I personally don't believe the common assertion that having a talk with a parent or other childhood oppressor will result in a moment of healing.
Sartoris22 wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/186266>:
<< I think that Ron is a better friend to Harry then Harry is to Ron >>
To which, Magpie replied in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/186273>:
<< Part of this is being in Harry's head--if we were in Ron's head we'd probably be getting a lot of Ron thinking about how things effect him too. But a bigger part is I think the roles they each have in their friendship and Harry's a very high maintenance friend that gets along with Ron partially because most of the time
Ron's pretty easy-going and follows more naturally than he leads.
>>
Ron's role in the friendship, AND his role in the plot, which is to be the hero's friend, while Harry's job in the plot is to be the hero. Also, I suspect that Ron was raised knowing more about how to relate with people and have friendships than Harry was.
Montavilla47 wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/186271>:
<< I don't see why I should believe that Ron "triumphed" over his insecurities when he destroyed the Horcrux when he didn't after winning the Quidditch cup in OotP and realizing he didn't need
good-luck potion to win in HBP. >>
Because the Horcrux event is magic! Surely magic has even more power than psychiatric drugs to repair damaged minds!
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