Fathers & Sons in Captains Courageous

[sistermagpie]

Yesterday I finally saw Captains Couragous, which I've wanted to see for a long time, and totally loved it. I couldn't help but notice, actually, that certain aspects of this movie from 1937 are the type of thing modern Hollywood loves to do--and especially did in the 90s. When I finished the movie I went and read the book to see how true it was to the original. Turns out, not very much. Many of the changes are typical Hollywood, but the kind where I can see the point of them.

It made me think of that same recent conversation with black_dog about boys and men, the way boys imprint on role models and things like that, and it also of course leads back to Draco slightly.

The story of CC is that of Harvey Cheyne, the spoiled brat son of a multi-millionaire (I know you're shocked I'd like him--Harvey had me at his butler's line "It wants its breakfast in bed.") who falls into the sea off a luxury liner. He's picked up by a small fishing boat, the "We're Here." The WH won't take him straight back to New York as he demands, but keeps him aboard during their three-month voyage, finally bringing him back to Gloucester (Mass.) where he's reunited with his father. Along the way he bonds with the Portuguese fisherman who saved him, Manuel (played by you-don't-get-more Portuguese-than-this guy-Spencer Tracy, I guess because although he's totally not Portuguese Tracy is the only person on board besides the black cook (Sam McDaniel-Hattie's brother!) who can pronounce "Manuel" in a way that doesn't mean an instruction booklet), until Manuel dies in a squall.

In the book version, Harvey is 15. While the movie begins with scenes showing Harvey's dreadful brat behavior, the book has only one scene where Harvey invites himself into the liner's smoking room and bugs the men inside before he falls overboard. Manuel is a minor character, just one of the small crew, and Harvey's most important relationship is with Dan, the captain's son (played by Mickey Rooney in the movie), who is the same age. Nobody dies.

As I said, I can understand a lot of the changes Hollywood makes here. If Harvey is 10 it's more of a boy's own adventure that other boys can enjoy--actually, given recent conversations about gender in fiction, I'd say that making him 10 also makes it far easier for girls to identify with him, since 15 brings with it slightly different gender identification. The movie creates a clear arc for Harvey using Manuel, showing him slowly go from spoiled brat to guarded interest in proving himself, to actual fisherman. In the book version, Harvey is at an age where a peer relationship would be more of an influence, though adult role models are still important. At one point two of the crew discuss how Harvey is becoming a good fisherman. One says, "It's mostly all playacting to him." The other man replies that it's playacting for all boys, and that this playacting is a part of growing up. You play act until it becomes natural. In another scene Harvey and Dan are yelled at for some infraction, and Harvey fleetingly thinks that being yelled at and punished is much better than being snubbed by a bunch of strangers in the smoking room on the luxury liner, because on the We're Here Harvey has an acknowledged place--he's part of things. On the Liner, as in his whole life, he's always just been hanging around like an appendage to his neurotic mother.

Watching the movie, I found myself wondering how I thought it might be done differently today. First, there are a couple of scenes of casual violence that would be cut out. One is at Harvey's school where he's "in Coventry," which means none of the other boys are allowed to speak to him. He insults one of them, who turns to another boy and asks, "Punching someone isn't speaking to him, is it?" Receiving a negative opinion, he punches Harvey in the nose. Later, on the ship, Harvey demands to be taken back to New York, insulting everyone and everything, until the captain wearily says, "Well, I guess there ain't nothin' else to do," and wallops up upside the head, knocking him into a pile of fish.

More than that, though, it was the relationship between Harvey and his father where I noticed some differences. The default view in modern Hollywood is that if you are a parent who takes any interest in your career at all, you're horribly neglectful and a terrible parent. The only way to be a good parent is to take an interest in every tiny aspect of your kid's life--to micromanage it, if possible, and be ready to quit your job if it interferes with a Little League game. I think I've mentioned a great article in GQ years ago about this, and one of the things it points out is that in lots of movies of that time (the 90s, when it was written) kids deprived of a father for any reason responded by moping around wishing they had a father, unable to do anything without one. At its heart this seems to be a flattering, narcissistic view that says that assures parents that children can't live independently of you. If your children don't have your full support and attention, it suggests, they will be depressed. This is probably a more comforting thought than saying that if your children don't have your full support and attention they will adapt--perhaps in ways you don't like. (I wouldn't be surprised if, in a modern adaptation, they didn't have Harvey go overboard *with* his father so that the whole experience could be even more about Dad's transformation.)

That's what I thought of watching CC. In the book version, Harvey has a mother who is neurotic and over-protective. (Kipling tells us that Harvey has never been given a direct order, one that was not accompanied by tearful explanations of why obeying would be in his best interest--Mrs. Cheyne seriously needs Nanny 911.) When Harvey arrives home, the book switches for the first time to his father's pov. Mr. Cheyne has (in his understated way) been devastated by Harvey's death. He realizes all his life he's looked forward to the day when "everything else was sorted out," and Harvey was out of college, at which time he and his father would join together and have a great relationship and do great things. Now that Harvey's dead Mr. Cheyne realizes he put off ever getting to know him until then and is left with nothing. Mr. Cheyne is, however, thrilled with the new Harvey who returns from sea. Although he never really knew the old Harvey, he distinctly remembers a sullen boy who was dissatisfied with everything--not this energetic young man with a spark in his eye with whom he immediately bonds. Mr. Cheyne thinks that perhaps--perhaps--he's been a neglectful father. That's all that's said about Mr. Cheyne's crimes. Kipling obviously sees the same responsibility here, but it's not unforgivable.

The 1937 movie, perhaps due to Harvey's age, goes further--but still I think presents things differently than it would today. Mr. Cheyne is no Lucius Malfoy, but he is responsible for his bratty son's personality. While book!Harvey is only shown being shallow, spoiled and annoying, Movie!Harvey tries to bribe teachers and threatens boys who don't do what he says by saying his father might make things very difficult for their families --sound familiar? In HP Draco's similar threats are usually seen as empty bragging, but this movie made me actually see them as having another element as well. When Harvey's bad behavior is placed in front of his father (who agrees it is bad), a teacher says that Harvey is trying to emulate his father, because this is all he sees his father doing.

Since his father doesn't take the time to teach him how to be a good man, Harvey tries to pattern himself on the limited information he gets about his father: his father is important due to his power and money. This really is his attempt to be the man his father is. His father in this case doesn't realize it because he doesn't see the impression he's making on his son. For instance, there's a scene on the ocean liner where the two are talking (Harvey has no mother in the movie--presumably she was English and they used to live there, explaining Freddie Bartholomew's accent--who knows?). Harvey declares that his father owns the ship. His father--half-distracted by the business conversation he's having at the same time--says he doesn't own the ship. Harvey says his father is the Chairman of the Line, the top man, so that's the same thing. Mr. Cheyne not only fails to take the time to explain the difference to Harvey, he doesn't hear the understanding of things Harvey is obviously showing here--why is it important that his dad own the ship they're sailing on? What would it mean if he did?

