Lockhart's role Was: Re: CHAPTER DISCUSSION Chamber of Secrets Ch. 6

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 188889

Annemehr wrote:

<snip> Lockhart's place in the plot itself could have been filled by nearly anyone.  I can't think of anything that happened that he was essential for.  He was instead a handy redshirt who was used to advance the plot in certain ways that could just as easily been accomplished otherwise: to anger the snake Draco conjured in the dueling club, to introduce the concept of the memory charm, to cause the cave-in that made Harry continue to the Chamber alone, to name a few.
> 
> I just think, as the plot of this book did not involve any particular need of a particular DADA teacher, that Lockhart was, literarily, a chance for JKR to have a little fun with the DADA curse, and to contribute to the necessary general accumulation of frustration for Harry. 
> 
> I might even guess that he was just as important to JKR as a chance to poke fun at someone who drove her nuts as he was in his function in the book itself.
> 
> Though I couldn't say if even JKR knows that for sure.

Carol responds:

I think that Lockhart's primary purpose was thematic, a foil to Harry showing how being a celebrity can go to a person's head. James serves a similar purpose in a less comic way. Yes, she was getting a bit of revenge by depicting a character resembling someone she knew as an egotistical, incompetent airhead whose own spell rebounds on him, but she was also showing Harry's aversion to that kind of fame. (At least Harry, in part thanks to Snape, has no groupies following him around like poor Krum later in the series.) I think that the famous characters, even Voldemort, are variations on the theme (actually motif) of celebrity. Ludo Bagman is another character who fits this category.

Lockhart does, of course, wreak havoc necessary to the plot (foreshadowed by the incident with the Cornish pixies, which reveals his incompetence)--he angers the snake that attacks Justin, he dissolves the bones in Harry's arm, and, as you say, he causes the cave-in that prevents Ron from joining Harry (and almost certainly getting killed) in facing the Basilisk and Diary!Tom. And the backfiring Memory Charm, caused by Ron's damaged wand (and carefully foreshadowed through the book) ultimately takes HRH into the Closed Ward of St. Mungo's in OoP, where otherwise they never would have gone (in contrast to Neville, who had a very good reason to be there).

Actually, I can't imagine any other teacher fulfilling that role. JKR needed a highly incompetent teacher whose specialty was a Memory Charm. Of course, he didn't have to be as flamboyant and egotistical as Lockhart, but it's funnier that way and (in contrast to, say, Umbridge's punishment) actually enjoyable for the reader when he's hoist with his own petard.

I forgot to mention that he also serves as a foil to Snape in the Dueling Club incident, hinting at Snape's skill with a wand despite his remarks in Potions class about "foolish wand waving."

Carol, feeling sorry for Wizards because they can't watch the Olympics and don't even know what skiing is