But there’s also a counter-theme to all this fun, that grows steadily stronger as the book progresses – and that is the image of chaos as something menacing and terrifying, a necessary corrective to its first presentation as something more innocuous, a challenge that separates ordinary people from heros. And people who can master or manipulate this chaos, like Tom or to a lesser extent Lockhart, have the power to impose on others, to exploit and harm them. There’s no question that Harry walks more confidently on the dark side than most other characters – at what point, as he grows older, might this lead to callousness, to a temptation toward exploiting other people? If Dumbledore’s job is to prevent Harry Potter from turning into another Tom Riddle, and some pre-emptive inoculations may not be totally out of order.
Dumbledore on Ginny is a tougher issue. Really, the question of how traumatized Ginny is by Tom is a key, subterranean issue for the entire series. She's so quiet in PoA and GoF. And is her OOTP personality a bit manic, maybe? Hard to interpret. What possible good can it do at this point, though, to blame her, to "mercifully" refrain from punishing her, for what she "did" in CoS?
One possible answer is that she's guiltier than she looks. A J Hall has a fascinating essay cited elsewhere in this thread that touches on Ginny's possibly subconscious resentment toward Penelope for taking Percy away from her. And while A J Hall would probably be scandalized by my extension of the issue here, it's worth wondering: is there a broader pattern where Tom and the basilisk serve as Ginny's poltergeists? We can infer that Ginny resents being excluded from the Trio. But the attack on Mrs. Norris agitates Filch and alarms the staff, which makes nocturnal rambling more difficult. The attack on Colin focuses on a weird sort of rival -- a more aggressive Harry-admirer. The attack on Justin consolidates suspicion about Harry, which serves him right! And the attack on Hermione goes right to the heart of the Trio. If Ginny is sharing her fears and resentments with Tom, might she not also be getting some satisfaction when he acts to avenge her?
If that's too much to take, maybe we can fall back on a more benevolent interpretation -- there are some studies of trauma that suggest that preserving a sense of agency, even an irrational sense of responsibility for the trauma, actually helps victims recover from the experience. It may be better for them to feel that they were active agents who just made a mistake, than that they had been reduced to utter helplessness. So Dumbledore, here, may be instinctively providing Ginny with all the therapy she's going to get.
Finally, I don't share people's suspicions about Dumbledore's approach to the DADA position. For example, as some people have pointed out, I don't see "impaled on his own sword" as evidence of guilty knowledge about Lockhart's memory charms -- it could be a simple observation about the spell backfiring. More generally, I actually think Dumbledore's approach to the DADA position is entirely consistent with the picture of his character and role I sketched out above. It's as if he's reminding the kids that complete safety is an illusion, that they should never let down their guard for some higher power that will keep them safe. Constant vigilance!
Lockhart provides a reasonably effective tour of the range of nasties out there, thereby fulfilling his basic educational mission, but maybe more importantly, he inoculates the kids rather effectively against hero worship. "Defense" aginst evil never requires subordinating one's own judgment (or political commitments?) to a man on a horse -- and that's a good liberal lesson.
Well, this has been a bit rambling, no? But I was feeling contrary, and I wonder if this has affected any received ideas.
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Date: 2004-11-10 06:20 pm (UTC)But there’s also a counter-theme to all this fun, that grows steadily stronger as the book progresses – and that is the image of chaos as something menacing and terrifying, a necessary corrective to its first presentation as something more innocuous, a challenge that separates ordinary people from heros. And people who can master or manipulate this chaos, like Tom or to a lesser extent Lockhart, have the power to impose on others, to exploit and harm them. There’s no question that Harry walks more confidently on the dark side than most other characters – at what point, as he grows older, might this lead to callousness, to a temptation toward exploiting other people? If Dumbledore’s job is to prevent Harry Potter from turning into another Tom Riddle, and some pre-emptive inoculations may not be totally out of order.
Dumbledore on Ginny is a tougher issue. Really, the question of how traumatized Ginny is by Tom is a key, subterranean issue for the entire series. She's so quiet in PoA and GoF. And is her OOTP personality a bit manic, maybe? Hard to interpret. What possible good can it do at this point, though, to blame her, to "mercifully" refrain from punishing her, for what she "did" in CoS?
One possible answer is that she's guiltier than she looks. A J Hall has a fascinating essay cited elsewhere in this thread that touches on Ginny's possibly subconscious resentment toward Penelope for taking Percy away from her. And while A J Hall would probably be scandalized by my extension of the issue here, it's worth wondering: is there a broader pattern where Tom and the basilisk serve as Ginny's poltergeists? We can infer that Ginny resents being excluded from the Trio. But the attack on Mrs. Norris agitates Filch and alarms the staff, which makes nocturnal rambling more difficult. The attack on Colin focuses on a weird sort of rival -- a more aggressive Harry-admirer. The attack on Justin consolidates suspicion about Harry, which serves him right! And the attack on Hermione goes right to the heart of the Trio. If Ginny is sharing her fears and resentments with Tom, might she not also be getting some satisfaction when he acts to avenge her?
If that's too much to take, maybe we can fall back on a more benevolent interpretation -- there are some studies of trauma that suggest that preserving a sense of agency, even an irrational sense of responsibility for the trauma, actually helps victims recover from the experience. It may be better for them to feel that they were active agents who just made a mistake, than that they had been reduced to utter helplessness. So Dumbledore, here, may be instinctively providing Ginny with all the therapy she's going to get.
Finally, I don't share people's suspicions about Dumbledore's approach to the DADA position. For example, as some people have pointed out, I don't see "impaled on his own sword" as evidence of guilty knowledge about Lockhart's memory charms -- it could be a simple observation about the spell backfiring. More generally, I actually think Dumbledore's approach to the DADA position is entirely consistent with the picture of his character and role I sketched out above. It's as if he's reminding the kids that complete safety is an illusion, that they should never let down their guard for some higher power that will keep them safe. Constant vigilance!
Lockhart provides a reasonably effective tour of the range of nasties out there, thereby fulfilling his basic educational mission, but maybe more importantly, he inoculates the kids rather effectively against hero worship. "Defense" aginst evil never requires subordinating one's own judgment (or political commitments?) to a man on a horse -- and that's a good liberal lesson.
Well, this has been a bit rambling, no? But I was feeling contrary, and I wonder if this has affected any received ideas.