this is so stupid
19 Jul 2007 04:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mayoraaseiHelping kids cope if Harry dies.........HAHAHAHAHAHAHA OMG that's hilarious.
This could be devastating for some impressionable children who have grown up with the bespectacled boy wizard for the past 10 years.
GOD, what is with all this paranoia. Kids aren't stupid (well, some of them are - it must be hereditary). I read Romance of the Three Kingdoms when I was 5, and about half the people are dead by the end, the most sympathetic kingdom was destroyed and swallowed up by the most ruthless one. Even if The Three Kingdoms was classical Chinese literature, it still did deaths better than Harry Potter. And okay, it made me cry when my favourite people died, but traumatised? PFFFT.
And if they've "grown up" with Harry Potter "for the past 10 years", they're obviously NOT THAT YOUNG. GOD.
"I wouldn't want my kids to read it, and after all these years they die. They become so involved it becomes a little hard to take. I wouldn't want my 12-year-old to feel cheated, almost. I know they have to learn about a certain part of life but today's children grow up too fast."
DUDE, I so don't get this ridiculous American ideal of "protecting" their kids by not letting them even hear a breath of "bad things". Death is part of life; without death, life wouldn't be worth treasuring. Because there is an end, it makes the journey to that end all the more worthwhile.
Bridge to Terabithia was our reading book for year 6, when we were 11 or 12, and it was one of the best done deaths in children's literature. It was accidental, meaningless, abrupt, in-character, tragic, and its repercussions so elegantly played out. In year 6, I also read detailed narrative of the Knights of the Round Table, and don't tell me it wasn't sad when Arthur/Lancelot/Guinevere died/went on the ship/whatever.
If young children are impressionable and follow examples, then it might even be better to let them acquaint with death through fiction, to watch how fictional characters deal with death, to understand the different ways a death can impact on other people, to know the different ways in which different people react to a death, and to understand for themselves how to deal with it should a similar situation come up. These are things no lengthy talks by parents can explain, and can only really be learned through contact, even if it's through proxy.
"Some children are going to be asking questions - What is life? What is death? And ... what magic happened and is he going to be rescued?"
WHAT THE HELL is so wrong with children asking probing questions? What's wrong with children facing difficult issues, facing loss and sadness? The shallowest people are those who have grown up in bliss. It's when people don't understand how terrible death can be that they cease to treasure life. Because they don't know or understand life's other side, they're irresponsible, immature, narrow-minded, and shallow. It's knowing and feeling and understanding what is bad that makes someone realise what they want or don't want to happen, it gives them a marker, helps them decide what they want to protect in life.
By 13, I've read Isobelle Carmody's The Obernewtyn Chronicles, Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry, and The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton (non-fantasy). Compared to Harry Potter, any one of the deaths in their books is an exercise in masterly writing.
As much as the next person, I hate it when my favourite characters die, but people die in real life, and if the author chooses to reflect that, I don't see what the bloody problem is.
......Checking back on my (defunct) wide-reading list...I first read Pratchett in 2000?!??!?! =0=;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; Had no recollection. Well, it was Soul Music...maybe that's why ==;;
Anyway, I've always thought it was ridiculous how protective adults are of "sensitive issues". Children aren't stupid. Seeing fictional deaths early in life (although I'm sure it wasn't intentional by parents) didn't scar me, it didn't turn me into a homocidal criminal, and I don't feel all the more vulnerable because of this early exposure. I'm kinda glad that my first exposure was through historical fiction, where there were no magic and no fantastical means of resurrecting anyone. Death is final, so treasure the moments before it.
Video game violence, where killing is glorified, is a completely different story ==;
This could be devastating for some impressionable children who have grown up with the bespectacled boy wizard for the past 10 years.
GOD, what is with all this paranoia. Kids aren't stupid (well, some of them are - it must be hereditary). I read Romance of the Three Kingdoms when I was 5, and about half the people are dead by the end, the most sympathetic kingdom was destroyed and swallowed up by the most ruthless one. Even if The Three Kingdoms was classical Chinese literature, it still did deaths better than Harry Potter. And okay, it made me cry when my favourite people died, but traumatised? PFFFT.
And if they've "grown up" with Harry Potter "for the past 10 years", they're obviously NOT THAT YOUNG. GOD.
"I wouldn't want my kids to read it, and after all these years they die. They become so involved it becomes a little hard to take. I wouldn't want my 12-year-old to feel cheated, almost. I know they have to learn about a certain part of life but today's children grow up too fast."
DUDE, I so don't get this ridiculous American ideal of "protecting" their kids by not letting them even hear a breath of "bad things". Death is part of life; without death, life wouldn't be worth treasuring. Because there is an end, it makes the journey to that end all the more worthwhile.
Bridge to Terabithia was our reading book for year 6, when we were 11 or 12, and it was one of the best done deaths in children's literature. It was accidental, meaningless, abrupt, in-character, tragic, and its repercussions so elegantly played out. In year 6, I also read detailed narrative of the Knights of the Round Table, and don't tell me it wasn't sad when Arthur/Lancelot/Guinevere died/went on the ship/whatever.
If young children are impressionable and follow examples, then it might even be better to let them acquaint with death through fiction, to watch how fictional characters deal with death, to understand the different ways a death can impact on other people, to know the different ways in which different people react to a death, and to understand for themselves how to deal with it should a similar situation come up. These are things no lengthy talks by parents can explain, and can only really be learned through contact, even if it's through proxy.
"Some children are going to be asking questions - What is life? What is death? And ... what magic happened and is he going to be rescued?"
WHAT THE HELL is so wrong with children asking probing questions? What's wrong with children facing difficult issues, facing loss and sadness? The shallowest people are those who have grown up in bliss. It's when people don't understand how terrible death can be that they cease to treasure life. Because they don't know or understand life's other side, they're irresponsible, immature, narrow-minded, and shallow. It's knowing and feeling and understanding what is bad that makes someone realise what they want or don't want to happen, it gives them a marker, helps them decide what they want to protect in life.
By 13, I've read Isobelle Carmody's The Obernewtyn Chronicles, Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry, and The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton (non-fantasy). Compared to Harry Potter, any one of the deaths in their books is an exercise in masterly writing.
As much as the next person, I hate it when my favourite characters die, but people die in real life, and if the author chooses to reflect that, I don't see what the bloody problem is.
......Checking back on my (defunct) wide-reading list...I first read Pratchett in 2000?!??!?! =0=;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; Had no recollection. Well, it was Soul Music...maybe that's why ==;;
Anyway, I've always thought it was ridiculous how protective adults are of "sensitive issues". Children aren't stupid. Seeing fictional deaths early in life (although I'm sure it wasn't intentional by parents) didn't scar me, it didn't turn me into a homocidal criminal, and I don't feel all the more vulnerable because of this early exposure. I'm kinda glad that my first exposure was through historical fiction, where there were no magic and no fantastical means of resurrecting anyone. Death is final, so treasure the moments before it.
Video game violence, where killing is glorified, is a completely different story ==;
