[ SECRET POST #1755 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1755 ⌋


Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 09 pages, 206 secrets from Secret Submission Post #251.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 1 2 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 - repeats ]
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments and concerns should go here.

Comments

[wldcatsprstr-14.livejournal.com]

Nope. I'm judging them for not making any sense. Someone murdered your entire immediate family and tried to kill you when you were child, which obviously says that this person is fucking crazy if they tried to kill a child, you realize that you have magic powers and can protect yourself and what do you do? Well if you're Harry, you DON'T attempt to learn everything you can so that you can be ready at any time that this person could come for you, even though they attack you your first year at school, and you make fun of your friend for actually wanting to learn.

No one said he had to turn into super-angst boy or woobie (which it can be argued that he does. "MY DAD WAS A BULLY. OMG MY LIFE IS OVER.") but he could at least do the logical thing and study once in a while, especially since he has no idea what knowledge he'll actually need to fight this guy if he ever shows up.

[wldcatsprstr-14.livejournal.com]

Nope. I reject the idea that there aren't any clues for him to pick up on. HE GETS ATTACKED MY VOLDEMORT DURING HIS FIRST YEAR. He sees Voldemort pretty much come back when he's been hearing that the guy is dead and he ends up in the hospital because of it. How much more of a clue does he need?

No one said he couldn't play Quidditch and do all the normal kid stuff too. He would be fucking boring if he didn't. But he doesn't even bother to take up a book on his own and try to learn some spells so that he can be ready. For the longest time, the thought to study outside of coursework doesn't even cross his mind. And then he goes so far as to make fun of Hermione for studying when she's not even the one that the guy is out to get.

And the "he's a child" thing doesn't jive for me either because people grow up much faster in their world than in ours. You're an adult at 17 years old in their world. And he's still fucking around after the threat becomes real, worrying about who's making the Quidditch team and other unimportant stuff like that. The adults in his life have their own share of blame but that doesn't make Harry any less accountable. I'll give him a break at 11 but after you've been attacked and seen people around you being attacked, it's time to buckle down and do some research of your own. Hermione manages it just fine. He has resources. Even if he never found out a damn thing in all his searching, at least he would have tried. And that's what bothers me. That he didn't try as much as it logically followed that he should have considering the threat against his life.

[wldcatsprstr-14.livejournal.com]

I know he did. And I'm not holding him responsible for his actions in Book 1. I actually think that's the most initiative he takes in the whole series in proportion to the information he has. He barely knows a thing but he knows enough to know that something is wrong and that he's gonna try to help out.

The reason this story works is because the characters are very human.

Humans also have some sense of self-preservation. And the fact that he just relies on luck so much is another thing that bothers me. When I was a teenager, I slacked off and didn't do what I should. But my life and the lives of those around me were never in mortal peril. So the comparison between Harry and normal teenagers doesn't apply. He's NOT normal. That's the firs thing we ever learn about him.

[eerised-da.livejournal.com]

But that's the thing: How do you know you'd react any differently with the same exact life experiences? You can't know how you'd react if you'd lived Harry's life because you wouldn't be the same person you are.

Also, that was an important aspect of Harry himself: luck. He wasn't supposed to be super smart. He was special by circumstances, but he was supposed to be fairly average outside of that and luck is what got him through most situations, if not his best friends helping him (mostly Hermione). He was actually supposed to be very normal.

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

I think you've missed a couple of points. The first is that Harry has spent years with the Dursleys pounding "Don't ask questions!" into his head. And the grownups beyond the Dursleys (his teachers at school, for example) don't appear to have championed him much beyond insisting that he get glasses. He hasn't been given a lot of books to read, hasn't ever been encouraged to develop his own interests, doesn't go on outings, doesn't even have any friends to stimulate his mind with conversations. Not until he gets to Hogwarts. If Harry's learned anything from his life before Hogwarts it's that when you put your head up someone tries to take it off. That sort of life doesn't make for a scholar. It makes for a kid who does what he's asked to do and hopes that no one will punish him for doing it wrong.

Not to mention that he doesn't value himself all that much. Year after year he takes stupid chances with his own life whenever he's convinced that if he dies he will have saved others. :/

[wldcatsprstr-14.livejournal.com]

When I read the books, I saw a whole world being opened up to Harry of new things that he was allowed to try and learn about. Sure, not everything was allowed (and for good reason) but he wasn't nearly as confined as at the Dursley's. Brand new world, brand new things. And he dives right into it in some cases but IMO doesn't really embrace a very important part until much later than I thought made sense. IDK, something about his attitude in the books just seemed weird and off to me. Like, why aren't you studying boy?! HE'S TRYING TO KILL YOU!

LOL yea...

