Oh, so much in there. Yet I'm caught up in your D1 and D2 examples. I remember people who picked on me mercilessly in grade school and junior high. I never had a chance to see other sides of them at the time. I'm not sure what I would have thought. The only thing comparable is that during 4th grade two boys picked on me all year and I swore with every bit of my 9-year-old self that I would hate them forever, and then when I was 16 one of them ended up being a friend of my boyfriend. When I met him again, I got over it in about five minutes. But it did take me five minutes. I only saw him a few times so it was mostly a matter of getting over the pettiness of swearing forever when you're nine. If I'd know him more, though, I might have wondered if he remembered any of it or what he thought of it. Though he had really been the sidekick of the two so perhaps there weren't any answers there.
What you said of your four reactions intruiged me. I wonder if I would feel schadenfreude if I saw Alexa run crying from a room because her father was there. I might have. Yet I have a sense that stretches a long way into the past about how those things are on different levels; teasing and tormenting are on a different plane from having a father who makes you run crying out of the room and isn't allowed near you. Did I have that sense at ten? I think I've had that sense for as long as I've understood what that second level really is.
Sometimes, if I put myself in someone else's place and they are suffering terribly, the compassion hurts so much that I do forgive everything that they do, even though I guess I shouldn't. I do this too much, maybe, because of course they don't have the right to shit their pain on some innocent bystander.
But, see, in fiction, those questions don't have to matter. I've gotten into arguments about Snape that are about these things. And of course Snape's behavior is not excusable or dismissable. He shouldn't be allowed to roam around loose tormenting Hogwarts students the way he does. But because it's just a story, I can focus on some parts and not others. I can read the books and wonder about the story of Snape, and everyone else drifts to being a minor character. And when I do that, I am deeply moved. Maybe more moved than I am by Harry's story.
I'm not really moved by Draco in canon. We can come up with all kinds of theories and backstory, and we can create a moving story that is given life only by the words in the text, but I wouldn't say that story really exists in canon. I find Draco moving only when I read the stories with an eye on an added character of Rowling-the-god, who creates and judges and squashes Draco under her heel because that is his use and his purpose. To me, that meta-reading is bound up in the blanket dismissal of Slytherins that comes across from Harry, the narration, and the society of Hogwarts in general.
I have to admit that on my first read I did not really notice the House cup being stolen from the Slytherins in that particularly cruel way. I didn't notice because I hadn't really cared about who got the House cup. It may have been important to the characters but I really didn't care about it. (Possibly because I could see that the awarding and detracting of House points was arbitrary and ridiculous and that caring about its outcome was to submit yourself to an undeserving authority.) I was too busy in that scene being happy that Neville got 10 points for trying to stop Harry, Hermione, and Ron. I had felt very sorry for Neville in that scene. I was glad for what Dumbledore said about him.
(as you'll notice, this is all quite rambling and random and not exactly a reply to your post. :) I actually have a reply to a specific quote but this is already too long so I have to split it up.)
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Date: 2004-03-10 05:52 pm (UTC)What you said of your four reactions intruiged me. I wonder if I would feel schadenfreude if I saw Alexa run crying from a room because her father was there. I might have. Yet I have a sense that stretches a long way into the past about how those things are on different levels; teasing and tormenting are on a different plane from having a father who makes you run crying out of the room and isn't allowed near you. Did I have that sense at ten? I think I've had that sense for as long as I've understood what that second level really is.
Sometimes, if I put myself in someone else's place and they are suffering terribly, the compassion hurts so much that I do forgive everything that they do, even though I guess I shouldn't. I do this too much, maybe, because of course they don't have the right to shit their pain on some innocent bystander.
But, see, in fiction, those questions don't have to matter. I've gotten into arguments about Snape that are about these things. And of course Snape's behavior is not excusable or dismissable. He shouldn't be allowed to roam around loose tormenting Hogwarts students the way he does. But because it's just a story, I can focus on some parts and not others. I can read the books and wonder about the story of Snape, and everyone else drifts to being a minor character. And when I do that, I am deeply moved. Maybe more moved than I am by Harry's story.
I'm not really moved by Draco in canon. We can come up with all kinds of theories and backstory, and we can create a moving story that is given life only by the words in the text, but I wouldn't say that story really exists in canon. I find Draco moving only when I read the stories with an eye on an added character of Rowling-the-god, who creates and judges and squashes Draco under her heel because that is his use and his purpose. To me, that meta-reading is bound up in the blanket dismissal of Slytherins that comes across from Harry, the narration, and the society of Hogwarts in general.
I have to admit that on my first read I did not really notice the House cup being stolen from the Slytherins in that particularly cruel way. I didn't notice because I hadn't really cared about who got the House cup. It may have been important to the characters but I really didn't care about it. (Possibly because I could see that the awarding and detracting of House points was arbitrary and ridiculous and that caring about its outcome was to submit yourself to an undeserving authority.) I was too busy in that scene being happy that Neville got 10 points for trying to stop Harry, Hermione, and Ron. I had felt very sorry for Neville in that scene. I was glad for what Dumbledore said about him.
(as you'll notice, this is all quite rambling and random and not exactly a reply to your post. :) I actually have a reply to a specific quote but this is already too long so I have to split it up.)