About the house points: I can totally see why a kid would fall for that, even though it was unfair from the beginning. Kids'll care about things like that even if they think it's unfair. But by book 5, I would think they'd stop caring. I mean, if Draco is going to be granted the power to give and take house points and to use it with the childish glee of a 10-year-old, I'd think they could conclude that House points aren't worth a whole lot. You get a cup. Whoop-de-doo. They're dealing with people dying; why do they even remotely care about house points? And yet they still do--it's baffling and a little annoying. But then book 5 was full of people getting pissed off about things that shouldn't have mattered.
Actually, I want to ask your opinion on something. Now, it seems to me that in each book (beyond book 1) there's some life lesson and it's tied in to the major magical learning of that year. The ridikkulous (sp?) spell was actually a profound maturation of the kids. I guess the protego ? one was the next year's. It's something that was valuable to learn and had a metaphoric meaning and tied in to the plot of the book in some way, at least a little. The 5th book's big spell seemed to be Occulemency (I dont' remember how to spell any of these, can you tell? :) and the opposite, legillimency or something. Since everything in book 5 was about people getting under each others' skin in petty ways and punching their buttons and making them nuts, I thought occulemency was supposed to be about developing a thicker skin and learning to not let those things bother you. Except everybody failed. Harry never learned the spell. Snape, who was supposed to be an expert, still chafed and snapped at Sirius.
I mentioned this to a friend and she said that she thought the occulemency was about lack of communication and lack of sharing, which is why it was supposed to fail. Dumbledore never told Harry anything, which is why things went wrong. Harry didn't tell Dumbledore anything, which is why things went wrong. So Harry never learned the spell because it was the wrong thing to do, all of which was proved by the end.
What do you think? It could be we're both right; Snape kept teaching it like it's about hiding your feelings so people can't get at them and use them against you. But the flip side of that is barriers and lack of intimacy and trust. They go together. But all that seems to complicated for what Rowling was trying to say--or if it's not then the implications are horrible.
(And it also gives more validity to the people who heavily criticized Dumbledore for making Harry do this incredibly intimate spell with Snape when they hated each other. And I have to agree with that. No matter how you look at it, this spell is more intimate than almost anything.)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-03-11 01:12 pm (UTC)About the house points: I can totally see why a kid would fall for that, even though it was unfair from the beginning. Kids'll care about things like that even if they think it's unfair. But by book 5, I would think they'd stop caring. I mean, if Draco is going to be granted the power to give and take house points and to use it with the childish glee of a 10-year-old, I'd think they could conclude that House points aren't worth a whole lot. You get a cup. Whoop-de-doo. They're dealing with people dying; why do they even remotely care about house points? And yet they still do--it's baffling and a little annoying. But then book 5 was full of people getting pissed off about things that shouldn't have mattered.
Actually, I want to ask your opinion on something. Now, it seems to me that in each book (beyond book 1) there's some life lesson and it's tied in to the major magical learning of that year. The ridikkulous (sp?) spell was actually a profound maturation of the kids. I guess the protego ? one was the next year's. It's something that was valuable to learn and had a metaphoric meaning and tied in to the plot of the book in some way, at least a little. The 5th book's big spell seemed to be Occulemency (I dont' remember how to spell any of these, can you tell? :) and the opposite, legillimency or something. Since everything in book 5 was about people getting under each others' skin in petty ways and punching their buttons and making them nuts, I thought occulemency was supposed to be about developing a thicker skin and learning to not let those things bother you. Except everybody failed. Harry never learned the spell. Snape, who was supposed to be an expert, still chafed and snapped at Sirius.
I mentioned this to a friend and she said that she thought the occulemency was about lack of communication and lack of sharing, which is why it was supposed to fail. Dumbledore never told Harry anything, which is why things went wrong. Harry didn't tell Dumbledore anything, which is why things went wrong. So Harry never learned the spell because it was the wrong thing to do, all of which was proved by the end.
What do you think? It could be we're both right; Snape kept teaching it like it's about hiding your feelings so people can't get at them and use them against you. But the flip side of that is barriers and lack of intimacy and trust. They go together. But all that seems to complicated for what Rowling was trying to say--or if it's not then the implications are horrible.
(And it also gives more validity to the people who heavily criticized Dumbledore for making Harry do this incredibly intimate spell with Snape when they hated each other. And I have to agree with that. No matter how you look at it, this spell is more intimate than almost anything.)