Thread response post #3

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

A LOT of interesting storylines have been running lately. Anyone who has a second, link to a thread or two of interest, and a comment about it, and I'll copy it into the post.

Here are mine:
-Whoever guessed the Mirror of Erised would be in Buckingham Palace was correct. We still need to figure out what Harry saw, though.

-The kids wonder how Muggles ever got along without wizard favors. That's like taking the wands away from wizards and then wondering how they ever got from place to place without cars.

-I cheered at Tonks breaking free of the Crouches.

-The sympathy between Pansy and Sirius is great. "Hello, dangerous criminal." "Hullo, rabble-rouser." I hope they get a chance to meet in person someday. Also, Remus and Sirius's interactions are so sad.

-Amycus's evil Christmas message made me laugh.

-At 11, shouldn't Harry be too old for "let's be friends because our parents are friends"? It struck me as another example of how he is oddly childish sometimes, which I suspect is due to an upbringing where he was rarely encouraged to think for himself or take care of himself.

From travelintheways:
-I found Draco's Christmas post very interesting: "Mostly, I wish that things and people would just let Harry alone! He's never done a bad thing to anyone and he's a much pleasanter person than me, so, I wish that... they would just let him be." For the most part, Draco's been staying in his canon character, and I found this outburst of genuine empathy touching and intriguing. He must mean all the, ah, attention Harry's receiving after bumping into the Mirror.

Comments

[travelintheways.livejournal.com]

Posted just after you did, I found Draco's Christmas post (http://alt-draco.livejournal.com/4017.html) very interesting: "Mostly, I wish that things and people would just let Harry alone! He's never done a bad thing to anyone and he's a much pleasanter person than me, so, I wish that... they would just let him be." For the most part, Draco's been staying in his canon character, and I found this outburst of genuine empathy touching and intriguing. He must mean all the, ah, attention Harry's receiving after bumping into the Mirror.

Draco's been in a foul mood too lately. I'm wondering (and I may not be recalling the thread quite correctly): did Draco see something in the Mirror too? Now that's something I'd LOVE to know about.

With Harry thinking about how hard the LP's younger life was (the sympathetic soul that he is), and how he used to think the LP didn't love him, I'd wager a Chocolate Frog that his desire had something to do with family/parents who loved him - not much different from canon Harry's desire, really.

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

I bet Draco did look in the mirror. I'm extremely curious to know what he saw there as well. But now that he knows what the inscription means, and therefore what it would reveal about himself, I doubt he'll ever tell anybody but Harry. I'm definitely keeping an eye out for hints, though.

I thought Lucius's response to what Harry saw in the mirror was very interesting, especially the last part, which I'll bold: "that artifact may be curious, but it is not something with which you ought to concern yourself. Strictly speaking, you ought not to have been in that part of the palace at all, but it's understandable that thoughts of Christmas presents sent you prying. As to its lies, remember that the key to seeing through an illusion is to call to mind clearly that which you know to be true. Discard the rest so that you may separate what is real from what is false."

He could be talking about the fact that the mirror shows what you want rather than what is true, and you shouldn't be sucked into the fantasy too deeply, like Dumbledore said... but it would also make sense for him to respond that way if what Harry saw in the mirror was his real parents, and Lucius was trying to do damage control. He might tell Harry that the mirror was evil and trying to corrupt him or turn him against his Father, and that Harry had to be strong to resist the lies it showed him. Of course, this would be before Harry and Draco figured out what the inscription on the mirror meant.

But then why would Harry's response to the mirror be: "Anyway I spent a lot of time thinking about Father. He must have had a really hard time when I was younger. I used to think that he sent me to be with Mr and Mrs Malfoy so much because he didnt love me very much but now I know that's not true. He was just so very busy with important things."

I guess maybe if he saw himself with a loving family in the mirror, it made him feel guilty for being disloyal by not already considering his Father to be a loving family, so he is telling himself these things publicly to try to convince himself and alleviate his guilt about his private thoughts about his Father.

Or maybe what he saw in the mirror was himself with a loving Voldemort, rather than with the Potters? But then it would be hard to make that fit with Lucius's post. Hmm.

[qwerty88.livejournal.com]

"-At 11, shouldn't Harry be too old for "let's be friends because our parents are friends"? It struck me as another example of how he is oddly childish sometimes, which I suspect is due to an upbringing where he was rarely encouraged to think for himself or take care of himself."

My mother _still_ thinks I should have been friends with the daughter of one of her best friends.

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

But how old were you when you realized that was a silly thing for her to expect? That seems like a very parentish desire that most kids would rebel against quite early. But Harry just obediently internalizes it. I have trouble imagining the more mature characters, like Pansy or Ron, doing the same. They might befriend Seamus out of kindness or sympathy, or because they like him, but to say "If your going to be coming to parties with the Malfoys from now on then maybe we ought to be chums more"? I have trouble picturing it.

