Oedipus Rex

[brokenquill92]

Does Harry have a slight Oedipus complex? His attachment to Lily Potter seems almost but not quite romantic at some points to the edge of uncomfortable, or am I reading too much into a boy who's never known his parents as someone who's been overly sheltered by their own.

[unbeastly]

Lily is the one person he knows without a doubt loved him. He carries that love in his veins and it has been protecting him since the day she sacrificed herself for him because of this she is probably the most important person in his world.

Harry has also witnesed the love other mothers shower on their children. Petunia and Molly may not be the best mothers in the world but I don't think you can deny they love their children fiercly. The same goes for Narcissa and Draco. It is something he desperately wants, the comfort of his mother's love to make it all better.

[brokenquill92]

Sept 19, 2012 11:22:59 GMT -5 unbeastly said:

Lily is the one person he knows without a doubt loved him. He carries that love in his veins and it has been protecting him since the day she sacrificed herself for him because of this she is probably the most important person in his world.

Harry has also witnesed the love other mothers shower on their children. Petunia and Molly may not be the best mothers in the world but I don't think you can deny they love their children fiercly. The same goes for Narcissa and Draco. It is something he desperately wants, the comfort of his mother's love to make it all better.

Like I said as an overly cosseted daddy's princess who's never gone a day without her parents fussing her having a broken nail I may be taking things for granted and therefore I see his reaction as more extreme than it is

[physicssquid]

I also see his reaction as a bit too extreme, though I don't think he's romantically attached to her.

[unbeastly]

Harry is in the end a severely traumatised child who just wants his mother to hold him and tell him everything is going to be okay.

[physicssquid]

Sept 19, 2012 12:52:11 GMT -5 unbeastly said:

Harry is in the end a severely traumatised child who just wants his mother to hold him and tell him everything is going to be okay.

I can't see that. Harry's not weak, and he may have had traumatic experiences, but I'm a big believer in the saying, 'what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger', and I always thought Harry believed it too.

[Chameleon]

Well, Harry was raised in a household with no love for him. And the only one, who he knew had loved him was Lily and James. He has seen how the other mothers fuss over their children and take care of them, and therefore I think he craves after one of his own to fuss over him and love him. And that knowledge that his mother sacrificed his life in order for his has put his regards of his parents even higher up.

But I don't think he's romantically attached to his mother. (That would be gross) But Harry holds his mother in very high regard, that's true, but I think children who lose their parents as young tend to hold them with high regard.

[physicssquid]

Maybe that's why I can't imagine Harry wanting to be cuddled at fifteen or older. I lost my mum when I was twenty, and everyone sees things in different ways anyway, so there is very little chance that we will all agree on this topic.

[Chameleon]

Cuddle thing is always one of the things that throw me off in the fanfictions, especially from the ten-eleven year age, or when Sirius or Remus take a fifteen-year old Harry on their laps or something like that, and I get an intense urge to throw something.

I don't know any fifteen year old boys who let themselves be cuddled by anyone except their girlfriends or sisters.

[physicssquid]

Sept 19, 2012 16:38:35 GMT -5 Chameleon said:

Cuddle thing is always one of the things that throw me off in the fanfictions, especially from the ten-eleven year age, or when Sirius or Remus take a fifteen-year old Harry on their laps or something like that, and I get an intense urge to throw something.

I don't know any fifteen year old boys who let themselves be cuddled by anyone except their girlfriends or sisters.

Yeah, whenever I read a RtB that features Sirius or Remus taking a fifteen-year-old Harry onto their laps, I always think that if it was me writing, I would have Harry telling them to let him go, and to back off, and it annoys me when none of the authors write it like that. Heck, I would write him telling everyone to back off when they get too over-the-top with attempting to comfort him.

[brokenquill92]

When it comes to emotional comfort and Harry I like to stick to pats on the arm if I want anyone to hold him it'll be Ginny as a lover or Hermione as a sister Ron may get an an awkward brotherly squeeze in there or even a head on the shoulder but I don't think Harry is overly affectionate except perhaps with his own children or Ginny

[Kitty279]

Personally I think a quick hug from Sirius now and then is ok, but I have a problem when a 15-year-old Harry is treated like a baby, held on laps and all that.
I know someone who is convinced that Harry wants and needs that because he needs his Daddy, but I believe he's too old and has lived too long looking after himself to fall back into such childish behaviour.

[Chameleon]

Exactly. Harry is way to independent that I can imagine that he will become that childish. Just because he wants a parent to love him, it doesn't mean that he's gonna be like a baby if he gets that.

