Amateur HP Psychology

[sistermagpie]

I am not getting any e-mail and I don't know why. They just started coming, but anything from today before the last ten minutes seems to be gone.

I've been reading this book on the Shadow as in Jung (kind of a theme lately) and I'm reading about how the Shadow is all the things you repress in yourself, so you're enraged when you see them in other people. So somebody else could be a terrible person but wouldn't bother you as much because you're not repressing those kinds of things too much. What's horrible about it is I'm reading and knowing that my shadow…

Is post-GoF Ginny Weasley.

She's not the only one, obviously, but oh my god she so is my shadow. When I hear anyone defending her--even reasonably--I am filled with rage. Of course, being who I am (what I repress) I have to try to listen objectively and even admit when the person has a point, because I always want to be accurate and blah blah. Sometimes even I have to defend her because something's off. But what I really want to do is hex the person so that they shut up. Or say something mean that's probably like, "Don't start talking about Quidditch, you'll only embarrass yourself." Or run into the person and put them in the infirmary. This is why it's so strange when people say one must hate Ginny because one wants Harry for herself, because when Harry is liking Ginny it's hard for me to just not see him as a jerk. Like I picture them in their 30s as some dreadful couple I'd avoid. Unfortunately this isn't exactly objective canon analysis, so I can't usually just say that.

The one good thing about this is Lupin is a lot like me in this way--I mean, the kind of stuff he swallows--so maybe he hates her too. I believe when Ginny is throwing her temper tantrum in OotP Lupin quietly shuts the door. For Lupin that's probably the equivalent of smacking her in the face. Poor guy has to live with her.

Oh, the other thing I just read in one essay in the book that we tend to notice and react to Shadow things more in our own gender than the opposite gender--we can ignore stuff when it's in the other gender. I guess that's where fandom's OMG U R JUS JELLUS AND U DON'T LIKE GIRLZ!!1!!1

I was thinking about this in my ballet class, mostly because I have another Shadow problem there, or maybe it's just a pet peeve. Okay, in a dance class you often split into groups to do combinations. There is this woman who always GOES WITH ALL THE GROUPS! In this case there's just the two groups, but it drives me up a tree. The point is to split up so there's room. Yes, she's just one more person, but why the hell does she get to decide that she's the person who gets to dance whenever she wants because everyone else is only going once? What if everybody just decided to do that? (And btw, we're talking about somebody who's in class with some professional dancers--not me--and is herself not even really on the level the class is at. Every time I see her doing it I start stewing. Also she always winds up standing near me so I'm wishing there wasn't somebody so close to me because I don't like people behind me and look--it's her!

Comments

[joyfulgirl1013.livejournal.com]

YES, YES! That was exactly what I was going to put in my essay (that I sort of never wrote...*is lazy*), but that it's Draco's patheticness that makes him such an effective shadow for Harry and for the reader. You can love Snape because of his skills even if he is being evil, but you can't love Draco for his patheticness.

And I really feel as though this is because the thing Harry hates the most about himself, deep down, was how sad and small and pathetic he was at the Dursleys. JKR never talks about it much, but no matter how much better Harry always thought himself than them, it all boiled down to his having to do their dirty work, to being locked away in a cupboard (so funny that through the use of a cupboard Draco finally grows up!), to being treated like an insignificant and meaningless child and given no control over his destiny. Draco is pathetic because he is a child and can never understand the larger score; at the Dursley's, Harry was also not allowed to impact his own life at large. And he never wants to be that child again. I mean, he is always trying to play with the big boys (Snape, Dumbledore, Voldemort) not only because he has to, but because he really wants to be an adult so he's never that helpless again. The moment Harry came out of the cupboard he became an adult; through the use of a cupboard, Draco realized his own smallness and inability to really cope in the adult world. Interesting. XD

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

OMG, you have to write that essay--that's awesome! Draco, too, is always trying to play with the big boys and is pretty much treated as a child--even by Harry. *Especially* by Harry, which is probably a big reason for him wanting to rival him as a real DE.

I remember one thing I loved in OotP was when Snape went into Harry's memories there was one of Dudley on a tricycle and Harry "burning with jealousy." I thought--huh. When does Harry ever admit he's jealous of Dudley? He doesn't, but of course he was. And that's another reason he hates Draco so much, because Draco walks around having everything. Harry can't even see that Draco doesn't have stuff, because he's reminded of Dudley first thing. So Draco both inspires this childishness in him and also mirrors it back at him ("Harry Potter's got a broom...").

[joyfulgirl1013.livejournal.com]

Really? Wow, ok, I'll try to bring it back from wherever it happens to be on my comp. But yeah, I'd actually forgotten about the memory about the tricycle but I just figure....no matter what you ever think about a situation, everyday realities eventually come back to bite you. I really wish that JKR had delved more into the effects of Harry's childhood at the Dursley's, because it's this part of his life that you feel should be so integral to character and yet...we understand so little of it and how painful it was. I always like fanfics that try to go there for that reason.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

I'll add my vote for the essay, too. It sounds so interesting, the use of the cupboard motif. Maybe that's where the fics get their 'out of the closet' slants as well? The whole idea of entering a cupboard as one thing and coming out another, and the fact that the one is a vanishing cabinet on top of it, sounds interesting.