Instead his father sends Harvey away with a promise to later take him up and show him the control room--wouldn't he like that? This again is contributing to Harvey's values, because that's all Cheyne can ever think of to say to him or amuse him. To an ordinary kid a trip to the control room is a treat. To Harvey it's just part of a long parade of things Dad can show him: we'll fly in a fancy airplane, won't that be exciting? We'll go the Adirondacks, won't you like that? So of course he thinks stuff is what it's all about.

Both the movie and the book therefore do see Harvey's reconciliation with his father as the ultimate goal of the story, but Harvey is allowed more independence than he would be today. Harvey's development spurs Mr. Cheyne to be a better father. Mr. Cheyne's being a better father is something he needs to do for himself, but it's not the answer to all Harvey's problems. As the fishing boat approaches Gloucester Harvey is reluctant to return home at all. He really isn't all that excited about seeing his father again, because, as he's always said, his father's very busy. Harvey doesn't resent his father for not spending time with him--he doesn't feel that's owed to him as a son. He just knows it's not a relationship he gets much from--that it doesn't matter if he's there for it or not (despite Harvey's early on invoking his father's name constantly).

His father, meanwhile, has obviously been stricken by the loss of Harvey, but it hasn't taught him how to deal with him any better. Back at the Captain's house he starts up again with temptations of trips to the Adirondacks and amazing plane rides. When Harvey runs out, still devastated over losing Manuel, his father follows him. He *wants* to be able to comfort him, and I think in a modern movie he'd be able to. Harvey climbs into the dorry where he and Manuel used to fish. His father comes to the dock and tries to talk to him. I think in a modern movie this scene might wind up leading to Harvey verbalizing Mr. Cheyne's faults: "You can't comfort me. You never cared about me. Only Manuel cared about me, and now he's dead." Then Mr. Cheyne could apologize, assure Harvey he does care about him, and that's the happy ending. Honestly, I think that's the way it would be done today. Mr. Cheyne would understand, fully, the real issue, decide to spend less time working, apologize to Harvey and things would start to get better. Harvey's feelings, in that way, are a direct result of his father's behavior. It's all about Dad.

The movie is a bit different, I think. Harvey acknowledges his father's desire to help but just keeps telling him that he's fine, he'll be in soon, he just needs to be alone for a little while. The whole point of the scene is that Harvey's grief is not about his father at all. It's about one individual person grieving for a person who was important to him, a person his father doesn't know. When his father says, "I'm lonely too" in an attempt to connect with Harvey, I'm sure modern Hollywood would have Harvey look up tearfully and say, "Really? You are?" In this movie that line gets nothing from Harvey--and why should it? Harvey's not crying because he's lonely, he's grieving for his friend. And Dad's needs aren't really the focus here-what's Harvey supposed to do about Dad's sudden declaration that he's lonely when it's Dad who's responsible for their distant relationship? That kind of adult problem is probably better understood by a therapist. (Unfortunately, in a lot of modern stories for kids to essentially be their parents therapists.)

This is probably the scene where Harvey is the most adult of the entire movie, and so the first scene where his father really treats him like an individual, listening to him and honoring his wishes. I can't believe that modern Hollywood could bring itself to avoid having Dad climb into the dorry with Harvey--it's just too touching and makes the dad look too good. But when Dad tries to climb into the dorry in this movie, Harvey forbids it, saying, "Please don't get into this boat. This is Manuel's dorry. Manuel's and mine."

If the father wants to build a relationship with Harvey, he can no longer take the road that's been open to him until now, where Harvey was always emotionally there whenever Mr. Cheyne wanted. He has to show respect for Harvey as an individual. The crew attends a ceremony on the docks that's a memorial service for everyone lost at sea recently. Mourners throw flowers into the sea. When Manuel's name is read off the crew of the We're Here throws flowers into the water. Harvey throws a circular wreath. That wreath is then joined by a second wreath, forming a figure eight. Harvey looks up to see his father has thrown it. It's no big surprise, but it's gesture of respect that is the start of their new relationship. His father is honoring Harvey's relationship with Manuel, even if it shuts him out, and in doing so showing he's ready to form a relationship with Harvey as an individual.

I can't say I'm surprised I love this movie--I love stuff like this. Not just the spoiled brat becoming a better person through work, or the rich boy learning the true value of money through learning it, though I'm a sucker for those. It also touches on one of the things I love about Draco's story in HBP--I love imagining Lucius being just as surprised at the "new" Draco as both Movie! and Book! versions of Mr. Cheyne are by Harvey. (Though of course since Lucius is a villain he's got to be a bit more disconcerted about his loss of control.)

Comments

[teratologist.livejournal.com]

I think this ties back into the discussion we were having the other day about role models in books. It's ok for girls to have any old role models, but boys must strive to emulate men and other boys - focusing on mother won't help a boy grow up into a decent human being, even if mother is one, but a spoiled mollycoddle.

Unfortunatelty, the 'spoiled brat becomes a better person through work' storyline, which you'd think I would enjoy because of its class implications, is almost always spoiled IME by some kind of gender implications along these lines. Of course, I'm also just contrary.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

But being contrary is part of your charm!

I think the book is more negative on this than the movie is. Since in the movie Harvey's mother is dead you can imagine that perhaps he'd have been a much better person with her influence. In the book the mother is clearly the influence; Dad's just uninvolved. Not only that, but Mom is less than pleased by the new Harvey, because while Dad wants him to be independent, Mom would prefer he be a baby. In reality, of course, there are plenty of boys who get the same kind of "tough love" (for lack of a better word) from their *mothers*--especially if there's no father in the picture.

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

I am shocked that you like him, shocked, I say.

I am left with nothing but the desire to see Harvey - uh, the movie and read the book.

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

Partly, of course, because I am ver' interested in the dynamics of a father/son relationship that I want repaired - since Lucius is a killer so Draco needs to be kept away from him, even though he loves his daddy. *cries*

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh, you should totally read it--and see it, too. It's funny there were certain lines in the book that made me totally think of teenager!Draco. How could I not warm to Harvey with this introduction:

"Once more the door banged, and a slight, slim-built boy perhaps fifteen years old, a half-smoked cigarette hanging from one corner
of his mouth, leaned in over the high footway. His pasty yellow
complexion did not show well on a person of his years, and his
look was a mixture of irresolution, bravado, and very cheap
smartness."

He's also quite a storyteller, and people sometimes think he's nuts.

