Lack of re-examination (was:Re: Secrets (Long) OLD POST REPOST)

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 186581

> >>Alla:
> <snip>
>Here is how I see it. At first Harry sees a teacher punishing a boy who **deserved to be punished** IMO for something wrong that he did. Said teacher used a punishment, which was a bit over the top. He did not use an unforgivable on him, he did not make him bleed, he did not cause him any permanent injury.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Right.  But it was still over the top, even if just a little.  And Harry never reconsiders it.  It's that lack of thought, that lack of reexamination (hey! just like the title of this cartoon! *g*), that bothers me.  

> >>Alla:
> <snip>
> But that is not my main point, I am certainly not arguing against your right to view it as some horrible thing that Harry must have been reevaluating in his mind. I am saying that I am glad that JKR did not put it up as a definite answer and leave a room for a reader to think both ways.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
I'm not asking JKR to *tell* us how to think, I'm pointing out that she doesn't issue us an invitation to think in the first place.  I never said Harry had to come to a specific conclusion after reexamining what Fake!Moody did to Draco.  Perhaps he'd reach a similar conclusion to yours, perhaps he'd not reach a solid conclusion at all.  But just by raising the question the reader would be invited to think things through themselves.

But because no such invitation was made, I don't think JKR left room for the reader to think both ways.  Draco deserved what he got and to think or feel differently is to work against the text.  I don't like it, but I'm not a fan of the series anymore.  (This is *why* I'm not a fan, actually.) 

> >>Pippin:
> But young readers who love a book read it over and over again. OTOH, if they  didn't like the book or were indifferent to it, why would it have any great influence on the way they think?

Betsy Hp:
Even with a reread the author doesn't extend an invitation to rethink this scene. Even with a reread *Harry* doesn't rethink this scene. Without a reread this scene adds its voice (however small) to the unthinking "tooth and claw" side of the zeitgeist.  I think JKR missed an opportunity here.

> >>Carol:
> <snip>
> At any rate, I understand exactly how Betsy feels, especially since I so strongly disapproved of "Moody" even when I thought that he was a good guy. But I agree with Pippin that the reader, at least the alert reader, is supposed to reread GoF from a new perspective. 

Betsy Hp:
Honestly, I don't think we're supposed to reexamine this scene from a new perspective. Unless JKR wants us to feel cleverer than her protagonist, which would surprise me.  I think we're supposed to both like and relate to Harry. And I think both those feelings would be compromised if we feel we got something Harry never does.

> >>Carol:
> I also think it's best that we *don't* have Harry or the narrator going back over events and reevaluating them. It's really
much more satisfactory to do it ourselves, whether we're adults or intelligent children, who really can figure more things out for themselves than many adults give them credit for.

Betsy Hp:
It'd be weird if the narrator did the reevaluation; that would underline just how badly Harry missed things.  But I thought it a mistake to not have Harry re-think things. I'm not asking for a play-by-play, just some thought.  Carol, you pointed out earlier in your post:

> >>Carol:
> <snip>
> And Harry isn't given time to rethink it. By the time he
realizes who "Moody" really is, Barty Jr. has committed much more serious offenses directly involving Harry, including sending him to the graveyard to be murdered. <snip>

Betsy Hp:
But that's why I blame JKR.  She should have *made* time, maybe not the end of GoF, maybe later on in the series, but just some point where Harry reevaluates things.  If JKR was hoping for the *reader* to reexamine and reevaluate she really should have had her protagonist do the same if she wanted him to end the series as someone the reader could still relate to.

> >>Carol:
> <snip> HP isn't an Aesop's fable in which the moral (if any) is openly stated. The books are open to interpretation, and different readers will identify different themes (or none) and arrive at different conclusions about the morality depicted in the books. If  Harry arrived at the "right" conclusions himself, the readers would have no reason to think for themselves. <snip>

Betsy Hp:
I'm neither asking for an overarching moral end nor an Aesop's Fable. I'm asking for Harry to *think*, to think about the very things you're saying JKR wanted her reader thinking about.  Because he doesn't, I don't think JKR reexamines the scene herself.  So I think being bothered by it, thinking Draco really was mistreated, goes against the text.

