Dragons, Produced and Tickled, and Other Pleasantries

[nrenka]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:

> Pippin:
> And despite this long habit, neither Dumbledore nor Voldemort 
> regards him as particularly slippery? OFH!Lucius Malfoy is more 
> like it, methinks.

Lucius Malfoy maybe--but one thing I got absolutely dead-to-rights in 
HBP is that Lucius Malfoy is the most over-estimated character in the 
fandom, not the second coming of the Dark Lord.  

> Pippin:
> What about anti-werewolf bias? That seems to be moving front and
> center,  ESE!Lupin or no. It's interesting that Fenrir seems to
> be trying to create a racial identity for werewolves, that it's 
> something he thinks they need in order to gain recognition for 
> their interests.

On the other hand, anti-werewolf bias doesn't have the constructive 
factor that the blood prejudice does.  That both says something good 
about some people (we're innately superior) and provides a scapegoat 
group.  "We're not werewolves" isn't structually similar.

> Isn't it strange how our hearts go out to Harry, and yet his dream
> is little different than Slytherin's? Harry even assumes that he
> gets all his desirable traits from his wizard relatives, the 
Potters,
> and yet we know (and so would he if he thought about it) that
> his green eyes come from Mum. 

I don't exactly get your sinister reading here, because I'm inclined 
to read "Potters" as shorthand for "all the relatives".  But maybe 
there's a nuance here that JKR is indicating to us.

> If the blood ideology is singled out, it's because it's more
> ubiquitous than most of us are willing to admit, and harder
> to fight because we may be indeed biased genetically toward
> the familiar. But the enemy is intolerance, not the longing for
> family, don't you think?

Not all intolerances are created equal, in the Potterverse.  I 
wouldn't say that intolerance isn't a theme, but on the other hand, I 
wouldn't be that happily generic, either, and throw everything into 
the pot as just 'different' manifestations of the same global problem.

> Pippin:
> Harry got some too. I started HBP with a group first time through
> (waves to Rita and CV) and we all agreed that Harry got what he 
> deserved with Draco's train stomp. 

Ummm, so non-aggressive snooping deserves a broken nose?  Goodness, I 
hate to think what you'd consider Snape to have deserved for 
following the Marauders around, snooping on them like he was.

-Nora curses at a leaky window that won't close all the way