[(Anonymous)]

You have no grasp of human psychology. None whatsoever.

[wldcatsprstr-14.livejournal.com]

In the real world, sure I do. But that's completely different from what I wanna see in my fiction. And I acknowledge that. In my fiction, I wanna see "Someone murdered my parents and tried to kill me? Time for me to become kick ass and start name-taking" LOL

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, so you don't care about characters being psychologically realistic? OK. Each to their own. Seems a dumbass thing to be complaining about but whatever.

[pet-lunatic.livejournal.com]

Sorry for picking up on a specific point, but do they really grow up 'much faster' in the wizarding world? 17 instead of 18 isn't much of a difference, and the age of majority is so generic as to be meaningless anyway.

I think expecting an abused kid being offered a decent life for the first time to grow up instantly and reject all that's enjoyable in that new life is a bit unreasonable. As Churchill is supposed to have said, if cut funding to the arts to fund a war, what are we fighting for? What meaning would Harry find in working to save his life if that life had no joy in it? Soldiers don't stop caring about football. They even played a game in No Man's Land during the first world war.

Besides, Harry has a deal-with-it-when-it-comes personality; he seldom prepares unless promoted by others, and he likes to put off unpleasant tasks as long as possible. It's his nature. Not everybody is like Hermione.

[wldcatsprstr-14.livejournal.com]

People seem to think I think Harry shouldn't have any fun LOL. I really don't. If he was all workworkwork he would be boring. I just think he didn't focus as much as he should had. It's not in his nature and he likes to put off unpleasant things but I'm just saying that this is one of those unpleasant things that you really shouldn't put off LOL. This isn't just homework you don't wanna do. It's your life haha

[eerised-da.livejournal.com]

This.

[wrestlingdog.livejournal.com]

I agree with you.

+1

[(Anonymous)]

I agree. This is a good comment.

[eerised-da.livejournal.com]

I don't think that's a fair judgment though. He was eleven when he found out and by the time he was old enough to perform more advanced magic, he was also a teenager. Does he have to spend his entire existence focusing on Voldemort? I think he did that enough throughout the series; those little bits of happiness were dearly important to him--they gave him an escape.

All those things are things that teenagers think about: who likes who, what sports to play, make fun of the nerd. He had to add things like "how to destroy Horcuxes", "how to defeat the most evil Dark wizard" to that list because of fate.

And of course finding out his father was a bully would be hard for him to take. He never knew his parents and he had an idealised image of them in his head. He not only found out that image was wrong, he also had to cope with the fact that his dad was the same sort of person who would pick on Harry.

Harry was never the studious type; he was all action. Which does make sense considering he never got to be a normal kid, playing and doing. He was in a box for ten years of his life, where he couldn't do or say or react to the things that went on around him or how he was treated.

[wldcatsprstr-14.livejournal.com]

He was eleven when he found out and by the time he was old enough to perform more advanced magic, he was also a teenager.

You're an adult at 17 in HP-verse so the "he's a teenager" thing doesn't get him off the hook for me.

Does he have to spend his entire existence focusing on Voldemort? I think he did that enough throughout the series; those little bits of happiness were dearly important to him--they gave him an escape.


Not his whole entire existence but a bit more than he did in the beginning. Finding out that someone killed your parents and tried to kill you, and then running into that person and having them try to kill you again? And knowing that they STILL wanna kill you? Should have fucking terrified him enough to get his ass into the library every one in a while without being forced by someone being hurt, or dying LOL. I'm not saying he can't be a teenager because he was. But he certainly wasn't a normal one and it just seemed like he waited to long to take up the implications of that.

Harry was never the studious type; he was all action.

And it just seems strange that he never took the initiative earlier and was like "I'm not gonna sit around and wait for his guy to get me. I'm gonna prepare myself." Preparing to possibly be attacked for Voldemort is NOT all reading. He's gotta learn spells and actually practice them and stuff. It involves a TON of action. And it just disappoints me because I feel like he never really took up the amount of responsibility he should have in order to protect himself. I just think he should have cared more about being ready.

[eerised-da.livejournal.com]

By your logic anyone who hits the legal definition of adulthood in their country/world is automatically a mature, rational, emotionally capable person. He's still a teenager at seventeen, and I wasn't specific about age. He's a teenager from book three through book seven. Even when he's seventeen he is still a teenager. Are you telling me that every single person who is eighteen (in America), for example, is a mature, responsible adult, emotionally capable of handling a situation like the one Harry is faced with? Because I know plenty of adults who can barely handle their own lives, let alone the weight of the world.

Just because someone is legally classified as an adult, does not mean they are fully capable.

