But then, where JKR does dramatize love well is in the messy, painful family relationships. There I really believe it. I believe in love gone wrong between Sirius and Regulus and the Crouches. I feel for Sirius and James and the Malfoys and Bella and Cissy and sometimes the Weasleys. It's like when JKR isn't thinking about it she gets it right. When these people are hurting each other there must be love underneath because what else could be driving them on? It's maybe just ironic that her hero is then so isolated with relationships that are, again, pretty easy. Ron and Hermione dedicate themselves to him, he loves to be at the burrow but escapes the drawbacks of being an actual Weasley, he sees Sirius' problems from a safe distance and never gets close enough to really connect or be hurt (except by his death), when he fights with Ron Ron does all the apologizing and making up, Ginny simply mirrors back whatever he needs at any given moment. The greatest possibility for Harry dealing with actual messy love is Petunia, imo. I was going to say Dumbledore, but I think even he remains far too distant and mysterious for real connection, while also adoring and idealizing Harry too much. Petunia is the one who is real family and has treated him badly but seems to have a connection underneath. (I love the way Mira writes Harry/Petunia.)
(Hagrid is another place where she seems to want to show love and Hagrid has lots of Harry's same limitations in that area. He loves his pets and doesn't see them as they really are--and that includes his brother.)
So yeah, like I was trying to suggest in my comment to that other post I think we are seeing a worldview here, it's just that its tied together not by internal coherence or consistency but by being all from one person. Most people probably really don't think through their beliefs or emotional reactions to things and wind up being inconsistent and hypocritical-we all do it. Often that's the defense, that the characters are "human" because they do that, only in the end what will that mean? Because usually the characters who are "human" are those people like. No such leniency is given to characters people don't like. And while it's fine for all the heroes to remain flawed, if they are flawed they don't really have any business being role models or teaching us lessons, and despite what people say there obviously are places where they're supposed to be teaching us lessons. It's a coming of age novel and Harry can only become the best adult the author can imagine, which reminds me of what you said once about Stephen King, how ultimately the author's ideas can make a difference between genre and serious literature. Does the author have ideas that will lift the series onto another level or will it just remain engaging and fun but not inspiring? It's like the ceiling in the Great Hall--it could have had just a high carved ceiling, but instead it's a ceiling that is the sky full of stars. The books themselves may stay firmly under a carved ceiling.
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Part II
Date: 2005-12-17 06:00 pm (UTC)(Hagrid is another place where she seems to want to show love and Hagrid has lots of Harry's same limitations in that area. He loves his pets and doesn't see them as they really are--and that includes his brother.)
So yeah, like I was trying to suggest in my comment to that other post I think we are seeing a worldview here, it's just that its tied together not by internal coherence or consistency but by being all from one person. Most people probably really don't think through their beliefs or emotional reactions to things and wind up being inconsistent and hypocritical-we all do it. Often that's the defense, that the characters are "human" because they do that, only in the end what will that mean? Because usually the characters who are "human" are those people like. No such leniency is given to characters people don't like. And while it's fine for all the heroes to remain flawed, if they are flawed they don't really have any business being role models or teaching us lessons, and despite what people say there obviously are places where they're supposed to be teaching us lessons. It's a coming of age novel and Harry can only become the best adult the author can imagine, which reminds me of what you said once about Stephen King, how ultimately the author's ideas can make a difference between genre and serious literature. Does the author have ideas that will lift the series onto another level or will it just remain engaging and fun but not inspiring? It's like the ceiling in the Great Hall--it could have had just a high carved ceiling, but instead it's a ceiling that is the sky full of stars. The books themselves may stay firmly under a carved ceiling.