CHAPDISC: PS/SS 1, The Boy Who Lived and Avatar SPOILERS LONG

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 187704

>
> Alla:
>
> Eh, I meant better safeguard for Harry's life and safety, of course Petunia
could still throw him out. But if Dumbledore was here, he could have at least
taken Harry with him instead of Harry suffering in the orphanage and Dumbledore
maybe finding him later.

Pippin:
Suffering what? The standard of care in a modern British institution is higher
than what Harry received at the Dursleys, I should hope. <SNIP>

Alla:

I should hope so too. However the only orphanage in the fictional Britain that JKR let us observe (AFAIR) was the orphanage where young Tom spent his days and yes, I think that is considered suffering for Tom and for kids who suffered from him. And I am the last person to pity Tom Riddle.

Yes, I know this was few decades ago in the books, but since we are not shown anything else, I would think it is a valid assumption to make that this is what life in the book orphanages is.

Believe me, if this is not so, I think Harry would have been much better off in the good orphanage than with Dursleys.

Pippin:
You'd be happier if Dumbledore denied to himself that a risk was present?
Exactly where in the books do we find a risk-free environment? Wait, there's
one. King's Cross.

Alla:

 So the choice is either Dursleys or Kings Cross? I just do not think so. But I had been through choices in the past and really do not want to recite them again. 

And I am just not convinced that Dumbledore considered all the risks and acted accordingly, that's all. So no, I would not  be= happier  if he denied to himself that a risk was present. I just think that he did not consider the enormity of the risk of placing Harry with Dursleys OR I can offer you this – JKR did not convince me that Harry's sufferings with Dursleys was truly and really just for the reason of saving Harry's life. 

Because Dumbledore's "pampered prince" idiocy does not just go away, it pops up in OOP again and this "reason" I consider to be quite disgusting one.

Hm, I am thinking now how much better I would have liked Dumbledore's OOP speech if it was shorter and basically said this :

I am sorry Harry for placing you with Dursleys, I know I took the liberties that I would have never done under normal circumstances, I know I  overridden what your parents wanted for you and took you away from your guardian and godfather. I did it for one very simple reason – without me doing it you will be dead. I am sorry for all of that, but I am not sorry for wanting to keep you alive.

Alla:
> Yeah, I know we have that mysterious blood protection, but then we are back to
me really not seeing the benefits of that blood protection in the text, really
not seeing that it was all worth it.

Pippin:
You can't say a guardrail wasn't needed because no one ever ran into it. As long
people avoided the cliff, it did its job.

Voldemort says that he and his DE's cannot penetrate the protection at Privet
Drive, not at least without the full power of the MOM. <SNIP>


Alla:

Yes I can if the guardrail causes the person who may or may not approach it pain and sufferings.

So to think that it is worth it, I would like to be convinced that the person at least will be approaching it.

Voldemort says that he and his DE cannot penetrate the protection? That's nice, really. However, I also see that a wizard approaches Harry quite freely when he is with Petunia of all people. She is the very person in whom Harry's mother blood dwells, isn't she?

So, how the heck I am supposed to believe that DE cannot approach Harry if this guy can?

And as I said,  it also will be nice to see DE looking and failing to find him.

I get what JKR was trying to do with blood protection, and really if either Dursleys were better people, OR if I thought that what Harry underwent through at Dursleys, thing  like prodding and pinching, Dursley' hunting, trying to duck from Vernon hands and Petunia's pan, starvation, which I consider pure physical abuse, if I thought that these things could be just brushed aside, forget about absence of love, then I would have went easy on JKR with how convincing I wanted blood protection to be.

But to me it is not so at all, I consider how Dudleys treated him to be horrible ( no, far from most horrible physical abuse, there is much worse of course  but to me still abuse), I want to see extremely convincing explanation of why Harry was forced to undergo all that.

Blood protection **would have** cut it for me if shown in better details, I would still have not excused Dumbledore for not checking on Harry and making Dursleys to lay off, but sure it is enough to place him there.