You can read the book online here:

http://www.online-literature.com/kipling/captains_courageous/

[lotesse]

I adore CC--my papa read it aloud to me as a small child, and it's one of those books that I still always hear in his voice.

The thing that struck me most about it was the way the sea seemed to take the part of the parent, the great and visible effect that living out in the open water had on the spoilt boy. We read the book because of that--I come from a sailing family, and books about boats figured prominently in my upbringing.

I love that you're connecting Harvey with Draco--although I wonder where that leaves Dan, who always was my favorite.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Poor Dan gets his role reduced in the movie, so I almost feel like I can't compare them. I *loved* Dan in the book. And actually, now I think about it, he *did* remind me of some character I've read of before, but I can't remember who it was. Somebody I really loved.

Oh! You know who it might be--and this might be strange? But Sam Gamgee. I think because he's so competent but good with somebody like Harvey when given Dan's background he could have been a real irritation to him. Instead he's really very patient. It's always such a given that in most ways on the boat Dan's better--or like when they get in a fight and of course Harvey loses, but it's just good that he accepts his loss to Dan and doesn't try to get him back in an underhanded way.

Probably my favorite moment is when they pull up that corpse, though. EEEK!

[earth-magic.livejournal.com]

I remember the film but have never read the book, so I was interested in the way it was changed for the screen. As for what would be cut out today, I'm surprised you picked the punch. Isn't that exactly what was added to PoA?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh gosh, you're right! Though there Draco is the "villain" and Hermione is the hero and a girl, so that's different. Girls can probably hit anybody. The main punch I think would be a problem isn't the one at the school but the one from Capt. Disko, because that's an adult hitting a child.

[truehobbit.livejournal.com]

What an interesting post, Magpie! :)
I've yet to read CC (I think it's on my shelf somewhere, where it's been gathering dust for ten years or so) - but I bought it because I love the movie. I can't comment much on the things you observe, because it's been so long that I've seen it, but I'm even more curious about the book now.
So, I just wanted to say I'm glad to see you loved the movie, too. :)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I just reminded you of the movie--I really loved it!

Fell in love with this movie many years ago ...

[caminx.livejournal.com]

Hi Magpie!!

{{{HUG}}}

I have never read the book but saw the movie years ago. I loved it! Spencer Tracy and Freddie Bartholomew were great! Thanks soo very for the link to the book. Hmmmm think I may take a lil peek.

Re: Fell in love with this movie many years ago ...

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yay! Isn't it great? I watched it twice and am almost sad to send it back to Netflix. :-)

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Fascinating, as always, to read this and follow your mental ricochets -- so far I've only gotten three chapters in to CC (thanks for the link!) and I've never seen the movie, so I can't really engage much with, you know, your actual argument, not that that stops me from talking, ever. But I loved your observation about Hollywood: I wouldn't be surprised if, in a modern adaptation, they didn't have Harvey go overboard *with* his father so that the whole experience could be even more about Dad's transformation. It's all about the demographic! And that demographic will never get over itself. :)

There's no way I can resist the comparison with Draco, though. " . . . a mixture of irresolution, bravado, and very cheap smartness." Vicar collars, and shiny badges! Though Draco wouldn't be caught dead in a red blazer and knickerbockers.

At this point I've just read enough to see Harvey handled, ahem, masterfully by the captain and one or two of his shipmates. :p It's an interesting spin on the daddy issue, because of course Harvey is not getting a daddy (at least not yet). Kipling seems to be taking it in another direction entirely: away from the possibly unhealthy daddy-bond, with its unconditional (and excessive and distorted?) love and into the rougher realm of peers who don't necessarily have any regard for you, with whom you have to prove yourself to or else fade into insiginificance and humiliation. Here's a case where a "daddy" has validated Harvey in unhealthy ways and he needs to have that stripped away to find his true worth. (And of course, Harvey's a "sharp" boy, and he's kept a good edge on his sharpness by continually "getting around" his mother, so he's not going to let himself look like a fool in front of the fishermen.)

So now I'm wondering how that kind of dynamic might play out for Draco (which raises the issue of how it may be a problem that he's managed to evade it with his peers at Hogwarts -- c.f. previous puzzlement about why D never got his head flushed in the toilet), and whether something along those lines might be a solution to your and Maya's points about how D is too old to just look to fathers now.

Anyway, I want to read the rest of CC now, and rent the damn movie, so I can babble more about this.

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

Sister M, he's said masterfully in both our journals now, do you see? He's goading us... I move that we gang up on him in some as yet to be specified way. Though I second his thanks for the link.

As for you, mister, obviously Draco never got his head flushed in the toilet because of his house thinks he's funny and oddly charming (and they are right. And probably some of the Ravenclaws think so too!) - and because he has leaderly charisma. And, uh, probably because of great big Crabbe and Goyle, though of course they have never harmed a living soul. What Harvey needs = Tall Manly Friends.

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

I am horrified -- horrified I tell you! – that you mistrust my intentions here, which are fine and honorable and oriented only to intellectual fulfillment of the very purest sort! Goading you, indeed! *hides spiky, poky thing, and remembers not to sit on it*

Still, I’m fascinated by the following bit, among others, and would like to consider whether there’s anything worth rescuing from Kipling’s generally appalling ideology:

Harvey, who was feeling rather tired, walked slowly
to the rope named. A rope's end licked round his ribs, and nearly
knocked the breath out of him.

"When you own a boat," said Tom Platt, with severe eyes, "you can
walk. Till then, take all orders at the run. Once more - to make
sure!"

Harvey was in a glow with the exercise, and this last cut warmed
him thoroughly. Now, he was a singularly smart boy, the son of a
very clever man and a very sensitive woman, with a fine resolute
temper that systematic spoiling had nearly turned to mulish
obstinacy. He looked at the other men, and saw that even Dan did
not smile. It was evidently all in the day's work, though it hurt
abominably; so he swallowed the hint with a gulp and a gasp and a
grin. The same smartness that led him to take such advantage of
his mother made him very sure that no one on the boat, except,
maybe, Penn, would stand the least nonsense. One learns a great
deal from a mere tone.

Now one question here is why Harvey didn’t simply knock Tom into the ocean, and whether Draco for instance would have knocked Tom into the ocean, and whether this would have been a good thing in either case. Is Harvey being humiliated for its own sake, “put in his place?” Is there subtext that needs exploring in Harvey/Dan/Tom BDSM fic? Or is there a method to the ma*******ness?

There are a couple of interesting points of difference between Harvey and Draco. For one thing, we’re assured by Kipling that Harvey’s a good boy at heart, he just needs to be spared the danger of “spoiling.” And it seems that the main sign of Harvey’s goodness is his willingness to understand when he’s been wrong, to accept correction. His “spritedness” has not yet reached the point of “sullenness” or “mulish obstinacy.”

