Our changing perception of characters

[annemehr]

No: HPFGUIDX 192308



> Annemehr:
> > Here's another question: over the course of the series, did your
opinion change drastically about any of the characters?
>
> Geoff:
> I looked at this question and have finally managed to find time to put
> fingers to keyboard with my views. I think my initial answer is "Yes,
I
> have changed my views in some cases" but that I believe it was the
> intention of JKR that we should.
>
<snip>
>
> Therefore, we see characters initially through the eyes of a boy in
> transition from childhood to adolescence and, by the end, to
adulthood.
>

Annemehr:
The Dursleys were such cut-out characters in the beginning that I was
ready to see other characters the same way.  By the end of the first
book, though, it was apparent that the main characters at least were
going to be more three-dimensional, so I think most of us were ahead of
Harry in seeing the shades of grey.  Of course, we couldn't have seen
them if JKR hadn't written them in.  So in that sense, I do agree with 
you.

I did wonder if anyone would mention Neville, but my opinion of him was
pretty well set by the end of PS/SS. :)

Geoff:
> However, as time goes on, Harry realises, as we all do through those
years,
> that there are no fully white or black hat wearers. Only folk of
varying shades
> of grey. And as time goes on, his view – and ours as onlookers
– begin to
> embrace this fact. Perhaps the one person whom you might query is
> Voldemort who was surely black, but at some point – perhaps as a
tiny child
> there must have been a flicker of good before his childhood was
shattered
> and his time in the orphanage destroyed any chance to divert him from
the
> desire for revenge which grew within him.

Annemehr:
For this part, I tried to find the book, but I'm not sure where it's got
to.  I'm sure I recall Mrs. Cole, the director of the muggle orphanage
where Tom Riddle grew up, saying that he was a strange baby who never
cried.  He then went on to kill animals and traumatise children.

Mrs. Cole certainly did not seem to be a bad person to me from the
little we saw of her.  I know Riddle hated the place, and framed Hagrid
to avoid being sent back early, but I do think the problem had to be
more with him than with the orphanage.  It could not have been such a
cruel place if at least one child had a pet rabbit, and there were
holidays to the seaside.

It is Mrs. Cole's description of him in HBP that especially makes me
think Voldemort had to be what is commonly called a psychopath or
sociopath.  It was a *birth defect* and had nothing to do with him
choosing good or evil.

In fact, I think at this point in the story, my opinion of LV changed
from thinking of him as an evil person to a kind of abstraction of evil.
As a man born without the ability to love, the evil happend *to him* as
much as to anyone else he hurt or killed.  I can't blame Harry for
treating him as a person who had any free will in the matter, for trying
to help him.  I just think it was futile.

Geoff:
<snip>
>
> So, yes, my views have changed. But I reiterate that I believe that it
has been
> JKR's intention for this to happen. that we have on several occasions
met
> characters who turned out to be the opposite of our first impression
and
> the point that, as in the real world, we often have to re-evaluate our
thoughts
> about people we know -  or think we know.
>

Annemehr:
Mostly, yes.  But I'm sure it was not her intention for me to get fed up
with Lily, or for Alla to despise Dumbledore. ;)