Flesh-Eating-Slug Catcher
Posts: 195
Joined: 11:46pm June 12, 2009
|
QUOTE(fidelia @ Oct 9 2009, 10:03 PM)  What an awesome thread, Severa Sphyrna! And yeah, I've noticed this....and it bothers me. 
You're dead on. If we look at most of the major adult characters in the series who form a type of "guard" around Harry, they are singularly without extended family at the parental level or higher. It's quite a glaring omission, really. When we look at who protects Harry in the Order -- Remus, Severus, Sirius, Hagrid, the Weasleys -- the line stops with them. They have no parents, no extended family, and they are all singletons acting on their own.
One explanation I've come up with is that, simply, the wizarding world is a violent place, or at least a very deadly place.  The First Wizarding War presumably brought quite a faction of society to an early grave, and the losses of that war go on to influence the extreme reluctance of the current generation to admit that Voldemort was back. And those who didn't die in the war appear to have died of natural causes at an early age (or at least they left behind children who have only just reached adulthood). They say that our parents form a natural barricade between death and ourselves, and it is only when they are gone that we face Death directly. Perhaps these "adult orphan" characters all bear a type of testimony to the violence of the wizarding world -- and the harsh reality that magic does not appear to extend life or prevent tragedy?
Thanks Fidelia. Sorry I've been away. After dealing with umpteen emails and reading a screen at work, I just find it hard to sit on the computer once I get home...but I digress...
Just to be clear, I've thought of that too, as well as the previous contentions that they're just not that important (let's face it, there are enough characters to keep track of without adding a bunch of senior citizens to the mix)...But I also think that it is important to the narrative in terms of the adult males in the story, which you get at in the next part of your post.
QUOTE(fidelia @ Oct 9 2009, 10:03 PM)
And yes, it's psychologically interesting that the adults around Harry have no such parental barrier to rely upon. Sirius, Remus, Severus, and Hagrid are all alone, just like Harry. I find it interesting that almost all of the men surrounding Harry are orphans -- and that none of them but Remus has a "significant other" in their lives. (And let's face it: Remus makes rather a hash out of that anyway. He is unable to commit to his wife and unborn child, and yearns to accompany the trio on one last bout of Marauder adventure and glory). Certainly Remus, Severus, and Sirius have some arrested development which is striking. These men also all share a certain familiarity with danger and live with a brio mostly seen with the unencumbered. But in any regard, their "adult orphan" status is tragic -- and certainly lonely. Perhaps they all were knowingly created without parents to account to so that they could more readily identify with Harry's solitary state, and they are also free to take more of an active role in Harry's life?
I think identification is part of it, but not explicit. To me, it's not just that there is a missing generation of adults because they are likely dead due to the last wizarding war or natural causes (presumably, Harry's grandparents were older than average, given that JKR explained that they had James later in life). It's that they're barely mentioned at all. And I'm not just referring to Harry's g-parents here. It's interesting that you mention the freedom to take a more active role in Harry's life because the middle-aged adults are functionally orphans themselves. I say interesting because that implies something about the responsibility of older adults for the next generation of adults, and vice versa. I like that idea and wonder if JKR was making a commentary about this. I won't go so far as to claim that she had some master plan in removing what would have been "the greatest generation" in the wizarding world because I do think she was doing some character pruning as well. However, the majority of older adults presumably don't have children, so if they die (or, when they do die), they are not leaving loved ones behind. Considering the devastation she felt over her mother's death, I do think this is relevant. In addition, as for the behavior of the middle-aged men in the story, they are all written as immature in some way. As someone in her thirties, I can understand why a thirty-something woman would write her male characters this way (no offense guys, but she was a divorcee at the time and that does carry some weight).
QUOTE(fidelia @ Oct 9 2009, 10:03 PM) Also, from a literary perspective, none of these characters have to take family considerations into account when they take action or make their choices. I'm not saying that family connections rigidly control our actions -- but they are oftentimes prime considerations. Almost no one surrounding Harry has to worry about extended family, parents, or filial responsibilities. They are all lone agents, free to act for themselves. And this does, admittedly, give the characters quite a bit of leeway in their decision-making process. (Actually, the only character we see torn and in agony over family considerations is Molly -- and she's worried about those coming after her -- her children. The Prewett parents are gone, as are her brothers. ) There's no web of family connectedness which acts as a check upon the characters' impulses. Parents can often put the brakes on reckless behavior -- and these male characters have no brakes on them whatsoever. These guys all lack someone with life experience, sound advice, or who act as mature role models. And it shows. 
