Think about Neville

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, Barry Arrowsmith / Kneasy wrote
in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/the_old_crowd/message/1418 :

<< When you think about it,  prophecies are funny things. The odds 
are that some sort of self-fulfillment will occur rather than the 
ineluctable progression of events outside the control of those 
concerned. >>

Maybe the bias is in selection of which prophecies & their 
fulfilments make good tales. A tale, like that of Oedipus, showing
that the prophecy was fulfilled ONLY because of the efforts people
made to prevent it is attractively ironic and has the moral: you can't
escape your fate. 

Tales of prophecies which came true because they were misinterpreted
(which was easy because they were ambiguous) are also popular -- was
it the King of Lydia who asked the Oracle of Delphi if he should
invade the Persian Empire and the Pythia said "If you do, a great
empire will be destroyed" and he did and it was -- the Lydian Empire
destroyed by the Persians? Or "the Lydians will dance with noisy
feet", which was being marched off in shackles as slaves rather
celebrating a victory dance? 

I think modern people find the latter attractive because of the
sneakiness of the Oracle and the foolishness of the querent, but I
don't know what the Classical Greeks (who apparently DID believe in
Oracles as well as in Fate) found attractive about them.

Tales of a prophecy uttered by the Pythia which came true even tho' 
no one at all involved in it even knew there was a Prophecy only make
good advertisements for taking your questions to Delphi, not good stories.

<< Looked at objectively Neville seems a much more sympathetic
character anyway - honest, upright, honorable - and he doesn't whine.
Harry seems flashy and flawed in comparison. >>

Maybe Neville would seem less sympathetic and Harry more admirable if
the reader was inside Neville's head instead of Harry's head. 

Some of Harry's 'whining' (I admit, only some) is just his own
thoughts that he doesn't speak out loud, and I'm sure Neville has 
some thoughts like that, too.

If the readers were inside Neville's head, we would KNOW whether him
saying "I'm nobody" when Ginny was introducing him to Luna was a sign
of extremely low self-esteem (as so many people read it) or an attempt
to avoid interacting with Loony Luna (as I read it). How admirable
would he seem if we "heard" him glancing into the compartment and
observing: "Urggh, that's Loony Luna from Ravenclaw. She's *weird*; I
don't want to be near her" and then Ginny forced him into the
compartment and he thought: "No! If she learns my name, she might call
'Hi, Neville!' in public and then everyone will be saying (singsong)
'Neville's got a girlfriend. Numpty Neville and Luna Loon holding
hands under the moon' ... " 

(Thanks for teaching me the word 'numpty' which alliterates so nicely.
I suppose it's related to 'numbskull" and "numb-nuts", common USAn
insults.)

If Neville is the Prophecy Boy and the heroic vanquisher of LV after
Harry has *failed*, EpitomeOfGoodness!DD was wrong (not unusual) or
Puppetmaster!DD was using Harry as a decoy to protect Neville.