Now, I am far from buying into Kipling’s views and methods (see below, reply to Magpie) but the contrast with JKR can draw out some points of uneasiness about how Draco is presented. It’s easy to see Draco reacting to the checks Harvey receives much the way that, say, Harry reacts to Snape – to just be impervious to it, to resist and defy it, because his own egotism makes it intolerable for him to bear any truly vital criticism. And it puzzles me that it’s not clear whether JKR has a problem with that.

I promise, truly, that I don’t really think that Draco should be flushed in the toilet, or cast out at sea, or beaten with a rope, or otherwise maltreated. He is a charming boy, and makes pretty verses. (And in PS/SS he just wanted to see the baby dragon! He didn’t tell on anyone! I am still weeping about that!) But one of the things that frustrates me about JKR’s world is that everyone in it is such an insufferable egotist, that none of our heroes, never mind our villains, are capable of taking criticism to heart or being ashamed of anything that they’ve done, at least not in a way that leads to any serious self-examination. Sure, there are minor lessons about misunderstandings here and there, but up until HBP, no one in the series ever learns that they’ve been wrong about anything important, wrong because of their own personal character flaws and not just because of ignorance about circumstances. (That’s partly why Draco on the Tower is such a radical breakthrough, and why Snape’s experience of remorse and switching sides makes him probably the most interesting character in canon.)

[continued . . . ]

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

[. . . continued]

I think I’m probably preaching to the choir here because your own stories are often precisely about the need for this sort of internal self-criticism and character change, something that otherwise seems inexplicably missing in a canon that’s supposed to be about growing up.

So I keep coming back to the question of what sort of thing might finally penetrate Draco’s self-defeating armor, what sort of thing can force him to examine himself. I don’t know whether it might be a proper daddy, or his residual respect for Snape, or a confrontation with peers who can criticize him as well as love him, or just his own (and heretofore hidden) internal resources. I just think that, for his own sake, it’s not enough for people to tolerate and understand him or to find him on the whole charming in spite of the annoying parts; his immediate problem is that he’s seriously messed up and that, very likely, grim death awaits him with nasty, pointy teeth. If he’s going to successfully avoid that fate, something needs to bend his character arc much more abruptly and effectively than anything we’ve seen operating in canon up to now. And the fun, of course, is trying to imagine what that could be.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Funny that one of the first things I thought about toilet-flushing (well, after remembering that in the first scenes of the movie Harvey does seem to have at least one tall, manly friend who is happy to fight anyone who insults him!) is to ask: Do we know Draco's never gotten his head flushed?

I mean, we've got one scene with the Slytherins alone together and while three of them are Draco groupies Blaise doesn't seem to think anything of openly challenging him (and Draco seems used to that). More importantly, if Slytherin is sort of a throwback to those older boarding school atmospheres where everyone calls each other by their last names, could older Slytherins never have taken Draco in line in any way? Marcus Flint yells at him in public and while it's easy to assume that Draco is inwardly throwing off the criticism and blaming it on someone else (just like everyone else in his canon does), it is a moment where it must be hard to avoid seeing that he failed and is paying the price for it.

I guess I just find myself thinking how almost by accident Draco is the character who always receives punishment while other characters escape it. His boasts about being special never work--he's gotten detentions etc. He's been turned into a slug and hexed unconscious and beaten up--it's not the same situation as Book!Harvey being disciplined by the sailor, but it is the same as Movie!Harvey getting punched in the nose (and limping home with a tale of being beaten and imprisoned by teachers). The fractured nature from the school unfortunately makes Gryffindor justice somewhat worthless, but we've before noted that Draco does seem to show a better manner with Snape in OotP. I can't help but wonder if older Slytherins have had some affect on him that we haven't seen.

The trouble, of course, is that like you said *no one* in this canon ever seems to recognize their own flaws. If our hero can't do it, it would be pretty funny if the minor villain did it--funny, but possible if Draco needs to reject his prejudiced views as Snape did. Though I still think it would be a shame if Harry and Draco couldn't recognize their own flaws *together* simply by comparing notes on the way each one seemed to the other.

I'd ironically been trying to find exactly that passage you quoted, because Draco does seem like a kid who is, like Harvey, good at recognizing tone and knowing when he can't press his luck. Though this sometimes seems connected more to his general oiliness in the narrator's view. Harry doesn't care about tone, because he stands his ground no matter what. Draco's testing of boundaries sometimes seems like more part of his weakness. Harry is far more confident that he's never wrong. Draco's ready to retreat if he has to, and might be more able to be haunted by regret. Regret, of course, can display itself as pettiness--which brings us back to Snape.

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Do we know Draco's never gotten his head flushed? . . . . I can't help but wonder if older Slytherins have had some affect on him that we haven't seen.


Well, that's an interesting point, I guess we don't! I mean the idea would be to modify some of the excesses of his personal style, and he seems as boastful and fantastic as ever in the train scene, but that's with his inner circle; he might not behave that way in Slytherin at large. And it's also not clear what his friends think of him in the train compartment scene -- are they genuinely taking him at face value, or just letting him blow off steam? I tend to think that they start off rolling their eyes a little, and end up worrying, but not quite being sure, that he may be crazy enough to really be preparing something; but I can't pretend to be 100% sure about that.

As you point out, the hexing from Gryffindor doesn't count -- being beaten up by enemies has no moral significance; it's when your potential friends think you need "tough love" that something needs to get through. The Flint thing is a nice catch -- it's so frustrating that we don't see more inside Slytherin, because it's hard to know where else to look for signs of this.

I really like your correction that Draco isn't necessarily as mulish as Harry, that he might be better at recognizing when someone's "tone" is warning him about limits. Harry, difficult as he is, probably got that way because he could never afford to give an inch with the Dursleys. Which is heartbreaking, but annoying of him all the same, and it ruins him for some things that he really needs to learn. I'm kind of liking the idea that the villain, here, might be capable of more moral progress than the hero, kind of a tortoise-and-hare story applied to personal growth.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I mean the idea would be to modify some of the excesses of his personal style, and he seems as boastful and fantastic as ever in the train scene, but that's with his inner circle; he might not behave that way in Slytherin at large.

This actually makes me think of one other thing--it's small, but there are, iirc, instances where the narrator will talk about Malfoy not getting the response that he wanted. Usually it's stressing him looking like an idiot, but it's hard to imagine it's not just this kind of learning. For instance, no one finds his jokes about Harry catching the Snitch in his mouth funny because they all think Harry's so awesome. Or fewer and fewer people laugh at his Dementor impressions. It's showing him making clear social mistakes, but his character still seems built to respond to those kinds of cues. It might take him a little longer than others, but he eventually gets it and lets it drop before it makes him a complete loser.

