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

[zfshiruba]

No: HPFGUIDX 187765

> "pippin_999" wrote:

> I agree with Mike that it wasn't rash in principle to go after Pettigrew -- but to do so alone and without explaining? That was madness.

Zfshiruba:
Of course it was madness. Two of the three people he cared about more than anything else in the world had just been brutally murdered because someone he trusted, someone he convinced them to trust with their lives, had betrayed them. I defy anyone to act sanely in those circumstances; especially in an armed culture, which is what the Wizarding World is.


> Pippin:
> Is it crap  that kindness and care should be unconditional but  rewards and praise  go only to those who have earned them?
>
> IMO, Dumbledore (and JKR) think most children need some help learning to regulate their need for approval, just as they need some help learning to regulate their need for food. Praise and favors that he hasn't really earned have a sorry effect on Harry in HBP, just as Dumbledore feared they might, but at least it never became engrained.

Zfshiruba:
So no praise, no reason to think of oneself as important, no knowledge, only a hope, that someone cares for you, being told every day that you are not really human, not growing up believing that your life is valuable. You really think that that is a better state for a child than what you term "pampered prince" ?


> Pippin:
> <snip>
> He [Dumbledore] was planning to reverse the course of natural death and lead the WW in a revolution all so he could get out from having to care for his family. That's quite a sense of entitlement, don't you think?


Zfshiruba:
No, I think it's the ambitious dream of a desperately terrified escapist. You think kids from troubled homes can't dream big? You'd be amazed how many perfectionists come from troubled homes. Tom Riddle went after the prizes of note that Hogwarts offered too. A brilliant career; a long trip around the world, there are kids who want that every day of their lives because it grows out of a desperate need to get away from what they grew up with. Do you think there would be so many Rags to Riches stories if they didn't occasionally happen?!

Yes someone other than a pampered prince would think like that! I think like that! And while I will freely admit to being a little bit spoiled; I do work for my dreams. I have not had life handed to me. I did not have a perfect life; I did not get everything I wanted when I wanted it!

A sense of entitlement is believing you should have all that stuff without being prepared to work for it! A sense of entitlement is what Draco, who wants the world to kneel at his feet but refuses to look at the costs, who can't bring himself to actually take the steps to getting what he wants, has!

Growing up with someone like Ariana, either you make family all important, you devote yourself to her or you get out of there as fast as you can and you try to never look back, because you feel that if you do, you will drown yourself and your dreams will be swallowed, shattered, and destroyed by her weight dragging you down. It's not a pretty feeling; it's a rather ugly one, but it is that and not a sense of entitlement that drives your ambitions, your dreams, your big ideas.

Zfshiruba, who is getting really sick of the phrase pampered prince.