AbanesRespondsMore

[rabanesss at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 17542

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Simon" <simon at h...> wrote:

   I greatly appreciate Simon's thoughts and observations. My 
response is as follows:

SIMON WROTE: The point of the second task is not that Harry 
saves a friend. It is that he saves someone he does not know. 
He rescues Gabrielle (Fleur's sister) and would have, if allowed, 
rescued everyone down there (how he would have got them back 
to the surface is a different matter).  The second incident to 
mention in conjunction with this is from PoA. In  this he allows 
Peter to live, even though he has just found out the truth  about 
what had happened to his parents. He does it for the benefit of  
Sirius and Remus, but the end result is that he has rescued 
Peter.

 ANSWER: _________ I see the point about Gabrielle, but I still 
do not believe that this in any way changes the fact that Gabrielle 
was yet another "good" character, whether he knew her or not. 
And so, Harry is still acting on natural instinct, nothing 
EXTRAordinary from a biblical perspective of going beyong doing 
good to those who do good, and into the realm of doing good for 
yuor enemies and loving those who persecute you. That is a 
Christian concept from the Bible and I was simply pointing that 
out in my book and post. Regarding Harry letting Peter go -- 
TRUE, this is an act of mercy. HOWEVER, how does Rowling 
handle this rare good deed??? She ends up having the good 
deed turn out to be the WORST thing Harry could have ever 
done!!! Because Peter was allwed to live, Cedric dies in book 4 
and Voldemort rises. So, here we have a truly good deed 
causing evil, but in other place many times we have bad deeds 
(lying, cheating, stealing, breaking wizard laaws) bringing about 
fun and goodness. If that isn't cockeyed for a fairy tale/ fantasy, I 
don't know what is.

Cordially,
Richard Abanes
author, "Harry Potter and the Bible"