In GoF I remember someone once referring to him making a similar mistake with the badges, but he actually doesn't. He rides high when everyone hates Harry, but when the tide turns we don't hear about Malfoy continuing to try to prolong the anti-Harry feeling. It might be too much to call it character growth but I can believe that JKR thought that at 14 even he would be too old for some of the excesses of 11. If you take away the nasty edge to his personality, you're left with just one of those performing kids and those kinds of kids usually do start out excessive in that way, learning to reign it in later. In OotP he also gets off relatively scott free--it's other members of the IS who wind up in the Infirmary. He has one glorious scene of point-taking that is, imo, genuinely funny and seems to perhaps be a moving force behind the IS--but doesn't make himself a target the way one might have expected in the past. (The two times he's attacked on the train are about something else, imo.)

I tend to think that they start off rolling their eyes a little, and end up worrying, but not quite being sure, that he may be crazy enough to really be preparing something;

I felt like there were definitely beats where we were supposed to see the other Slytherins realizing he was serious and taking notice. Blaise is pretty straightforward about the Slug Club (you won't get in; don't waste your time DE-spawn) and seems the most intrigued by Draco's mission. The other three seem to see it more the way good friends would--to think of their own relationship with him.

I really like your correction that Draco isn't necessarily as mulish as Harry, that he might be better at recognizing when someone's "tone" is warning him about limits. Harry, difficult as he is, probably got that way because he could never afford to give an inch with the Dursleys.

Yup, and also Draco's just got a personality that looks for feedback from others in ways Harry doesn't. Unfortunately, Harry also rarely gets a wake-up call from his friends, either. JKR tries to give Ginny her, "Lucky you," about Voldemort, but Harry hardly feels too badly about forgetting that (after all, he saved her arse and that's the important thing). He's struck occasionally with how little he's thought about people--never wondering about Neville's life or not knowing about Luna's. But in general his friends seem to adapt to him in their own way as much as Crabbe and Goyle do for Malfoy. (Though I think Crabbe's attempt to argue with Draco in HBP is a sign they do truly want to protect him even if it means conflict too.)

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

It might take him a little longer than others, but he eventually gets it and lets it drop before it makes him a complete loser.

Yeah, he doesn't have perfect pitch socially, by any means, even though he is such a social creature and tries so hard. And he's partially successful of course (Slytherin prefect, etc.) He's sort of in that middle position that would ordinarily make him fascinating as a protagonist because he has some realistic challenge to work on.

Interesting point about the way he pivots on the badge question. It's like in OOTP after Harry has been kicked out of quidditch, he doesn't really waste any more time with Harry. Draco's won that battle morally even if he lost it physically, and there's no more percentage in it. So he focuses on Ron as a new target of opportunity, with his glorious "Weasley is our King" moment. And he's chosen a perfect target there, because really it's not about Ron, it's not too obviously a personal axe that he's grinding (which would lose him sympathy) but something the other Slytherins can relate to directly out of interhouse competitiveness, and that even the other houses can laugh along with, too. (By the way, I've always been convinced that that song has to be a parody of some Methodist hymn or something, and I'm sure someone's nailed it somewhere, but I've never seen a discussion of that.)

. . . And I almost asked just now about your Draco thing for PR, but I think that counts the same as nagging an author about a fic! :)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

It's part of what makes him such a fascinating partner for Snape, because Snape's such an obvious outcast socially, yet seems to have worked hard at some polish. When he acts in an embarassing way it's like his true self showing through. Where as Draco seems naturally social...yet is held back by similar ugly qualities. What keeps him from being as at ease as he seems to know he should be is that he just cares about stuff too much. He can't laugh off Harry beating him, can't hide how desperately jealous he is when Harry wins the love and attention. It's a mark of how far he's come that he's able to even attempt to brush off the Slug Club--you can still tell it bothers him not to be invited, but at least he's reached the point where intellectually he knows he shouldn't make a scene about it. ("Well, what do I care what some fat old has-been thinks?" is at least partially telling him he shouldn't care, even if it's his instinct to care.) He wants to be loved, but not like Lupin where he'll cave in so people won't dislike him. If Draco's rejected he needs to have some story about why that person doesn't matter, or is crazy, or will pay.

. . . And I almost asked just now about your Draco thing for PR, but I think that counts the same as nagging an author about a fic! :)

Well, now you've done it! I've been starting to put it together and I'm totally unsure about it. See what you think when you read it...

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Hee! I would be so happy if you read and saw it and babbled about it. I love this stuff! I really think I'd say that Harvey is the same character in book and movie--it's just the age difference. I can so easily see Movie!Harvey growing into Book!Harvey. (Movie!Harvey even gets to impress with his ability to write insulting couplets about his enemies-Draco's dream job!) A 10-year-old who pulls the kind of stuff he does could easily grow into this wonderful description of Harvey that his father recalls towards the end:

"The father, well used to judging men, looked at him keenly. He did
not know what enduring harm the boy might have taken. Indeed, he
caught himself thinking that he knew very little whatever of his
son; but he distinctly remembered an unsatisfied, dough-faced
youth who took delight in "calling down the old man" and reducing
his mother to tears - such a person as adds to the gaiety of
public rooms and hotel piazzas, where the ingenuous young of the
wealthy play with or revile the bell-boys. But this well set-up
fisher-youth did not wriggle, looked at him with eyes steady,
clear, and unflinching, and spoke in a tone distinctly, even
startlingly, respectful. There was that in his voice, too, which
seemed to promise that the change might be permanent, and that the
new Harvey had come to stay."

The parents make the situation a little different from Draco's--it's a lot harder to "call down the old man" when he's a killer terrorist and Narcissa isn't neurotic enough to need reducing to tears. But a lot of the more superficial signs of immaturity I can see. (The best impulses Lucius seems to have towards his son are diverting him from DE-dom to young person adding to the gaiety at public piazzas.)

What complicates things with Draco is his journey is the Shadow side of Harvey's. Harvey is thrown in with men whom it's good to emulate simply because they work for a living and are independent. Draco's thrown in with men he shouldn't want to emulate. Neither, as you say, really *cares* about the boy automatically, but Harvey has a chance to earn the affection of his shipmates honestly. Draco manages as best he can to carve out something more positive by at least trying to stand on his own and do the job he set out to do. Dumbledore comes closest to trying to give him the kind of good advice Harvey might have gotten, but it's confusing since Dumbledore's supposed to be the enemy.

So rather than ending this leg of the journey steady-eyed, unflinching and respectful it's the opposite-he's more sickly, more shaky. The sign of hope is that he seems to recognize a better role model, at least. In CC the book I said there was that passage describing Harvey imitating the men--he's too old to be a little boy looking for a father like he is in the movie. But he's just the right age to look for older male role models, it seems. If Draco winds up having to deal with Harry in the next book that might also be his opportunity to be positively influenced by peers.

