Fascinating article

[icarus]

Harry Potter and the Banality of Evil

(Hey Brodie, does this sound familiar? Didn't we have this conversation back in March? *grins*)

Harry's punishment from Umbridge is similar to a scene in Kafka's The Penal Colony? Hmm.

'Beg Me For It' news. Well, I promised the next installment to my Beta today, but I've hit a snag in one scene. Almost there though.

Comments

[tinderblast.livejournal.com]

Eventually they discover that that world is closed; they can stand on the sidelines and be permitted to enter it temporarily, but really, unless you're born to it, you don't know the rules.

Oooh, exactly. Poor Percy doesn't realise that there are hierarchies within hierarchies, and that some people (is invoking the Malfoys a huge cliche here?) would never accept Percy because he's an upstart and hasn't been in their circles since forever, etc. He's probably young and naive enough to not know that all the earnestness, diligence, and hard work in the world idn't going to help him, there. And yet there's that really sad part where Percy basically spells out that he feels as if everyone 'accepts' him in spite of his background and family, and means Fudge in particular, and he doesn't see how damaging this is (to himself, psychologically) to not just admit this, but endorse it.

They either blame their family, or they blame themselves... and the successful ones almost always blame their family.

That's so interesting. I don't think I've known that many, but that just seems like such self-defeating behaviour.


Re his late-teens behaviour: Marvolo has a great lj icon: there's a hazy silhouette of a t-shirt in the background, and in the foreground the lines 'I'd send my fucking Weasley jumper back too!' I killed myself laughing at it, there was something so condensed about that gesture. Everyone has fights with their parents, or feels like the family outcast, but there was something so extreme about Sending Back the Weasley Jumper that everyone talks abut it in hushed tones, both in fandom and canon.

Anyway, will respond more soon.

brodie