Typically, Harry is unwilling to confide in an adult, even one he trusts and admires. Some of these things he mightn't want to say because he doesn't want to disappoint D, but not all of them would make him look bad -- they're just worries he has, and he won't share them.
Definitely--and yet on many levels he's got good reason not to trust them. If Dumbledore is indeed setting things up here and being manipulative Harry's smart not to reveal himself emotionally. It's odd he doesn't bring up certain other things, though. Dumbledore knows Malfoy's background as well as anyone, so I'd think Harry might have brought up his yelling about Mudbloods in the hallway.
How does he know it's got fangs? We don't know it's a basilisk yet, do we?
I think it's just that Slytherin=snake and Harry's a Parseltongue so that also brings in the snake thing.
I wanted to attribute some morality to Ron and Harry here, some sense that knocking out a couple of boys and locking them in a closet might be considered wrong. But it just isn't there...
Nope. There's never any thought to this being wrong or how Harry, who is also a prime suspect, would feel if someone did it to him, even after it's revealed that all three boys are just as innocent as Harry here. This is a real trend throughout the books after this, where just about any action decided upon is always assumed to be justified.
Draco has a point here. Nothing in the papers? That does sound like a cover-up.
This is also really interesting to me given that I'm re-reading OotP, which deals so much with the manipulation of the press. From the main characters' pov it's always bad when the press prints lies that reflect badly on them, but at the same time I don't think they've got any problems manipulating the press to their own ends (I don't think they mind a cover-up here). The trouble is they always seem to think the world at large should instinctively know what to believe and what not to believe, and how would they? Why are people silly for believing the Prophet in OotP when it says things about Harry when the Trio gets information from the Prophet as well? And why should anyone believe Harry's interview in the Quibbler when the Quibbler also prints nonsense? If there is a cover-up in CoS it's very possibly Dumbledore behind it, setting the trend for a press that's there to push an agenda rather than give people the truth.
And yay Malfoy the performer. His impressions are always described as cruel, but many of them are surely done by other students. I mean, here what's he doing but imitating very obviously strange behavior by a student to a couple of friends--and he seems mostly disgusted at Colin's fawning over Harry.
Personally, I of course hope that Malfoy's being a performer leads to something interesting because, as I've said elsewhere, Harry doesn't seem to really see all the ways he's performing.
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Date: 2004-10-24 08:52 am (UTC)Definitely--and yet on many levels he's got good reason not to trust them. If Dumbledore is indeed setting things up here and being manipulative Harry's smart not to reveal himself emotionally. It's odd he doesn't bring up certain other things, though. Dumbledore knows Malfoy's background as well as anyone, so I'd think Harry might have brought up his yelling about Mudbloods in the hallway.
How does he know it's got fangs? We don't know it's a basilisk yet, do we?
I think it's just that Slytherin=snake and Harry's a Parseltongue so that also brings in the snake thing.
I wanted to attribute some morality to Ron and Harry here, some sense that knocking out a couple of boys and locking them in a closet might be considered wrong. But it just isn't there...
Nope. There's never any thought to this being wrong or how Harry, who is also a prime suspect, would feel if someone did it to him, even after it's revealed that all three boys are just as innocent as Harry here. This is a real trend throughout the books after this, where just about any action decided upon is always assumed to be justified.
Draco has a point here. Nothing in the papers? That does sound like a cover-up.
This is also really interesting to me given that I'm re-reading OotP, which deals so much with the manipulation of the press. From the main characters' pov it's always bad when the press prints lies that reflect badly on them, but at the same time I don't think they've got any problems manipulating the press to their own ends (I don't think they mind a cover-up here). The trouble is they always seem to think the world at large should instinctively know what to believe and what not to believe, and how would they? Why are people silly for believing the Prophet in OotP when it says things about Harry when the Trio gets information from the Prophet as well? And why should anyone believe Harry's interview in the Quibbler when the Quibbler also prints nonsense? If there is a cover-up in CoS it's very possibly Dumbledore behind it, setting the trend for a press that's there to push an agenda rather than give people the truth.
And yay Malfoy the performer. His impressions are always described as cruel, but many of them are surely done by other students. I mean, here what's he doing but imitating very obviously strange behavior by a student to a couple of friends--and he seems mostly disgusted at Colin's fawning over Harry.
Personally, I of course hope that Malfoy's being a performer leads to something interesting because, as I've said elsewhere, Harry doesn't seem to really see all the ways he's performing.