The characters sometimes feel jerked from one point to the next instead of as if there's a continuous flow of development . . . it's like Harry is a series of blocks that stand for scenes, and in some scenes he's got the chance to act like more of an individual, but eventually he always has to come back to the standard blocks
I really like the way you put this. I think we've both circled around this point before -- how the "micro" level character analysis doesn't necessarily connect with the "macro" level plot developments, how the alleged "love over evil" theme doesn't really seem convincingly illustrated in detail. But I really like your formula of the blocks. I kind of picture them as boxes or fences, where JKR is coming up with a tool to discipline her own rowdily productive imagination -- the characters can wander this far, but no farther, from the pre-ordained path dictated by the abstract plot.
Draco has good reason to seriously question his father figures and what they taught, as has Percy and Barty Crouch, for instance. Harry really never has to do this.
That's a really powerful point of comparison between them. And I've grown wary of my own habit of over-psychologizing, but it suggests an interesting take on Harry. He's never had to confront or defy a father figure, because death and distance have always held his father figures safely apart from his actual, concrete day to day life. So he can cut and shape them to his own imagination and needs. Even when he defies ordinary authority, he can always imagine his father would have been there, cheering him on.
I wonder if this is at the root of some of his less likeable traits -- his disinclination for self-examination, etc. I mean it's a tricky point to say he's never had to take a stand, because in some ways he does nothing but take one contrarian stand after another. But he's never had to take a stand against a background of radical self-doubt, which might give him empathy for other people's choices; on the contrary, circumstances have compelled him again and again to assert himself on his own immediate and instinctive terms against people (the Dursleys, Voldemort) who pretty much want to annihilate him as a personality. So for both reasons he's never been forced to question how he sees himself -- or if you want to look at it the other way, maybe he's never had the luxury of questioning himself.
And I don't know, maybe those are good traits for a hero to have, if his job as a hero is more important than anything else. And maybe he can even still be all about the "love," if it's enough to love things that are yours, or that are uncomplicatedly gratifying. Maybe it's not necessary for love to overcome hate or forgive fallibility or create understanding across gulfs of experience, as long as it sustains solidarity among your own side. Or, god help us, maybe JKR thinks she is really showing these things already by having Harry love Hermione despite her bossiness and Ron despite his envy and insecurities.
But I'd kind of like to see this "love" business take on some more ambitious challenges. And I think that Draco's development in HBP, and Dumbledore's dying concern for him, both point the way to this kind of greater ambition and complexity for the love theme. I hope this doesn't end up being one more foregone opportunity . . .
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-06-20 11:50 am (UTC)I really like the way you put this. I think we've both circled around this point before -- how the "micro" level character analysis doesn't necessarily connect with the "macro" level plot developments, how the alleged "love over evil" theme doesn't really seem convincingly illustrated in detail. But I really like your formula of the blocks. I kind of picture them as boxes or fences, where JKR is coming up with a tool to discipline her own rowdily productive imagination -- the characters can wander this far, but no farther, from the pre-ordained path dictated by the abstract plot.
Draco has good reason to seriously question his father figures and what they taught, as has Percy and Barty Crouch, for instance. Harry really never has to do this.
That's a really powerful point of comparison between them. And I've grown wary of my own habit of over-psychologizing, but it suggests an interesting take on Harry. He's never had to confront or defy a father figure, because death and distance have always held his father figures safely apart from his actual, concrete day to day life. So he can cut and shape them to his own imagination and needs. Even when he defies ordinary authority, he can always imagine his father would have been there, cheering him on.
I wonder if this is at the root of some of his less likeable traits -- his disinclination for self-examination, etc. I mean it's a tricky point to say he's never had to take a stand, because in some ways he does nothing but take one contrarian stand after another. But he's never had to take a stand against a background of radical self-doubt, which might give him empathy for other people's choices; on the contrary, circumstances have compelled him again and again to assert himself on his own immediate and instinctive terms against people (the Dursleys, Voldemort) who pretty much want to annihilate him as a personality. So for both reasons he's never been forced to question how he sees himself -- or if you want to look at it the other way, maybe he's never had the luxury of questioning himself.
And I don't know, maybe those are good traits for a hero to have, if his job as a hero is more important than anything else. And maybe he can even still be all about the "love," if it's enough to love things that are yours, or that are uncomplicatedly gratifying. Maybe it's not necessary for love to overcome hate or forgive fallibility or create understanding across gulfs of experience, as long as it sustains solidarity among your own side. Or, god help us, maybe JKR thinks she is really showing these things already by having Harry love Hermione despite her bossiness and Ron despite his envy and insecurities.
But I'd kind of like to see this "love" business take on some more ambitious challenges. And I think that Draco's development in HBP, and Dumbledore's dying concern for him, both point the way to this kind of greater ambition and complexity for the love theme. I hope this doesn't end up being one more foregone opportunity . . .