Happy birthday westmoon!!

I've been following a rather long discussion about Harry's getting special treatment in the books, and have something to say about it (pause for expressions of shock). It has gotten into a good area, I think, which is the idea of people resenting special treatment regardless of the reason for it. Think, for instance, about children with serious diseases and their siblings. I believe it's generally understood that siblings can feel jealous of the attention paid to the sick child, and that these feelings should be addressed and not just dismissed by saying the child should feel lucky he doesn't have a disease. Of course the child doesn't want to feel sick; but the jealousy speaks to an anxiety about how he's felt about by his parents or whatever.

So that led me to realize the three characters in HP canon who get the most focused on Harry's special treatment are all characters with issues about themselves not being special--or worse. It's not about Harry, really--Harry could be carried to class by Veelas every day and it wouldn't bother them as much if they were happy in themselves, but as it is they just can't not let it bother them. If you look at what happens to these characters in canon their experience seem to all speak to this same issue. We're not inside their heads hearing about how this is an issue, but JKR is constantly thinking up new things to happen to them that play on it where they're not good enough or don't triumph. I think that's as close as she can come to telling us this is an issue.

( The characters I'm thinking of are Ron, Draco and Snape. )

I was thinking about essential choices today in HP...well, that and Peter Pettigrew and Draco. It all goes back to that line in CoS, ( It's our choices that show us who we are. Spoilers for HBP. )

I've been reading ajhalluk's continuing essay on bullying in the Potterverse and the twins came up, specifically, whether or not they have any "real malice." That's made me think about my own impressions of them, which I don't think will be backed up by specific scenes because it's been a while and I don't have Twins scenes imprinted in my memory. However, I do remember what I thought about them in GoF, probably because it was part of one of the things I liked best about that book.

( Weasleys and money. )