If anyone suddenly hug-attacked him - "Back of, buddy." Or something like that.

[Kitty279]

And that's why I suspect he'd have his problems with Molly and her mollycoddling. She wouldn't understand that he doesn't want to be treated like a baby or smothered.

[readingdeatheater]

I have to agree, it was the first thing that i Though went I did Psychology last year however it is strange that he has it considering he didn't know his mother when he was three, his complex should focus on a woman who looks like his Aunt petunia :-0

[Chameleon]

Now I remember bits and things from Psychology, but Petunia never loved him, doesn't it count for something in Harry's mind?

[readingdeatheater]

not really the original thought was that the boy would unconsciously fall in love with the female attachment figure (I know petunia was not much but she was all he had) the boy would then become jealous of the male attachment figure (Vernon) because he has the woman's love, over time the boy begins to identify with the saying if you can't beat 'em join 'em and will become like the male attachment figure (this didn't happen). the boy would then strive to marry someone who looked like there main attachment figure. this happens when the boy is about 3 and continues till he is 5. then again I never put to much stock into what Freud said.

[Chameleon]

Freud is behind the time. He's remembered, but no one takes much of what he said seriously anymore.

[readingdeatheater]

to true my lecture kept telling me off because I was spelling his name Fraud, i agree with somethings that he said but most of it is completely crazy. no offence meant to anyone who is an avid follower of his work and agrees with what he said.

[Chameleon]

Hahah. The man is respected in the psychology world, although 90 % disagree with him.

[Kitty279]

We once learned about him, but I can't say I remember much of anything. Been too long, and I kept mixing it up with Jung.

The best about Freud was a nice fanfic oneshot of him trying his theories out on the Fëanorionath.

[Chameleon]

I keep mix them up. Although I was interested in psychology I disliked my teacher. He was nice, but I kept fall asleep during his class.

[readingdeatheater]

Jung I haven't studied him are his theories similar to Freud

[Kitty279]

Sorry, but you'd have to look for yourself here[/url.] It's been ages since I learned that - about three decades. Besides, I am half asleep and should have gone to bed an hour ago. That's not heliping to remember anything.

[brokenquill92]

Does anyone else find it odd that Harry doesn't seem to think of James nearly as much as Lily

[Kitty279]

Hm ... maybe it has to do with him hearing her last minutes and her protection Dumbledore puts so much stock in? If Harry got more time to just talk with Sirius and Remus about James, I imagine it would be different.

[Chameleon]

I know it's like that way, but I've always been a bit annoyed that Lily was put higher than James. I know Lily sacrificed herself, but James died in attempt to have Lily and Harry escape, which is as honorable in my mind, in what Lily did.

But I guess, you're right Kitty.

[Kitty279]

Yeah, that's true, people never appreciate what James did, and that's sad. He died for his wife and child, after all. But all we hear in canon is how he bullied Snape - as if that one didn't retaliate in kind. It's one of the problems I have with canon.

[Chameleon]

Yeah. When people often think about James, they just say he's a bully. But we only saw him once, in a memory, which was Snape's worst. Of course James would look bad. I'm of the belief that it wasn't only James who attacked Snape, Sirius said that Snape often attacked James too, and what should he do. It was mutual, not just James. There was never anything said that Snape was always alone. He had some 'friends' in Slytherin, and I'm pretty sure that they helped Snape sometimes.

We've seen James once as a fifteen year old, when he bullied Snape. But we don't know what happened to him after that. And that short fic JKR wrote, of course he behaved mischievously. He was with his best friend, and they were fooling around.

[Kitty279]

Memories are always biased anyway - ask a bunch of witnesses and you get different answers, and everyone is certain that he said the truth. It's just a matter of perspective. From the POV of Snape, James was the worst bully in Earth's history, so I'd not trust his judgment too much. Besides, he'd forget everything he did himself.

Someone here kept arguing that Snape had no one in Slytherin to support him, but I still doubt it. They'd be too happy to target James and Sirius, even if it wasn't to help Snape, but because these two were blood traitors. So, I doubt Snape is that innocent. He used a dark spell on James that day, too. What if he had hit him at the neck and killed him? So I don't believe that one memory is all that is to the matter. Besides, Lily would not have fallen in love with him if James was always that bad. Personally, I can imagine that the Marauders targeted the ones who got always away with bullying and hexing others.

I really wish JKR would have written more. But she has a track record for letting the bad guys getting off with a slap on the wrist, while the good guys get vilified and killed.