CHAPTER DISCUSSION: Prisoner of Azkaban Chapter 13: Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw

[Beccy Talmy]

No: HPFGUIDX 189964

<snip>
> June:
> The question that was asked was Harry is still letting thoughts
> of the Grim bother him. Is he right in thinking that the creature
> exists or were the various apparent sightings just coincidences or
> products of his over-excited imagination? It said nothing about
> before we find out the truth. Therefore my answer is correct there
> was (and in my opinion there is no such thing as) a Grim.


Beccy:
I think what was meant to be implied was 'as you were reading, did
you think that Harry was right to still be thinking about the Grim?'
- maybe not initially obvious, but a reasonable and interesting
line of inquiry. Trying to think back to when I first read it is
difficult, but I don't think I at any point feared that Harry's
death was imminent in POA, so I must have taken the Grim sightings
with a pinch of a salt.

I suppose from Harry's point of view, he is 'the boy who narrowly
escapes  death repeatedly', so it's understandable that seeing the
Grim and repeatedly being told about it would freak him out.
Literarily, maybe it also feeds into what we learn about the
circumstances of his parents' death - that they knew it was coming
and their efforts to evade it didn't work. Sirius being unknowingly
introduced to us as a false symbol of death fits in well with his
having an image as a murderer that we later realise was false.

--
'It is the choices society makes that causes someone to be disabled.
Organise things differently, and they are suddenly enabled.'