Because you're totally right--Harvey *doesn't* get a daddy in Kipling's book. None of the men on the boat fulfill that role. Nor does his own father. Harvey and his father really bond more as similar men in the end (with his father presumably becoming a good older male role model), and his father's early neglect of the things that nowadays are considered all-important, is totally brushed over. He's neglectful not because he failed to support his son or nurture him so much as teach him.

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

My video store didn't have CC on the shelf yesterday, so I was forced instead to continue my belated encounter with Black Adder and Red Dwarf. The legacy of the DT lives on!

But too much information only ruins a good puzzle, anyway. So I was trying to think more about Harvey and his situation, and why the father thing doesn't quite fit, and what exactly the fishermen stand for. And that gets into the slimy and murky question of Kipling's ideology, but sometimes there's a dirty job that needs doing and one must be brave!

I’m finding myself pulled into deeper currents by the question of what Harvey needs to learn, what’s wrong with him right now that he needs to get over. It’s interesting that even in the smoking room scene, as the men on the liner are making fun of him, one of them says it’s a “Pity, because there’s a heap of good in the boy if you could get at it.” So Kipling’s premise is that Harvey is potentially a pretty impressive boy; he doesn’t so much need to be redeemed or changed, he just needs to be prevented from “spoiling.” There’s no sense that Harvey is nasty or vicious, it’s just that “his education hasn’t begun yet.”

So what doesn’t Harvey know? And what occurs to me is a 19th century cant phrase about "not understanding the conditions of one’s own existence,” which I think was that era's brutal version of today's conservative slogan about "unintended consequences." It is, I think, an inversion and parody of Marx, though I admit I gave up on social science when they told me that yes, I really had to read Max Weber. But the essence of it is that conservatives and reactionaries tended to despise revolutionary types for “not understanding" the facts of life, i.e. nature red in tooth and claw, survival of the fittest, and all that. Their rebuke was based on the suggestion that it was simply too hard for some people to look the facts of life clearly, and that such people were therefore condemned to a kind of shadowy and futile existence. Creepy as this is, it’s obviously not a trivial ideological force, and I think it's precisely where Kipling is coming from.

According to Kipling, I think, what Harvey is being educated in is not just a sentimental or moral lesson, but a sort of "reality principle" that he's in danger of missing out on -- namely an understanding of life as a struggle for survival. It’s specifically not a class-based struggle, in fact it’s a conception that is designed precisely to cut across class-based ideologies. For example, while Kipling respects the fishermen, he’s not identifying with “honest toil” versus immense wealth per se. On the contrary, from this perspective Harvey’s father in his own way is struggling just like the fishermen; he just happens to be thriving in the struggle and he presumably understands it thoroughly.

The danger for Harvey, as the mere heir to someone who managed to come out on top in life, is that he may never need to learn, and therefore never grasp for himself, the hard facts of life that most people come to understand by taking part in the struggle directly – whether they do so as workers or as industrialists or as anything in between. When Harvey catches his halibut in chapter three, he thinks about how he’d seen halibut on a plate before, but “never known how they had found their way inland.” That’s what he’s learning at sea – where his sustenance ultimately comes from, what his existence is really based on.

Harvey is unlikely to learn this from his father -- because his father’s instinct is simply to pass on the good things he’s managed to acquire. That doesn’t mean his father is a bad man – it may just be a common or inevitable sort of paternal weakness or conflict of interest, so that it’s important for Harvey to get his education elsewhere. But we’re to understand that it’s Harvey’s good fortune that he gets a chance to learn from the fishermen some things that his father isn’t suited to teach him.

[continued . . . ]

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

[. . . continued]

Why does this matter for Harvey, personally? While Harvey probably wouldn’t suffer materially if he remained ignorant, according to Kipling he would suffer morally – he’d never be more than one of the jokers “adding to the amusements in public piazzas,” or “alternately playing with and abusing the bellboys.” He’d be a sort of privileged guest in the world, never really grounded, never really able to understand or connect with the more serious people around him. Also, more insidiously, for Kipling the stakes are more than personal, because if Harvey doesn’t understand the difference between “fit” and “unfit” people, his unmoored notions may lead him to become one of those limousine liberals, those horrible socialist sympathizers whom Kipling was always ready to denounce, with the means to make a nuisance of themselves promoting false and self-indulgent notions! If Harvey isn't rescued, he may contribute to the ruin of society, not just himself!

Ahem. So you see why I prefer to touch Kipling’s ideology only with a somewhat longish pole. But it’s morbidly fascinating. Anyway . . .

I think there’s a lot of stuff that has to be cut away in order to extract something generally useful from Kipling. But I do think there is a core idea that can be the basis of a comparison with JKR – the idea that Draco, like Harvey, needs an experience that grounds him, not just his own sense of competence and self-worth, but more definitively in some general and durable truths about how life works, what life is about. It’s that personal encounter with a universal human condition, a personal acceptance of one’s participation in some universal project, that represents the heart of the lesson for Kipling, even if Kipling has a fairly perverse idea of what that truth and that project may happen to be. What this idea offers is a basis for connection and solidarity with other serious people of any background, without the beguilement of class or ethnic or other differences. It’s a practical starting point for trying to live with seriousness and purpose. It’s a concrete way of dividing the good guys from the bad guys based on whether they accept or try to evade the general rules and conditions that make life what it has to be. So the issue for a troubled, Kiplingesque young man is more than merely therapeutic or pragmatic; he doesn't just need to become personally well-adjusted and competent, he needs to get in touch with the forces and conditions that ground and orient any worthwhile life. Is it possible to even think in those terms with a straight face, a hundred years later?

Draco’s situation is a little harder to get a handle on than Harvey’s – we don’t exactly have JKR’s assurance that he’s basically a good kid in the first place; we don’t have a clear sense of the circumstances that might exist that would make it possible to educate Draco, or who might do the educating. And we don’t really have any clear idea of what JKR thinks a good life is like, or how it might be lived concretely, the way Kipling’s fisherman live, though in a more pluralistic world. So we end up with a lot of fairly important variables to solve for all at once in Book 7. And in fact I wonder if there isn’t an unexamined void at the heart of JKR’s vision, for all her maundering about love. No wonder Draco is a bit sickly and shaky right now.

So anyway I’m not giving up on the daddy thing, though Kipling makes a compelling case that the issue is not really reducible to daddies, that daddies have their own contradictions and are only part of the big picture anyway. I just find it really interesting to think about how Kipling has contextualized the challenge of growing up, in terms of issues that are very large and that cut pretty deeply (even if I intensely dislike his particular formula). I’m wondering how some of this might apply to (or if it's even commensurable with) JKR’s world.

