Sacrifice and HP (non-SHIP, was Re: H/H/R Triangle)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 33211


Ebony wrote:

>>Anthropologist Rene Girard posits a theory<<
 
French anthropology? cough*Levi-Strauss*cough. I gave up  
after reading a longwinded explanation of why, in all primitive 
societies, roast meat has more cachet than stewed. Said author 
went on and on about "the raw and the cooked" but never noted 
that roasting stuff on a spit which has to be turned (a hot, sweaty, 
monotonous job) is a lot more labor intensive than putting 
something in the pot to boil.

As for this interesting theory, Tabouli's taught me to be alert for 
West-o-centric individualism-is-the-law-of-the-universe thinking.

>>
"Indeed, violence is one means of creating a "self", a process 
that 
usually begins by creating an "other"--someone or something 
different 
that can be destroyed to identify the self. "<<

Most of the world thinks in terms of "Us" and "Them"...always 
has. According Professor Dipak Gupta of the Fred J. Hansen 
Institute for World Peace at San Diego State University, this 
mindset stems from a group response to predators. Once "They" 
are identified, all of Them may become the target of a killing 
frenzy he calls "collective madness." And any of Us could be the 
killer.

>>" Violent destruction, however, usually prompts 
someone to strike back in revenge. Violence is thus reciprocal, 
endlessly so. <snip>
"In order to interrupt temporarily this reciprocal violence--and 
preserve the species--revenger and perpetrator will occasionally 
find 
a scapegoat to sacrifice, a more or less neutral party to kill, thus 
satisfying our violent natures without setting off another revenge 
cycle. Only sacrifice--a form of violence--interrupts violence."<<

IMO--this is my thinking derived from my own limited studies--the 
cycle of violence  goes on till one of the sides has run out of 
resources to carry on the fight and is subdued or eliminated. If a 
culture in defeat is to escape  assimilation it must possess or 
develop a mythology which comforts the humbled...Christianity 
emphasizes willing sacrifice, but other cultures call on a 
philosophy of submission to a protective Power, the hope of 
redemption, or the transcendence of earthly desire. 

Ebony:
>>The final aspect of sacrifice--and this I am getting from my 
admittedly limited knowledge of comparative religion, coupled 
with my 
own religion--is that you cannot sacrifice just any old thing. 
Somehow, I doubt that this is exclusive to Christianity. Many of 
the 
characters who are proposed as (I quote) "cannon fodder" do not 
have 
the same emotional value as others who we assume are 
protected.<<

In other cultures  the act of sacrifice ennobles the individual, not 
the other way around. The "cannon fodder" become glorious  
martyrs.  Voldemort expects this from his Death Eaters, but the 
same effect transforms  Cedric in the readers' eyes. 

The Quest is renunciatory, yes, but not necessarily sacrificial. 
Pre-LOTR, many a fantasy hero(ine) returned home all the better 
for the adventure:  Carroll, Barrie, and Cabell  generally end 
things more or less where they began. Even The Hobbit has this 
kind of ending.

The Paschal lamb of the Potterverse could be a lowly or 
degraded person who gains redemption for *himself* by his 
sacrifice -- in which case it could be Peter Pettigrew.

Pippin