Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil + an apology about Re: Voldemort Good

[booklovinggirl]

No: HPFGUIDX 38314

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "heiditandy" <heidit at n...> wrote:

> OPPOSITES & SIMILARITIES
> 
> Do any of these pairs/groups function as doubles (they might not)? 
If
> so, which kind? What function might this doubling have in the Grand
> Scheme of Things?
> 
> Harry and James
There are tremendous parallells between these two. Popular, 
Gryffindor, loved by their friends, hated by their enemies to extreme 
degrees. There are actually a lot of parallells between Marauder and 
modern times, many of which I'll bring up.

> Harry and Lockhart
Opposites. Lockhart will do anything to get attention and Harry 
wishes he had less.

> Harry, Ron, Hermione
The trio seem to represent three levels in everything. For example:
Academics. Hermione-Finds it extremely important, spends more work 
than is needed. Ron-Takes way of least work, though very bright. 
Harry-In between.

> Dumbledore and Voldemort
Absolute forces of good and evil-that we've seen so far, of course.

> Sirius, James, Peter, Remus (aka The Marauders) and their animal 
> selves)
Remus lost everyone closest to him in one night. Bang. How he 
received this news we'll probably never know. Maybe he got a phone 
call in the middle of the night from a distant friend of the order. 
Maybe he started his morning normally, but then happened to glance 
over at the headline of the Daily Prophet. Maybe he saw the revelers 
in the street, and asking them what it was about, got the news from a 
total stranger. Maybe Peter called him. "I'm going to go after 
Sirius." "What?" *click*

I'm getting off topic. Anyway. Remus is a wolf, therefore he needs a 
pack to be truly comfortable. He's been shunned all his life, which 
has made him, when he was already a very thoughtful and quiet person, 
withdrawn.

Sirius was imprisoned for something he didn't do, when he was the 
best person for the job. Perhaps this refers to dogs being blamed for 
things caused by others. His loyalty is also a likely link to his 
being a dog Animagus.

Peter was the rat. Rats are known for being sneaking, dirty, little 
creatures that cower in the sewers. Much so for Peter. He hides in 
the shadows of the best, always ready to turn on them when they lose 
power.

Stags are known for being elusive, (the Fidelius charm) brave, and 
strong. But they are also known for being hunted. Oddly enough, 
hunters sometimes use dogs to help track down prey, but this can be 
traced back to the story-Sirius is the one who suggests using Peter 
as the Secret-Keeper.

> Harry and Draco
Rivals, both had/have powerful parents in the WW. Possible parallells 
to James and Snape.

> Ron and Draco
Ron and Draco are possibly worse enemies than Harry and Draco. Ron 
hates Draco's slurs on his family and Muggle-borns, and Draco hates 
Ron and his family because poverty is one of his chief fears. There's 
also obviously the issue of Voldemort, which causes even larger 
problems, but even when Voldemort is defeated, they'll be enemies, 
even if they fought for the same side. This keeps pretty well with 
the history repeating itself theory-Sirius and Snape.

> McGonagall, Snape, and Dumbledore
Hmmm. I don't know what to say about these three. Dumbledore is the 
leader for good, and McGonagall and Snape are more or less his 
lieutenants in the battle. If he were to die, or be unable to carry 
out his duties in any way, McGonagall would take his place, as we see 
in CoS. If anything were to happen to McGonagall, Snape would take 
her place. And if anything were to happen to Snape...well, let's not 
go into that.

> McGonagall and Trelawney
McGonagall resents Trelawney because she, like Hermione, believes 
that Trelawney is an old fraud. Trelawny in turn resents McGonagall's 
inability to believe in Divination.

> McGonagall and Hermione
These two are alike-I don't think they're parallells of each other, 
but Hermione certainly looks up to McGonagall.

> Crouch Sr. and Ludo Bagman
Both have made choices they greatly regret.

> Sirius and Snape
Sirius almost killed Snape. While I don't think Sirius was being 
conciously malicious, he certainly didn't try to stop Snape. James 
was required to step in before anything happened.
We don't know exactly what feelings of contempt built up before this 
incident (And I'm sure we'll learn) but this can't be the start of 
it. Sirius might have still told Snape to press the knot on the 
Willow-he PROBABLY would have-but I think that Sirius was having a 
bad day, and Snape asking about and probably insulting Remus was only 
making things worse. So Sirius took it out on Snape. If nothing had 
happened before, later, when Sirius pulled himself together, he would 
have gone after Snape. But as it was, Sirius didn't go after Snape. 
So the Willow incident wasn't the beginning, not by a long shot.

> Lily and Hermione
Top of their year, muggle born.

> Snape and James
Snape and James didn't like each other, that's for sure. But James 
obviously cared enough to go and save Snape's life. Snape didn't meet 
this with happiness-on the contrary, the bitter irony made him hate 
the Marauders even more. He owed his life to his worse enemy. 
(Actually, I'd say Sirius was his worse enemy, but James and Snape 
were probably considered the worse of enemies.)

> Ginny and Lily
I can't think of anything.

> Snape and Lupin
I doubt that Snape's hate for Lupin comes out of suspecting that 
Lupin was in on it. Snape has typical prejudices against Lupin being 
a werewolf, but I don't think that was his only reason for hating 
him, since the Snape and Sirius hate had reached levels that couldn't 
be reached unless this had been going on for a long time. I don't 
know what these other things could be. Anyone have suggestions? 
> Dudley and Draco
I don't know if there is a connection. *goes to read other posts*


> 3. Themes in Literature
> One of the oldest themes in literature is the triumph of good over 
> evil. While the HP canon is still open, and at this juncture, it's 
> impossible to tell where good and evil stand on the continuum of 
> each character.

One of the main problems with the canon so far is that the characters 
and situations are portrayed in black/white, good/evil. While this 
seems to be changing as everyone ages and views change, change is 
coming slow. There are a few people who's sides on the war have been 
more or less set in stone: Harry, Hermione, Ron, Dumbledore, Sirius, 
Lupin, McGonagall, the Weasleys, Voldemort, Wormtail, and the Death 
Eaters.

There are a lot more people who seem to be on Dumbledore's side, 
which can be taken as a symbol of greater faith in good. However, the 
Death Eaters are a large group, probably enough to outweigh this. 
Going back to optimism for Dumbledore, however, his side seems more 
devoted. Here are two far-fetched ideas: Good!Macnair and Evil!Fred. 
Neither is believable, but Good!Macnair seems a bit more likely, no?

I'd also like to apologize for my reply in the "Voldemort Good?" 
Thread. I was certain I had signed it and changed the topic line 
to "Sirius's Fate (Was Re: Voldemort Good?)" but apparently I didn't.

-With humble apologies, Katherine.