CHAPTER DISCUSSION: PS/SS 2, The Vanishing Glass

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 187745

<snip summary>
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> 1.	"Don't ask questions--that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Dursleys." It seems Harry and DD learned similar rules. Harry doesn't ask questions; Dumbledore doesn't tell more than he has to. Do you think JKR is merely withholding information from the reader as a plot device, or is communication breakdown also a true theme within the HP series?

Carol responds:
I think it's both. JKR is secretive, too--she likes to withhold information to surprise the reader or to give us partial information (a la Dumbledore and Snape) so the that we "know" what Harry does and sometimes leap to the same wrong conclusions. Sometimes the partial information is just foreshadowing, as in the reference to "young Sirius Black" in chapter one. But I think that the breakdown or failure of communication is also a persistent motif--withheld information, misinformation, interruptions just as someone is about to reveal important information. Just to take one example, look at Harry's and Hermione's interpretation of Tonks's and Mrs. Weasley's behavior in HBP. Hermione thinks that Tonks has survivor's guilt; Harry thinks that Mrs. Weasley is trying to interest Bill in Tonks and that Tonks was in love with Sirius (the big, four-footed Patronus must be Padfoot, right? Wrong.) Anyway, that's just one example of many throughout the books. To give an example more closely related to SS/PS, Harry later hears DD tell Petunia "We have corresponded" and thinks he's referring solely to the Howler. The reader at that point knows about the letter left with baby Harry on the doorstep, but neither Harry nor the reader yet knows about the correspondence that will be revealed in "The Prince's Tale."
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> 2.	The only thing Harry likes about his appearance is the thin scar shaped like a bolt of lightning on his forehead. Why do you think he likes it? How do you feel about that piece of information? Do you think the soul bit communicated with Baby Harry at one time, or does the soul bit have its own emotions that Harry sometimes feels?

Carol:
I think he likes it because it's unique and distinctive. If it weren't for the scar, he'd be just a skinny kid with taped glasses and overlarge hand-me-downs. (He doesn't know that he's a wizard and is special, though not unique, in that respect, too.) Maybe that's one reason that JKR wanted a boy as the hero of her book. Most girls wouldn't consider the scar "cool." I don't see any evidence that the soul bit communicated with baby Harry, only accidental magic like all young wizards display when they're angry or scared.

Carol, who has to get off the computer now because of a thunderstorm and will finish later