> >>Betsy Hp:
> > <snip> *I* thought about the implications of Neville being alone in the classroom with the man who tortured his parents to madness at a time when he was emotionally vulnerable. <snip> In fact they go the opposite way and have one of Neville's classmates praise that DE in front of him.
 
> >>Pippin:
> I'm not sure what you're getting at, here. Yes, Neville was manipulated in a very ugly way. But Harry and the readers certainly find out how that feels when Harry thinks that Dumbledore betrayed him. It's  far more immediate to explore the issue that way than to have Harry speculate about Neville's feelings. 

> >>Carol responds:
> I think that Betsy (correct me if I'm wrong, and, BTW, good to see you back!) is responding specifically to GoF. <snip>

Betsy Hp:
I was more thinking about the one time Fake!Moody as a teacher was brought up again, that I could recall.  (And also, hello! *g*) Not so much the whys and wherefores of it, but that the one time it was brought up again it was to praise Fake!Moody. IOWs, it looks to me like JKR *really* has no interest in her readers going back, reexamining the actions taken by a sadistic DeathEater, and contrasting it to how we were encouraged to look at the actions of a "cool" teacher. 

Readers may rethink, but they're going against the text when they do so.  And I honestly think connecting Neville being manipulated by the DE who destroyed his parents (or at least helped) and Harry being "manipulated" by Dumbledore (a version of events I'm not entirely sure the books support) is a stretch. I see nothing in the text that encourages that connection.

> >>jkoney:
> I just don't see Harry looking back and feeling bad about this. Malfoy had just sent a curse at Harry. I see Harry at the time happy that Malfoy got caught and punished. Later on, I see him thinking how ironic that a DE punished a junior DE.

Betsy Hp:
I agree that this is exactly how the text, how JKR, expects her readers to interpret the scene.  Sure it was a little over the top, but it was Draco, who we know deserved it.  Nothing to rethink here.  Per the books at least. :)

It bothers me, but I also know I'm bringing my own stuff into the text.  A *lot* of my own stuff into the text. :D  I liked Draco which I think JKR never saw coming.
 
> >>Betsy_Hp 
> > I will say, I don't recall Harry ever struggling with his own moral awareness.  *That's* what I was missing. 

> >>Pippin:
> But that's an adult thing, and Harry's status as an adult is deliberately ambiguous. It's pointed out that in real world Britain a seventeen year old  is legally a child -- an innocent. 
>  JKR writes the story so that innocents who identify with Harry  can continue to do so, while adults can recognize that Harry couldn't  make the decisions he makes as an adult without knowing that moral failures are a part of being human and that everyone shares some responsibility for the existence of evil in the world. 

Betsy Hp:
But Harry is supposed to be growing up as the books progress.  And I thought you'd said a clever child would reread the books and pick up on the moral issues in this scene (the issues Harry missed)?  Which means that by book end, the young reader no longer identifies with Harry.  They're smarter than him and Harry never catches up.

> >>Betsy Hp:
> > You won't be prevented and, if you're a good guy, you don't have to re-think it if you *do* use it. 

> >>Pippin:
> But that's the point of free will, that no one can force you to accept moral responsibility. 

Betsy Hp:
Okay.  And Harry, by his own free will, refuses moral responsibility.  Again, as a reader, Harry is slipping in my estimation. :D
 
> >>Betsy Hp"
> (I'm old-fashioned in that I see the "mythology of good guys and bad guys" as neither "little" nor strictly "fictional".  There's a lot that's foundational and instructive to real-life issues in those sort of mythologies.  It's why they're still told, I think.)

> >>Pippin:
> I called it a "little fictional mythology" because the people who are seriously dealing with evil in our society don't divide the world into good guys and bad guys. IMO that's not the way that modern philosophy and theologians and human behavior experts talk about evil. 

Betsy Hp:
Neither do the mythologies.  The very good ones (the ones that stick) don't have a sorting hat. ;D

> >>Pippin:
> I love, love, love Tolkien. But the only moral responsibility for evil that a good guy has in Tolkien is not to seek power above his station. That's fine if you believe in the feudal system, and maybe Tolkien did. <snip>

Betsy Hp:
I disagree a lot. :)  So this probably isn't a good example to use for what all the mythologies stand for.

Betsy Hp (this is *waaay* too long, most likely repetitive, but I'm not up for editing, sorry)