Humor in HP

[Brian]

No: HPFGUIDX 186552

Finding humour in tragedy is very British.  You only have to look at the reaction after the London tube (metro) and bus bombings.

When the news reporter said "Shopkeepers are opening their doors 
bringing out blankets and cups of tea," I just smiled. It's like yes. 
That's Britain for you. Tea solves everything.

You're a bit cold?
Tea.
Your boyfriend has just left you?
Tea.
You've just been told you've got cancer?
Tea.
Coordinated terrorist attack on the transport network bringing the 
city to a grinding halt? TEA DAMMIT!

My kettle broke. We had to go and buy a new one. You can't have a 
national emergency without tea and the one time I tried to boil water in a saucepan, I spilt it all over the floor.

Though perhaps the funniest reaction was because it happened the day 
after London beat Paris to secure the Olympic Games.  "Wow!  I didn't 
think the French would be THAT upset!"

If anyone dared to find humour in 9-11, Americans found it offensive.  The Brits are just different in that way.  Just as medics and nurses tend to have humour which others would find in bad-taste because of all they deal with on a day-to-day basis, perhaps all Britain endured with the blitz had a lasting effect on British humour.

I find JKR's humour very British. "Oh of course, we're going to be 
hunting down the Horcruxes in a mobile library," etc.

Brian