Looks like I'll be late getting to work tonight...

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

...but I'm itching to throw something out here--something even more conservative. I know you haven't seen the movie (I so love that you went out looking!), but it's fascinating to bring it up here because while the book begins with that brief conversation in the smoking room the movie adds a whole beginning section where we see Harvey behaving badly. He tries to buy and threaten (via his father) his way into getting everything, and so doesn't understand the true worth of anything. I think this is the screenwriter's own attempt to pin down what's being taught here, and he's got other adults, like teachers, to say what the problem is. A teacher has kept Harvey out of the Buffalos Club because Harvey thinks he should get in because his father is important, rather than trying to be important himself. He's editor of the newspaper because his father bought the school a printing press (his father seems to think Harvey's earned the job). The teacher tells Harvey's father that Harvey sees him as not a man but a "machine pumping out money." Early on Harvey has 50 dollars to throw at a teacher in an attempted brive (in 1937!), but later his earned salary from the boat of 9 dollars seems far more valuable.

Movie!Harvey, though, is still described as being a good kid who just needs to spend more time with Dad. His teacher and headmaster, of course, are more expected to say this--their job is in seeing potential in students. They say Harvey is smart--presumably he's a good student and that's what they mean by potential.

However, I'm going to suggest something more conservative--perhaps rivalling those Kipling ideas!;-) When we first meet Harvey he's demanding breakfast in bed for himself and the friends staying at the mansion for Easter. One of these boys, Charles, is the president of the Buffalos and Harvey has brought him to the house to bribe him (and eventually threaten him with the loss of his father's job) if he doesn't let Harvey and his friends in. Charles is an instinctually *healthy* boy in exactly the ways Harvey isn't. When asked if he likes being president of the Buffalos he says, "Of course, it's a position of honor!" He tells the teacher about Harvey's threats not in a way that makes him a tattler, but as one good person to another trying to save his family.

So what's the difference here--just that Charles plays fair and Harvey doesn't? I'd say no. The first altercation between these two comes minutes in. Harvey is telling the boys to all go to their rooms for their breakfast in bed. The other boys like this idea ("Will my breakfast be in my room too?" "'Course. You think we only have one servant?") Another boy slips back into his pjs just for breakfast in bed.

Charles, otoh, instinctively recoils from exactly the kind of luxury Harvey's trying to tempt him with. When his breakfast comes to his room he eats it fully dressed at a desk. When the maid says her little nephew would be thrilled at the kind of fancy stuff Charles has had this week Charles says, "He can have my room." More bluntly, before he's ordered back to his room, Charles complains to Harvey, "Why can't a fellow go downstairs and eat if he's hungry?"

Harvey chides him for not appreciating the luxury: "I'll bet you've never had breakfast in bed."

Charles says, "My mom does. But it's sissy for a fella if he's not sick."

This leads to a tense, "You callin' me a sissy?" from Harvey, and Charles isn't *calling* him a sissy. He's far too good a kid for that. But I think the screenwriter is calling him a sissy and having Charles show the sissiness just by being there as a contrast. Charles, the "real boy" instinctively associates fine living with being a sissy. It's not natural that a boy should like this kind of stuff. I think this is what Harvey's father has accidentally done to Harvey in the movie, and that this is what Dad means when he refers to Harvey at the end being "the boy he always wanted him to be."

con't

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

It's an odd thing for his father to say given that early on in the movie he fell for all Harvey's machinations-didn't he think Harvey was the bright young boy and victim of unfair practices he claimed to be? I'd suggest his father didn't like Harvey's playing the victim to get sympathy or demanding lots of money because Dad, like Charles, sensed something sissy in it. In fact, I don't think it's just the luxury that's sissy but the way Harvey is, as his father says, a "junior Machiavelli." There's even an incident on the boat relating to that, where Manuel and Long Jack are having a fishing contest. Harvey, after catching a fish and triumphing, casually reveals he tangled Long Jack's lines. (It's his first instinct when he hears of the contest.) Manuel throws away the halibut Harvey caught because he's a "cheater" instead of a "fisherman."

I admit when Harvey first confessed to cheating I knew Manuel was going to be angry, but I assumed it would be because by tangling lines Harvey was interfering with the business of the boat. Instead it was I think a more straightforward, almost Gryffindor, idea: a fishing contest must be won by fishing. Struggling with halibut=good, sneaky tricks=bad. It's sneaky tricks that Harvey has to give up in favor of suffering punishments with honor, doing hard work with his hands and earning his own glory. And taking it like a man when he gets hurt, and supporting risky sailing contests that would have been forbidden if there were any women on board!

Looking at it that way, I think the reason people can see "good" in Harvey even early on is that despite all this stuff he's never so effeminate there's no going back. His love of the good life is something he's learned by accident, not a real interest, and while he might cheat at sports, he can throw a ball.

I wonder if this is something that could be applied to Draco at all. The idea of an unexamined void at the heart of JKR's vision is interesting to think about, because it's hard to quite see why Draco might not be all lost. Is not being a killer enough? I'm not confident it is. She might not see a need for the redemption to go that deep. Looking at the other characters it just unfortunately seems like the way you tell if a character is basically good deep down is that they've always been on the good side and liked Harry. People like Snape who were bad and repented don't necessarily improve as people. It's like one's reason for repenting needs to outweigh one's making the mistake in the first place, and that doesn't often happen.

Re: con't

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

The examples from the movie are really interesting. Without, of course, having actually seen the movie, I'm inclined to think that the screenwriter had a very different take on "what's being taught here" than Kipling did. And I wonder if the difference isn't precisely the difference between 1897 and 1937 -- between the height of the Gilded Age when it was still possible to believe that economic fortunes mirrored a person's character, and the middle of the Depression/interwar period where it was quite clear that external forces played havoc with people's fates, and the prime virtues were endurance and toughness and solidarity.

It's really, if you think about it, a tremendous intellectual shift -- from the sense of a demanding but orderly world that the individual needs to align himself with, sink or swim, to a greater emphasis on the individual as an autonomous source of his own morality. And frankly, while the shift can feel empowering from our perspective, and all about personal integrity, it also opens the door to a great deal of sentimentality and self-regard and special pleading by and on behalf of more "modern" characters. It's a complicated bargain, and I love the way the contrast between the two sensibilities brings out subtleties that might otherwise be overlooked.

