Playing a bit of catch-up here...
Cindy asked:
This is the opposite of Devin's question about which characters we pity. In other words, which character seems to have a very good lot in life? Careful now, because your answer may reveal something about what you value.
I will consider myself warned. ;-)
Bearing in mind, of course, that the less we know about people the easier it becomes to envy their lot in life, I would still like to cast my vote for Most Enviable Character for little Professor Flitwick.
He has a comfortable job, and he is good at it. He is confident enough in his role as an instructor to allow the students to slack off and have a bit of fun at Christmas time, but he is no push-over either: in GoF, he gives Harry and Neville extra assignments when they both seem to be faltering in his Charms class. He is friendly and accessible and gives no impression of House bias in his dealings with the students. If he were one of my teachers and I were having difficulty with his subject, I would feel perfectly comfortable going to him out of class for extra help; I suspect that most of Hogwarts' students feel the same way. Flitwick's teaching style may not be as flashily challenging as Snape's, nor as blatantly "tough but fair" as McGonagall's, but it is rock-solid. His students learn their stuff, and they seem to learn it well. He's a very good teacher.
Flitwick is also well-respected among his peers. We know that he has talent in his field: in his youth he was a duelling champion; McGonagall enlists his aid in checking Harry's Firebolt for signs of tampering; and when discussing the Fidelius Charm in Hogsmeade, the other adults instantly defer to him to give the explanation of precisely what the Charm is and how it works.
He would also seem to be quite well-liked and to have the ability to get along well with a wide variety of types of people. He goes out for drinks with McGonagall, Hagrid and the Minister of Magic himself in PoA, and there is no indication that he is not perfectly comfortable with all three of them. Everybody seems to like him. Even Snape never has a single snipe for Flitwick.
And he seems very content. If he cares at all that House Ravenclaw never nabs the Quiddich or House Cup, then he does an excellent job of hiding his resentment. He would seem not to be particularly competitive at all, really — although given that he was once a duelling champion, we can assume that this isn't because he's at all incapable of showing a good fighting spirit when he feels like it. He's just plain too well-adjusted to give way to envy or resentment or jealousy over such trivial matters. And good for him! He's sane. Sane, cheerful, kind...the guy has simply got it together.
Of course, there may well be some dreadful tragedy in the poor man's past. But if there is, then he would seem to be handling it remarkably well. And that's an enviable quality too, come to think of it.
So Flitwick gets my vote for the character I envy the most. After all, who wouldn't want to be well-liked, well-respected, eminently well-adjusted, and comfortably ensconced in a secure job at which you excel?
As for pity, my vote goes to Diggory.
No, no. Not Cedric. Amos.
Like Judy, I don't pity the dead. Cedric died cleanly and quickly, and while it's certainly very sad that he died so young, I tend to think of the dead (with the exception of ghosts) as being well beyond the need for pity.
No, I pity Amos Diggory. The poor man. Cedric would seem to have been an only child, and it's just painfully obvious that the kid meant all the world to him. He was if anything over-involved in his son's life, over-identified. And when we see him at the end of GoF, he is grieved beyond the capacity for speech. He doesn't even seem capable of providing any support at all to his wife. The man's just a mess.
I think that losing a child to murder must be one of the most horrible things that anyone could ever undergo, and when you're an overidentified parent like Amos Diggory, it's got to be just that much worse. So Amos gets my pity vote.
And as for that suggestion that someone (I can't remember who, sorry) made a while back that poor Amos Diggory might be high on the list of Characters Now Vulnerable To Seduction By the Dark Side, all I can say is: my God, have you no heart? I mean, the very thought! It just makes me want to drop my head down on the keyboard and weep, that does.
—Elkins, fearing that she may well losing her Edge
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