And you say "in the beginning", but in the beginning he is eleven. He was a child. Just because you come face to face with the person who killed your parents doesn't mean you are emotionally or rationally capable of thinking through and planning study sessions. The library was a place for studying for school, and when necessary breaking rules. He didn't know until the fifth book that it was completely up to him, and that was at the end. He has limited resources over summer and by the sixth book, he is learning what he can from Dumbledore. He wouldn't have found anything real on Horcruxes in the libraries of Hogwarts anyhow.

Your applying mature logic not only to a child but to an abused, neglected child. Yes, he is special, he is the hero, but that doesn't mean he's perfect. He's flawed, he makes mistakes. As a child, he was not expected to be the face of the war, and then by the time Voldemort does return, you have other complications like the lies being spread about Voldemort's return. Harry assumes it is more important for the truth to be revealed than for him to be on forefront of battle. Yes, he does tend to put himself out there in the midst of it, but he doesn't consciously plan to always be in the midst of it.

I think he did care enough. He did a lot to prepare, but he was still a child. A young child who could not possibly know everything that was going to happen. In GoF he practises his spells for a tournament that he had no idea had anything to do with Voldemort; in PoA he takes the initiative to learn the Patronus Charm which is advanced magic; in OotP through Hermione's help he teaches other students how to defend themselves. There is a lot of initiative on Harry's part, more than would be expected of any child at his age. Not everyone is going to respond the same to the things Harry experienced. Maybe someone else, like Hermione, would have looked up spells to practise but Harry isn't her. He's Harry. The actions one person might take are not the actions he might take.

Also, I don't think you understand what I mean by "action". I don't mean 'practise spells', which goes along with being studios in his world. I mean jumping into the fray without thought. I mean something present, that gets results fast. Instant action. He's good at DAtD but Harry isn't a patient person on the whole and looking up spells to practise would get boring.

For instance, even thought the TriWizard Tournement was a big deal and he was the youngest, Harry's initiative only stretched so far. I understand that as the person everything relies on, taking more initiative would have been smart, but that's not Harry. I'm not saying his actions were completely intelligent. They weren't thought out and that is the point. It's a character flaw of his that we see consistently which is attributed to his youth.

[(Anonymous)]

Your applying mature logic not only to a child but to an abused, neglected child.

People always seem to forget, ignore, or not even notice that Harry was a seriously abused child. Goddamn, this whole thread reminds me why I hate some sectors of the HP fandom.

Thank you for your intelligent comments in this thread.

[(Anonymous)]

THIS!! couldn't agree more.

[(Anonymous)]

Are you listening to anything people are saying? You're applying this logic and psychology to a child. A child is not an adult. Neither is a teenager an adult when it comes to maturity. You're talking about an abused child in the wizarding world during peace time whom we see grow into a teenager during war time.

Children are not mini adults. Stop trying to argue this.

[wldcatsprstr-14.livejournal.com]

Yes, an abused child who really shows no signs of abuse, psychological or otherwise and who a reader would probably never guess was abused if they hadn't been told by the author. Harry's abuse at the hands of the Dursley's barely plays into the story other than "his family members are selfish shitty people. Look how much better than them he is." So saying he's a victim of abuse like it has some serious bearing on his story, like we see him recovering from the trauma of his abuse, or like we even see him suffering any trauma at all as a result of his abuse is just silly. He's more well-adjusted that some of the people in the books who had normal childhoods.

And I know children are not adults. For one, children are generally smarter than adults when it comes to certain things. And Harry's not a child for every single book. He's a kid who grows up under extenuating circumstances in a world where childhood ends much earlier than it does for us.

[eerised-da.livejournal.com]

You also assume that everyone responds to trauma and abuse in the same way. When I was fourteen and furious at the world for my mother's death, struggling with not only all of the teenaged angst but also all the things that came along with her death, no one who didn't know me would know what I was going through or how strongly it affected me.

There is no absolute way to define how every single person will react to and act after experiencing trauma. One person may break down and cry, another may stand up and push those feelings down, another may ignore them so completely they do not even know they are there.

[wldcatsprstr-14.livejournal.com]

But this is the real world. Harry Potter is fiction. And in fiction, if you want something to appear relevant to a story, you have to emphasize it. You can't just say "this character was abused" and then show no scars of that and expect it to have real bearing on the story. A character like Snape does a much better of showing how trauma and abuse shapes a person than Harry does because, even though everyone reacts differently to trauma, Snape has a personality type that people generally associate with someone who went through what he did. He's bitter, mean, and generally angsting and angry at the world. Harry comes off as a completely well-adjusted kid who has really no negative baggage from his life at the Dursley's except that he has to play catch-up with the wizarding world. He doesn't LOOK like an abused kid, even if we're told he is one. And in fiction, you can't just tell about something just because it's a story. You have to show it and bring it to life.