"Pampered prince" just does not cut it for me at all.

Oh, here is the famous example for you. Let's take Star Wars. I am not knowledgeable at all about huge Star Wars canon books, to warn you, I just love original movies and saw sequels.

Ben placed Luc with his uncle, right? And he did it to save Luc from his father and because his mother asked him to, right? Sorry, I believe  it was mentioned in the movie, but last time I watched it was couple years ago so I am not sure.

Now, granted the analogy is not exact since Luc's uncle was not abusive, however, I think in a sense it holds because Luc is hidden from his destiny as well.

So let's imagine that the uncle would have been much harsher or even abusive. Would I have blamed Ben for a **second** for him placing Luc there? Not in a million years. We are shown clearly that Emperor wants Luc on his side and Daddy dearest keeps trying to convert him even over the movies till the last minutes of course.

Do you see? I totally see that the only thing that motivated Ben was to save Luc's life. The danger is clear to me, I am satisfied that Luc needed to be hidden and it truly was for his own good. Again, if Ben had other motivations in the books, I am not aware about them.

Dumbledore on the other hand to me is not clear all.


Pippin:
The attack on the Longbottoms, and the penetration of the Weasley household by
Peter Pettigrew, shows what the DE's were capable of. Don't you think they'd
have gone after Harry if they could?

Alla:

I don't know Pippin. After Longbottom's attack they all seemed to be pretty scared to return to light – be it for real or fake. Could they? It is possible, but I would not even go as far as to say that it was highly likely. IMO of course.


Pippin:
The pampered princes of the book: Dudley, Draco, Sirius, James, even Dumbledore
himself, are they not damaged? Are they not selfish and unthinkingly cruel? 
Harry, OTOH, is prone to depression and anger, but he generally is not selfish
and at least he notices when he is being cruel.

Alla:

And we are back to the arguments about child who is growing with loving parents or loving family does not have to equal growing up a pampered prince. Harry does not owe swat for the good qualities in his character to Dursleys as far as I am concerned.

Pippin:
The point of the books, though, is that none of those conditions prevented
people from fighting evil. You don't have to be a storybook good guy to do it.
That's what is subversive of the genre, IMO.

Alla:

I can produce rather long list of the fantasy writers where characters who are very far from being storybook good guys and fighting evil anyway.

Here is what I consider to be subversive of the hero quest genre.

How about in addition to the chosen one who has his own destiny we will watch another boy literally grow and look for his destiny, which is a part of the destiny of the chosen one? We will see this boy make his own mistakes and learn and make mistakes again and finally realize what it is that he truly wants to do in the world and to be in the world. How about the Chosen one actually not having ANY adult mentor in the timeline of what we see, but however really needing to learn some things and learning, truly learning it from his friends. And I do not mean to learn some general stuff from his sidekicks, like the necessity to laugh more or stuff like that, I mean some highly specialized knowledge without which Chosen one literally cannot proceed towards fulfilling his destiny. Needless to say it makes his friends to be so much better rounded characters.

And how about the boy who is looking for his destiny from another side of the spectrum so to speak to have a mentor who really really loves this boy and really does not like where this boy is heading, but still letting him to get smacked and learn truly learn from his mistakes instead of manipulating him towards what the mentor thinks boy should be doing.

And how about the novel idea of this mentor **not** dying and the boy still assumes central stage?

And how about making the adults in this universe to be extremely believable, and not once feeling that they are waiting for the kids to rescue them, even though in essence kids indeed have to rescue them.

Instead adults are fighting just as fiercely with the kids and if they are letting themselves to be arrested at the crucial moment knowing that kids need to do what they do, it feels extremely believable to me.

Yeah, that to me  is a development of the genre. Have I mentioned how much I love Avatar lately?

This was not mean to put Harry Potter books down by the way. I would take Harry over Ang as character any time and I could do with less neat ending of Avatar, but the more I think about it, the more I think that the writers of that show were so much more consistent  and ground breaking in so many ways.


JMO,

Alla