Destiny, Truth

[tbernhard2000]

No: HPFGUIDX 43652

Responding to 2 posts by Carol

> Are you talking about how the 
> characters themselves deal with truth? I understood you to mean how 
> the authors dealt with truth, that is, how true to life the stories 
were.
> I've had a problem with the destiny theories. 

Harry asks Dumbledore why Voldemort tried to kill him. Dumbledore 
says he can't tell him - but when Harry's ready, he'll know. 
Dumbledore says its good for Harry to grow up in ignorance of what 
has happened to him, in ignorance of the magical world. That is the 
kind of thing I am talking about. The books are saying, at times, at 
critical points, that ignorance is good, that knowledge is 
contamination. That is what makes me question the role of so-called 
truth in the books. I make connections between this and the adult 
reader's interest, fascination with the books. Don't we want not to 
have to know so much? Don't we want to drop what we know, and live by 
the heart?

> And when you ask what 
> belief is being "suspended," do you mean instead what DISbelief is 
> being suspended?

This is peculiar. Of course I am familiar with the term. But yet I 
have chosen to say "suspension of belief" each and every time. By way 
of explanation, I can only submit that for myself, knowledge, 
feeling, belief, etc. are not, in fact, separate levels of reality or 
experience - rather they are inextricably bound to each other. 
Likewise, belief and disbelief are pretty much identical. If I 
believe Dumbledore is right in his attitude towards Harry's ignorance 
about why he is hunted, I am suspending my belief that knowing about 
ourselves is useful. The irritating thing is that this happens over 
and over again in the book. Rowling seems to be asking me to suspend 
belief, in the usefulness of knowledge or the pursuit of it.

> If this is true, then we don't have to worry 
> about purpose any more than we'd have to worry about destiny.  
Harry's 
> ability would be something that is simply a part of him, a part 
that could 
> be put to good use, but it doesn't give him purpose, necessarily, 
nor does 
> it dictate his destiny.  It does, however, give him a serious 
choice to make.

This is the idea of purity of heart, right? That, even though he 
doesn't *know*, he will be able to choose correctly, or choose, 
rather, the way that leads to less death and destruction, or 
something like that. It's very hard to talk about it without knowing 
what it is, it seems. I never used the word purpose, but I think, in 
a situation where there is no intimate knowledge of what Harry *is*, 
other than one with a *good heart* or whatever, or why he *is* still, 
it makes a reading that sees others as manipulating Harry, giving him 
purpose, as it were, very easy, and, apparently, common.

All I know is that, if someone had held this kind of knowledge from 
me at eleven because I wasn't, ostensibly, prepared for it, I would 
have built quite a resentment of that person by time I was "old 
enough," especially if that person had been silly enough to say to me 
I could ask them anything at all, and they had assured me they would 
try to answer - the assumption being, of course, that what they 
couldn't answer would be because they didn't know the answer, not 
because they didn't want to tell me, for my own good. Yuck. There is 
a personal connection, which I won't go into detail about, but let me 
just say that, for me, that would have been an absolutely atrocious 
thing to say.

darkthirty