Reading HP Aloud -- OotP Chapter 1

[rj_anderson]

I read Books 1-4 aloud to my husband just a couple months after GoF came out -- he enjoys the stories but doesn't read for pleasure -- and tonight we finally started on OotP. I have great fun doing this, because it appeals to the buried actress in me: I try to do as professional-sounding and nuanced a reading as possible, including all the voices

Comments

[wahlee_98]

This is about the same reaction I had to Harry's emotional state on the second read-through. His reactions seem almost unconcious-- what he's thinking mentally has very little bearing on the way he's acting and the emotions he has. They surprise even him sometimes. Definitely seeing evidence of Voldemort's channeling his own frustration into Harry without either of them realizing it.

[rj_anderson]

His reactions seem almost unconcious-- what he's thinking mentally has very little bearing on the way he's acting and the emotions he has.

Yes, exactly. The anger and hostility's not rational -- in fact it's often counter-rational. He's feeling what Voldemort's feeling at the time, and although it's easy for him to put it down to his own hard circumstances, it really doesn't have anything to do with him.

The other thing I noticed is that right from Chapter One, Harry is muttering about his own rights and his own glory in a way he's never done before. "Hadn't he done...? Hadn't he been the one to...?" It's a very Voldemort kind of way of looking at the world -- "everybody had better give ME the attention that I deserve!" A little bit of self-pity under the circumstances would be natural, but not a solipsism this full-blown, I think.

I think that's part of what scared me ...

[necessaryspace]

... how egotistical Harry became in Book Five. A lot of the accomplisments he kept yelling about to Hermione and Ron occured b/c Hermione and Ron helped him. W/out those two, Harry probably would have died the first year, and Voldemort would now possess the Sorcerer's Stone.

Mostly, it scared me b/c, w/ that attitude, Harry would lose the very people he needed to survive any future battles.

But that does answer my question of where all that "look at me!" stuff was coming from. I hope that you do a review like this for every chapter. =)

Re: I think that's part of what scared me ...

[sff_corgi]

That reminds me of something which perplexed me -- here he's all 'I did this, and I did that, and they should remember how sturdy I am...'

Then in the first DA meeting, it's 'But that was just a coincidence, and I had help, and that was an accident....'

You know what I mean? It's like he couldn't make up his mind exactly how studly he was.

[jalara]

It's probably a good thing I've never listened to the HP audios, as they'd only make me self-conscious,

I can't imagine ANYONE doing a better "Hem, hem..." than you. I wish I had it on tape. :D

As for the Voldemort influence on Harry, even in ch 1, I can really see that that is probably what is going on. Thanks for pointing that out. It will be interesting to see how Harry battles "The Dark Side" in future books - it is his destiny. Will he become aware of the voices that are not his own and be able to distinguish between them? I look forward to seeing how JKR handles this.

[lizbee]

I've always believed that Voldemort's effects on Harry went beyond that handy Parseltongue business. He just lurks in Harry's mind, occasionally egging him onto Darker and greater heights. I hadn't spotted the incipient megalomania in Harry's demands for a bit of credit, though. Brrr...

[idlerat]

I don't believe it's Voldemort's influence. I've always found Harry to be a character with a bit of a short fuse and quite a bit of pride, though of course he has generally been kind and more directed toward others in previous books. He has always been surprisingly free of self-doubt, given the way the Dursleys treated him.

so he can humiliate Dudley and hex the others.

When I re-read this, all I could think of was Snape's Worst and the subsequent characterization. Especially *humiliate*. I think that's the point of this episode--the future of that relationship (between Snape and Harry).

This was the Black book: House of Black to Death of Black. I have no doubt it will be the nadir of the series.

[rj_anderson]

I don't believe it's Voldemort's influence.

Yes, Harry's shown anger and pride in previous books, but not so much when it came to his own accomplishments. In all the previous books he's been determined ("Nobody's going to do this, so I've got to") but also self-doubting in a lot of ways -- look at his attitude to being in the Triwizard Tournament, for instance, his fatalistic conviction that he's going to make a fool of himself or get himself killed. Ron and Hermione have always had to encourage and support him. And when praised for his heroism he's characteristically underplayed his own importance.

Now, however, he's angry that nobody's acknowledging how important he is or how much he's done. It's a very sudden change, I think -- too sudden to be accounted for by merely turning fifteen. And unlike depression or fear, it's not the kind of thing you could see as a natural outcome of Cedric's death and Voldemort's return. What about either one of those two things would be making Harry think more about himself and what he

[pauraque]

This is an interesting interpretation, and certainly possible, but it didn't occur to me. I didn't feel like Harry was unusually hostile or self-contradictory for a 15-year-old, especially one who's had the kind of trauma he has. I think he acted about the same way I did when I was a moody, solipsistic 15-year-old boy, up to and including the sadistic fantasies about one's enemies. That's pretty much par for the course for teenaged boys who aren't under the happiest of circumstances, I'd guess.