[the_old_crowd] Re: HBP: thoughts...

[Aberforths Goat / Mike Gray]

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Kneasy wrote,

> It's probably only from now on that not thinking before 
> acting will become quite literally a fatal error. He's on the 
> high-wire and his safety net has gone. Interesting to compare 
> and contrast with Tom at the same age - Tom was 
> always planning, looking for the edge. Calculation vs 
> emotion. The emotion tells Harry that instinctively he's 
> right, but he should have learned from the Sirius debacle 
> that being 'right' emotionally doesn't guarantee success. In 
> fact it can have disasterous consequences if you don't do 
> your sums first. Has he learned this lesson or will there be 
> some more nasty set-backs before it finally sinks in?

What you say makes sense - but I'm not sure that's where is Jo is going.
While it was Harry's emotions that got him into the mess in OoP, it was
Harry's emotions that got him out of it, too. Hence, I don't think Jo's
point is that Harry needs to balance his heart out with his head.

I *think* she's trying to say something else: his emotions are there,
and there's a lot of good in them. But they still aren't where they need
to be. As long as he keeps on *hating* people like Snape and Malfoy his
bad emotions are going to keep his good emotions from reaching their
full power.

Case to point: if Harry had been able to apologize to Snape in OoP, he
might have had a huge breakthrough with Occlumency - and would never
have ended up in the Department of Mysteries. Hence the problem
wasn'tthat he didn't use his head enough but that he used his heart the
wrong way.

Now whether it is Harry's head that will finally convince him that his
heart is out of whack - that's another question. Somehow, I don't think
so. At the moment anyway, the evidence against people like Snape and
Malfoy is too strong for Harry's rationality to do the trick. I predict
that something will happen that we force him to empathize with one of
them, which will lead to a breakthrough.

There. I'm sure y' all are glad that you don't have to wait 5 years
until Jo's finished the last volume of the encyclopedia. ::wry grin::

Baaaaaa!

Aberforth's Goat (a.k.a. Mike Gray) 
_______________________

"Of course, I'm not entirely sure he can read, 
so that may not have been bravery...."