Redeeming Hagrid was Rewriting OotP

[Haggridd]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "psychic_serpent"
<psychic_serpent at y...> wrote:
 
> Sirius and Hagrid have both been parent-figures for Harry, although, 
> interestingly enough, I think Hagrid's relationship to him is more 
> motherly and Sirius' more fatherly.  Hagrid baked for Harry and 
> provided a comforting womb-like refuge for him--a home away from 
> Gryffindor Tower; when he invites Ron and Hermione there, it's like 
> he's bringing his friends home to meet his mum, and when Malfoy 
> insults Hagrid early in the first book, it's like he's INSULTING 
> Harry's mum.  (Which means it's hardly unsurprising that he doesn't 
> take well to Malfoy.)  Also, when Hagrid delivered Harry to Surrey 
> (a childbirth metaphor, I believe) he behaved a bit like a mother 
> who'd just given birth being forced to give up her baby for 
> adoption.  

ME:
There is perhaps nobody who is fonder of the character Hagrid than I
(as witness my screen name).  I think his loss would have proved
eqqually as devastating to Harry, though Harry would have dealt with
it as well as he has/will with the loss of Sirius.  I question your
assigning him a particularly maternal role, in contradisinction to
Sirius's paternal role.  It seems artificial.  First, who is to say
which roles are maternal?  In the mystery genre, Spenser (written by
Robert Parker) is a most virile "manly" man, and because he was raisd
by his uncles in a unisex household, has learned to cook well and to
love it.  Hagrid's protective measures for Harry can be described as
paternal, but also maternal in the way a mother linoness fights to
defend her cubs from an attack by hyenas.  I think that you can make a
case that Hagrid fills a major "parental" role for Harry.  The first
loving family he has known in ten years-- and it is indeed familial in
character.

I find your comment below about search for mother interesting, because
I noted Harry's very powerful reaction to Molly's calling herseld as
good as a mother to him.  This is a new note not heard before in
canon, and dovetails nicly with the increased attention to Lily.
> 
> I think this may show that Harry's search for a mother may soon move 
> to the fore of the series and become more important than his 
> previous search for a father--and the fact that JKR is slowly 
> leaking information to us about Lily and her sister, and 
> simultaneously depicting James as a fallible human plays into all of 
> that.  It also brings us back to the fact that Lily is the real hero 
> of the first fall of Voldemort--her sacrifice saved Harry and 
> defeated the Great Dark Wizard.
>

ME:
Here is where I think you hit thw nail on the head.  OoP represented a
switch in importance for Sirius and Hagrid.  But Sirius's position is
now frozen, because of his demise.  Even though she has left herself
an "out" with the Veil and the Archway, everything JKR has said about
the sries, and abut the death of a major character leads me to believe
she would not resort to one of these cheap measures to soften the loss
of Sirius, or to have it both ways.  So the death of Sirius, IMO,
moots any choice of which parental figure Harry loves best.

> I think OotP represents a change both in Harry's attitude toward 
> Sirius and toward Hagrid--they sort of switch places.  Pre-OotP, 
> Hagrid was in fact more important to Harry than one would believe 
> from reading OotP.  Harry was somewhat disconnected from Sirius by 
> necessity, first by dint of believing that Sirius had betrayed his 
> parents, then because Sirius was still on the run and they really 
> couldn't spend much time together.  
> 
> Harry's going back and forth (in OotP) on which parent figure is 
> more important to him feels very much like a real teenager waffling 
> on whether his mother or father is 'cooler.'  It is a time in life 
> when a child is likely to 'choose' one parent over the other, which 
> inevitably results in a good deal of pain for the rejected parent.  
> This is another reason why Hagrid struck me as more 'motherly' than 
> Sirius--and his taking care of his 'little' brother also contributes 
> to that motherly image.  In a way, Sirius and Hagrid were also 
> partners (dad and mum) in Harry's metaphorical rebirth as a Muggle 
> (his delivery to Surrey) since Sirius provided the motorcycle and 
> Hagrid actually got Harry there.
>  
> > I didn't revise it so Hagrid would be dead because he's ugly, or 
> > because he's guileless, or for any reason OTHER than the fact that 
> > I happen to think that his presence is not as useful to Harry, 
> > going forward, as Sirius' would've been. And I mean useful in the 
> > emotional sense.
> 

> 
> The story has become almost Oedipal, without the sexuality being 
> literal (as it never is with JKR).  James, Harry's literal father, 
> had already died, and in OotP he died for Harry again when the 
> perfect, noble father was revealed to be something of a bully.  His 
> substitute father, Sirius, died literally, but in truth that death 
> (to Harry) had begun metaphorically very close to the start of the 
> book when Harry had the opportunity to spend more time with Sirius 
> and find out that he was also not perfect, that he did not always 
> agree with Sirius and that sometimes he was annoyed by him and found 
> him hypocritical.  This is a classic relationship between a father 
> and teenage son before the son decides that he needs to break away 
> from his father's influence to mature and become his own man--
> especially a father displaying so many undesirable traits that will 
> only hinder the boy in fulfilling his destiny.
> 
> Only by breaking away from ALL of his fathers can Harry embrace the 
> legacy of his mother and defeat Voldemort, I believe.  It's possible 
> that JKR didn't have to kill Sirius literally--it could have 
> continued to be metaphorical.  But she didn't choose metaphor this 
> time--unless you believe, as I do, that Sirius' death represents the 
> parts of Harry that are similar to Sirius dying (of necessity) and 
> that, afterward, the new Harry will be reborn from Sirius' ashes.  
> (There are phoenix metaphors all through OotP.)  
>

If there is any Oedipal breaking away from a father figure, I think we
have seen it in OoP, but not with Sirius or Hagrid.  I refer to that
other, ultimate parental figure, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian
Dumbledore.  In fact, if there is a theme for the book, other than
recounting the run-up to VW II, it is Harry challenging Dumbledore's
heretofor sacrosanct infallibility.

psychic Serpent:
  I expect mother figures--including Hagrid, Petunia, and Mrs.
Weasley--and mother-
> love to be of utmost importance in the concluding books of the 
> series.
> 
> --Barb

Yes on the mother-love, no on your assignment of gender roles.
(But I loved your reasoning)
John (Haggridd)