[HPforGrownups] Secrets of Harry's past WASRe: On the Issue of "Boys will be Boys" Chapt 14 Disc

[Shelley]

No: HPFGUIDX 190087

On 2/19/2011 10:16 PM, dumbledore11214 wrote:
>
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Shelley<k12listmomma at ...>  wrote:
> <SNIP>
> That's my irritation with Lupin- he's denying Harry a
> sense of identity of who he is, and in doing so, he's almost denying
> that he was good friends with both Lilly and James. Harry's starving to
> know where he comes from; the Mirror of Erosed should have been the clue
> for Dumbledore, and yet he doesn't give Harry the means to know about
> his parents. Surely Dumbledore could have pointed him to the school's
> records of awards and trophies, so that Harry had a place to begin to
> figure out who he was. At yet, then, everyone acts like Harry should
> "honor the name of the great Lilly and James", when he's been denied
> even knowing why he should. It's a much bigger "OOPS" than the normal
> "don't tell the kids everything", and "let us adults handle it."
>
> Alla:
>
> Shelley, I did not know what to snip from your wonderful post so I cut it rather arbitrarily since I completely agree with every word of it anyway, but the question I have for you is whether you agree with my answer :)
>
> I mean the answer to it always had been rather obvious to me, Harry was indeed being denied by Lupin, Dumbledore and pretty much everything else around him the sense of who he is, but to me it was simply being done for surprise value. That readers were supposed to uncover secrets of Harry's past as the series were coming along. Now do I agree with it? Oh my goodness of course I don't. I think it was cruel and horrible and most importantly unnecessary if you are looking at the story from within. I mean, I do not want to get into  whether Dumbledore was right or wrong to tell Harry about explosive stuff, prophecy and all, we are just talking here about who his parents were. I mean, not to tell him all of what you listed makes no sense to me except the author waved her hand and wanted readers to learn it later.
>
> JMO,
>
> Alla
Alla,
Yes, I agree with you. It is literary value that the main character has 
to learn of things that haven't been revealed earlier. Of that, I think 
Rowling goes a bit too far when it comes to Harry's parents. I don't 
know whether that was on purpose because she didn't want to bring in 
Harry's parents too soon, or it was on purpose to leave Harry the 
"forever orphan" with no family at all just so we sympathize with him more.

I don't think it would have spoiled the story at all to have someone 
give Harry a small photobook of his parents earlier in the series, and 
have him take a brief scene looking at his mom and dad having fun at 
school, looking happy on their wedding day, etc.

Shelley