[longstrider.livejournal.com]

Or because you might want to be more acquainted with someone you're going to be thrust together with repeatedly. I didn't see Harry's comment to Seamus as 'let's be best chums!' but something more mild.

[jenett]

Part of it is ... how small is their society?

I mean, if you're going to keep running into someone party after party - and this *is* a very small closed society right now - it's probably easier to be friendlyish.

It seems, like from the various interactions, it's not so much a "Our respective adults are friends, so, yes, we should be" but "Our paths didn't really cross directly at school, but if we're going to be at all the same parties, might as well get to know each other a bit better."

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

Well, I suppose it doesn't strike other people as oddly as it did me, so maybe I just overreacted to it. I was trying to give it as evidence of what I see as this Harry's simplicity and childishness, which seems more pronounced in him than in anybody else his year. And which I think comes from his upbringing of being sheltered and probably being discouraged ask questions.

Maybe he's craftier than I give him credit for, and so he's actually just being extremely guarded about what he reveals over the journals. But that isn't the impression I've had so far.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

The thing that strikes me, not only about Harry's openness to Seamus now he's Mr. Rosier's foster son, but about all the Hogwarts kids save Padma and Millicent is how little clique-ishness they are displaying so far. It's especially striking to me about Pansy, because it's such a contrast to the usual way she's portrayed in fandom. On one of our early speculation threads someone noted how different the Slytherin kids seem to be in this AU where they have not grown up as the offspring of a shamed, defeated group of former Death Eaters but have grown up, instead, as the next generation of Wizardom's social elite. I agree that this means they are not automatically defensive and ready to disparage those who judge them (as, for instance, Draco is in canon), but I expect that we should see a social pecking order emerge pretty soon to replace all the generally friendly interactions we've seen this past term. We've seen hints in Draco's coolness towards Padma when she tried to presume on her mother's connections with his mother, but he seemed to soften some. And Teddy and Millicent seem to have a more developed sense of superiority than Pansy, Sally-Anne, or Harry. I'm holding my breath to see which of these kids will develop a full-blown bias against half-bloods and whether that will marginalize Sally-Anne within Slytherin House (or whether house solidarity will prevail as the more important value).

It seems that at eleven, these students are still on the cusp of adolescent social sorting and haven't begun separating themselves into fiercely separated groups. That's something to look forward to... ouch.

Speaking of which... I've been missing Ron. I've really enjoyed his interactions with Pansy.

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

As long as there's such a stark in-group/out-group contrast between wizards, mudbloods, and muggles, I doubt that social cliques and house loyalties will ever be as strong as they were in the books. But I do think you're right that these guys are at an age where cliques get stronger. Also an age where the good opinion of peers starts to be more important than the good opinion of adults, right? I've spent the last two weeks in the company of an eleven-year-old, and it's really a pretty cool age.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

I doubt that social cliques and house loyalties will ever be as strong as they were in the books.

Maybe, but I see hints in Padma's snobbishness that we should see the usual amount of icyness to those beneath me and prickliness about those who think themselves better than me. Many of the parents (the Malfoys and Lestranges, whom we see directly, and the Patils, Browns, Blacks, Notts, and Strettons, whom we see indirectly) seem acutely tuned to the social pecking order, so I'd be very surprised if their children do not pick up their parents' social biases.

[alt-player.livejournal.com]

Amycus's post includes a rather infamous quote.

[ladyrelaynie.livejournal.com]

I just researched that, and um, it gives me chills.

Wikipedia is helpful, for others who wish to get scared.

[alt-player.livejournal.com]

It should. It's also a clue.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

He's off murdering film stars over the holidays?

[alt-player.livejournal.com]

Artistic ambitions.

[aquagia.livejournal.com]

I think Lucius's role in this is very interesting. I mean, what he tells Harry about the mirror is pretty damn close to what Dumbledore told him in canon--just said in a different way:

But in this case, that's not the most important reason not to have meddled; it's more to do with the false images that artifact produces. You continue to dwell on them, I see. My advice is to put the whole affair from your mind. It is fruitless to spend your time dreaming of impossibilities. Men have driven themselves mad doing so.

Lucius is completely filling the Dumbledore role of father figure/advisor for Harry. Now, it's always been my opinion that Lucius (even book Lucius), while being a murderer, bigot and general asshole besides, still really loves his child and family. At this point in the game I'm placing Pansy and Harry in his "family", so I'm very intrigued to see what will happen with them.

You guys. This game is making me love Lucius even more than I already did. Not good. Haha.

[alt-player.livejournal.com]

Lucius's player cannot resist doing a happy dance for this comment....

[aquagia.livejournal.com]

<3