If Charles is a hero and foil for Harvey, then the movie seems to be expressing contempt for luxury per se, finding it "effeminate" or unworthy of a "real boy." And I don't think Kipling ever quite goes this far. For him, unearned luxury can lead to a kind of degeneracy (I'm fascinated by those antiquated, loaded words!) And you certainly don't want to become dependent on it. But there's an additional, mediating term: whether the individual himself is living out the real and "true" drama of human life according to Kipling, win or lose, up or down, or whether he is just enjoying luxury "accidentally," without having directly earned it. Earned prosperity is next to godliness, after all. If you've paid for your luxury and value it at neither more nor less than it's worth, then there's no problem. But if you're enjoying it as a parasite, there's something inauthentic about that, and that inauthenticity seems to be the worst fate for a person in Kipling's world.

I wonder if it's possible to make the same generalization about the fishing scene. This would be a pure hypothesis on my part, since I'm not sure if you're describing the book or the movie and I haven't seen/read the scene in either one. But if I'm on to something, then there would be a difference in the way the two scenes are handled in the different media. In the movie, cheating would be a violation of solidarity, a moral offense against another person, a taking of something you're not entitled to. In the book, cheating would just be pathetic, an evasion of the only interesting way to live, which is to engage with reality honestly and authentically and see how things turn out. I got far enough in the book to read the scene where the fishermen all declare the number of fish they caught that day, and Harvey wonders if they might lie, and the captain is honestly bewildered: "what would be the point of lying?" The highest virtue in Kipling is faithfulness to reality; the highest virtue in 1937 is, maybe, solidarity with your neighbor. Anyway, I'm curious whether that is borne out by comparing the scenes.

What's the highest virtue in 1997? Trust your instincts, but manage your anger. All you need is love. (Oops, that's 1967, sorry -- all you need is love and to kill evil wizards!) Hang out with the right people, but don't be a snob, except against annoying people. Don't kill the Headmaster, unless he silently, legilemantically tells you that you have to kill him . . .

This doesn't need to be a mockery or a muddle -- there's certainly a serious project in trying to find your way in a world without easy or clear moral compass points. And I really did think after OOTP that JKR was trying to go there. But HBP seems more glib and superficial. And the contrast with Kipling, whether you or I like him or not, is at least a reminder of the level of rigor that can be brought to the question.

Re: con't

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I'm inclined to think that the screenwriter had a very different take on "what's being taught here" than Kipling did.

Me too. It seems like he took the story as a whole and put a completely different arc to it. As one of the posters above said, in many ways the thing that makes the biggest difference to Book!Harvey is the sea itself, being close to that natural force instead of shut up in drawing rooms-which backs up what you're saying about getting out into the real struggle of things. Book!Harvey is more *sickly* than his movie counterpart--his yellowish tinge is presumably a sign of not being out in the fresh air.

I got far enough in the book to read the scene where the fishermen all declare the number of fish they caught that day, and Harvey wonders if they might lie, and the captain is honestly bewildered: "what would be the point of lying?"

In the book there is no cheating scene at all--I'd actually say if there's any canon basis for the scene in the movie it might be just that moment. In both cases I guess one could say Harvey is goal-oriented in the wrong way. When Movie!Harvey hears about the contest his mind goes to the goal of catching more fish by any means possible--that means keeping the other guy from catching more as much as making yourself catch a lot. (A view easily connected to the bad kind of businessmen.) Book!Harvey has a similar view towards the fish at the end of the day--if you're being judged on how many you caught, why wouldn't you inflate the number?

But perhaps a difference is that Movie!Harvey is more about working with others and "honestly" winning. Book!Harvey is not understanding the reality of fishing--if you don't have the fish to back it up, the number's meaningless. As you said, they're honestly confused why you would lie--where as in the movie everyone understands the concept of cheating-they just reject it. (Again-solidarity with your neighbor. You play fair because we're all in this together. Earlier Harvey refuses to be "one of the boys" and considers himself special.) Cheating didn't even come into Kipling's mind.

Before he goes overboard Movie!Harvey also seems the more active of the two. Book!Harvey's sin is more one of idleness. Movie!Harvey isn't idle at all--he's busy actively scheming at all times. I'd even suggest there's a hint of him being a bad influence on any boy who doesn't see through him immediately.

And the contrast with Kipling, whether you or I like him or not, is at least a reminder of the level of rigor that can be brought to the question.

That does always seem like a question that's brought up with JKR as it isn't with someone like Kipling or, say, Tolkien. It's hard to tell whether she just doesn't believe in easy choices or if (as it often seems more likely) she just hasn't examined her own enough to make things consistent.

Re: con't

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

OK this comparison is making me rock back and forth in my chair wanting to see the movie (and finish the book). Next trip to the video store to scout again for CC: tomorrow or Friday, depending on whether I can make my self sit through the rest of the Red Dwarf episodes. (Disappointed with that one! But Blackadder is extremely funny, at least after the first series.) I wonder if Kipling has a fandom? I'd prefer not to think about what they'd do with Jungle Book . . .

And here is another bit of Kipling, in all his glorious perversity and (I hope, god help us) irony, and perhaps a vision of how Harvey and his father might have ended up . . .

Re: con't

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad you're liking Black Adder--just wait till you get to the very last episode of the last series. Amazing. The first series is actually kind of different from the others--Blackadder hasn't quite gotten his groove yet.

I love that you want to see this movie now. I'm like a virus--see the movie I saw! You must see the movie I saw! (If only because Freddie B. is so adorable in his fishing hat and his big sweater. If I'd seen this movie as a kid I would have so had a crush on him and his floppy 1930s boy hair.)

Re that link: Kipling was such a freak!

Re: con't

[black-dog.livejournal.com]

Oh, half the fun -- all the fun -- is being able to talk about this stuff after you sit through watching it. I'm embarassed to say this, but I've never been much of a video person, and my old computer didn't have a DVD player, so when I replaced it this month I finally had a chance to start catching up on some of the shows that people have been talking about on LJ all this time.

As for Black Adder, I almost gave up after watching the first three shows on Season I, but in the latter three the Witchsmeller one sold me, so I rented the Elizabethan series and loved it (and Miranda Richardson!). I've read that the next two series get even better, and had other nudges and winks about the last show of the last series, so I'm definitely going to grab the rest of them too.

Kipling, freak, yes. :) Reading him is like reading moral!kink!fic.

[saylee.livejournal.com]

It looks like I have to add this book to my 'to read' list.

I'm thinking of the modern Hollywood movies you're comparing CC to, and I think you're completely spot on about the way they seem to be all about the parent. They always rang a little false to me, and I think this may be it. In a lot of them, the child seems completely incidental, only there as a tool for the parent's journey, almost as if any child would do.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. The child is there to make the parent feel fulfilled and show that the parent is a great person. It's always important that the parent is more important than the child--and that's fine in a movie that's about parenthood or whatever. But this is a story about the child as an individual, not an extention of his father.