I'm not sure that the parents of adults necessarily put the brakes on this behavior. Rather, I think they give adult children pause. When your parents are aging, you start to realize that someday they're going to end up living with you and you have to make room for them in your life again. The dynamic changes from being taken care of by adults to being the care-taker for adults. Outside of this, there is an interesting pattern here, particularly among the thirty-something bachelors (I include Remus in this since he was still a bachelor into his thirties). Assuming that the adult parents disappeared for whatever reason when their children were in their twenties, a period during which we are still neurologically adolescents, there seems to be an alignment between the missing older generation and a continued lack of maturity. I don't see it as a lack of role models, since there were still older men around, but I still wonder about it. Granted, the same case could be made that they are immature because they were still bachelors (we've all known men who only hit maturity because they got married or had a kid, no offense guys). Also, with the exception of Hagrid (who's technically sixty-ish anyway, though we don't know what that is in strictly human years), these parentless late bloomers are killed off, but that's for another thread.
QUOTE(fidelia @ Oct 9 2009, 10:03 PM)
We see virtually no grandfathers in the series that I can think of. (Neville had one, but we really only learn that Neville saw him die). Sadly, the few matriarchal images we have --Augusta and Andromeda -- suffer terrible losses. They are women who have lost almost everyone they love, and they stand as guardians over children who have lost everything themselves. These women are truly tragic figures.
The bottom line I walk away with this that family ties and indeed mere familial presence is ephemeral in the wizarding world. Love certainly exists, and the Weasleys are outstanding examples of familial love, as are the Potters. But we don't ever really see characters having large, multi-generational families. We don't see intricate family connections and intergenerational interactions. Parental wisdom, parental love, and responsibilities to parents are thin on the ground in the series. The characters know quite a bit of freedom, but it's a marred freedom. As for family legacy question, we really only see that in the more established wizarding families. We find only a few, mostly pureblood families (like the Blacks), who actually been able to found a dynasty over time. Since no one seems to live a long and healthy life in the wizarding world, these families have to rely on sheer numbers of family members and lots of time. Only the largest and oldest wizarding families have the capability of leaving behind a family legacy. And that's terribly sad as well.
To me, the missing grandparents (and grandparent aged parents) do make a statement: they are irrelevant to one's identity, or one's understanding of self. Absence of the prior generation helps set up the themes of self-reliance and, even more interesting to me, family as a creation (rather than a given). Case in point, Harry doesn't have a real family and ends up constructing one out of friends and the various adults in his life. And as weird as this sounds, the DEs are a family (which sets up a whole other dynamic when we consider the Malfoys wandering loyalties to LV because they have both a real family and a constructed one).
As for famililal legacy, I agree, but with one change. There are people who do live to a ripe old age, and they have little to no family ties. Considering the elderly and presumably single staffmembers at Hogwarts, this adds another dimension to the whole thing, IMO.
QUOTE(Fricka @ Oct 15 2009, 10:11 AM) Even with the war presenting a logical reason for SOME of the lack of older witches and wizards, it does not quite explain why there is such a dearth of older wizards within family structures. Are we to connect the single state of wizards with a longer life expectancy, then? At Hogwarts, for example, we know that Dumbledore is the elder headmaster, and the "much younger" McGonagall is described as being in her 70's. It appears that if one is a teacher at a magic school like Hogwarts, then one might have a longer life expectancy, but if one is an ordinary witch or wizard, who has children, one' s life span will be fairly short. Not much of a selling point for being a member of the wizarding community, is it?
Ha ha...I can just imagine someone declining a marriage proposal to a wizard with this..."Sorry, but I'd like to make it past retirement age. Thanks for the offer though."
--------------------
|
Sep 8 2009, 09:36 PM
)...
