HP 20th anniversary reread, chapters 8 & 9
I think I'm still behind by two chapters? (It's day 11 of the reread today, if I'm not wrong ... though I've been abroad for long enough that my dates are fairly mixed up.) Still, I'm doing pretty well considering I've been at the Summer Institute all week. I also can't believe it's been only a week (and a bit). My brain has taken in enough
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It's interesting how in the earlier books, Ron's actually very often the voice of reason. I've been re-reading the later ones and it's there too, but he actually seems to get more dim later. In the earlier books he's... more or less a normal eleven year old, I suppose?
e man, whether you identify with him or try to understand him (and yeah, I've attempted to here and there over the years), I don't think his behaviour is justifiable. Even the argument that it's maybe all an act to keep up his status as a spy ... yeah, that doesn't really hold water when you consider he had to explain away saving Harry's life to Bellatrix in HBP. Compared to that, would he even had to explain not demonising Harry? Not to mention his complaints about Harry in the flashback in DH, where he's ( ... )
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I'm not sure about that either--it's just that he seems very dim on the subject of girls and feelings. (Then again, I haven't read the whole series for a while, so perhaps I'll see this soon!)
If anyone's truly "overly trusting", it's probably Percy Weasley, who believed the MoM only had good intentions to a serious fault.
Interestingly enough, Percy seems very much in awe and respectful of Dumbledore at this point in the series, too. I wonder how he descended into his 'about-face', and who might have influenced it.
Might Penny's getting petrified in CoS and Dumbledore's failure to prevent it have seeded some doubt?
But I think Dumbledore also believes people will do the right thing.
The flip side of trust--naivety. I love it, the way JKR gives us both sides of the coin; both the strength and the flaw.
And yeah, I think we can all agree that throughout the series, we observed Dumbledore's slow falling from the pedestal we initially set him up on.
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As for Snape's behavior, as an adult he should act like one. Yes, he had a (presumably) sucky childhood and he was bullied while at Hogwarts, but he's an adult now. He's just repeating the cycle of bullying, acting as he does towards his students. Stern and strict is one thing; McGonagall manages to keep order *and* teach while NOT bullying her students.
Not to say Snape deserved how he died. I still wonder how much therapy Harry (and Neville!) needed to go through before they could fully process all the hurt Snape caused.
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Most of the time I don't even think that a twist might be coming, let alone guess at them--that's how bad I am at seeing them coming!
He's just repeating the cycle of bullying, acting as he does towards his students.
I'm glad neither Harry nor Neville (apparently) perpetuated the cycle. (I guess, anyway. We don't have concrete evidence about how Neville teaches, but I can't imagine him being like Snape!) The thing about all the characters is that they all had tragedy in their lives and stuff to put up with. Not all of them behaved in ways that lashed out against the world. I think we can understand why Snape is bitter and vengeful without needing to justify his behaviour.
I still wonder how much therapy Harry (and Neville!) needed to go through before they could fully process all the hurt Snape caused.I imagine there might be an entire generation of students that were potentially scarred by him, to be honest ... we don't see what he was like to ( ... )
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