[HPforGrownups] Destiny, Truth

[Carol Bainbridge]

No: HPFGUIDX 43662

darkthirty wrote:

>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's a leap, isn't it?  I don't come to that same conclusion at all based 
on what Dumbledore says to Harry.  Dumbledore does not tell Harry  -- or 
anyone else for that matter -- that it is good for Harry to grow up in 
ignorance of what happened to him or in ignorance of the magical world.  He 
does tell McGonagall at the beginning of book 1 that it is best for Harry 
to grow up away from fame, a fame that will come from events Harry probably 
won't remember (being as how he was only 1 when they took place).  However, 
that is a far cry from saying that Harry should grow up in ignorance of the 
entire magical world.  Dumbledore left a letter with Harry for the Dursleys 
to give to Harry when Harry was old enough to understand what happened.  He 
clearly did not intend for Harry to grow up entirely ignorant.  When 
Dumbledore chooses not to tell Harry the reason Voldemort tried to kill 
him, he doesn't add that it's best for Harry to grow up ignorant.  That is 
an interpretation of his remark.  And he says he CAN'T tell him, not that 
he WON'T tell him.  That makes me think there's more to it than Dumbledore 
wanting Harry to be ignorant and in the dark.  But even if we want to avoid 
the semantic quibble between the meanings of "can't" and "won't," we still 
have to deal with the fact that Dumbledore didn't tell Harry he would tell 
him the truth when he (Harry) is ready but that Harry would know.  How is 
he going to know?  Will someone else tell him or will it become clear once 
Harry is able to understand everything that has occurred?  I don't think 
that keeping certain facts from children too young to understand them is 
necessarily a bad thing.  Intellect and emotion don't always develop at the 
same pace and something a child can understand intellectually may not be 
something he or she can handle emotionally.

>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.

I guess I just don't see it that way.  Where children are concerned, there 
is a fine line between telling them what they need to know and keeping 
things from them for their own protection.  Maybe some people will say that 
this is wrong and indicates that the person withholding the knowledge 
thinks that knowledge in general is a bad thing, but I completely 
disagree.  For example, a parent wants keep their children safe from 
abductors and the like and so warns them of the dangers of talking to 
strangers.  If a child asks why, how much information should a parent 
give?  Most parents keep most of this knowledge away from the children -- 
for their own good.  As bas as that sounds, it is better than imparting 
every bit of knowledge and possibly making the children overly fearful of 
people.  Sometimes knowledge DOES contaminate.  As none of us knows what 
Dumbledore knows, we can't accurately judge how well he's walked the line 
between telling Harry what he should know and protecting him.


darkthirty:

>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?

I don't.  And that's not really my interest in the books.  In fact, I'm 
quite fond of Hermione's constant quest for knowledge, being like that 
myself.

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

>darkthirty:
>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.

First of all, I don't see what is so peculiar with my statement.  It is 
simply a term used in literary analysis.  It is that term and not yours 
that is used, although you say you are familiar with the term and chose to 
use your own.  Okay, I can buy that.  But if for you they mean basically 
the same thing, why did you choose to change it?  In any case, I don't 
think belief and disbelief are pretty much identical at all.  They may lead 
to similar conclusions, but they aren't similar to one another.  Perhaps 
you see it this way because of your seeing knowledge, feeling, and belief 
are part of the same level of reality -- at least that is what you seem to 
be saying.  I, for one, don't see reality that way at all, and don't see 
knowledge and belief as being that closely related, but that's a 
philosophical question again, best left to other places of discussion.

>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.

Okay, but then that seems to be a personal thing, a personal belief about 
knowledge.  Is that the point you are trying to make?  I mean, I don't 
think JKR had you in mind when she wrote those stories and I'm not sure 
that the majority of people see knowledge the same way you do.  In 
addition, as I mentioned before, JKR seems to make a rather big deal about 
the importance of knowledge and its pursuit.  Isn't Hermione constantly 
searching for knowledge and doesn't much of this knowledge find practical 
uses?  (Polyjuice potion, Nicholas Flamel) Is it just one kind of knowledge 
you are talking about?  You don't mean self-knowledge, do you?  I mean, 
there's more than one way to attain that and Harry is certainly slowly 
acquiring that.  Is it knowledge of his past?  Again, I don't know what 
Dumbledore knows so I really can't evaluate whether he is justified in 
withholding that knowledge from Harry.

Carol:
>>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.

>darkthirty:
>This is the idea of purity of heart, right?

Not at all.  What I said is that if Harry had some special ability, it 
would simply be a part of him.  I did not say that this ability was purity 
of heart.  I have no idea what it might be.  It could be extra thick skin 
for all I know.  He is who he is.  What he chooses to do with what he is 
would be determined by Harry.  Isn't it Dumbledore who says something to 
the effect that people need to be judged by what they have become and not 
what they were born as?  That tells me that someone, Dumbledore if no one 
else, believes that the choices one makes in life will tell us much more 
than one's birth situation.  We can say now that Harry seems to have a 
purity of heart, but he hasn't gone past 14 yet for us.  What choices will 
he come to make?  What is the knowledge that he will gain as he grows 
older?  How difficult will his choices be?  This would take us far beyond 
the purity of heart.  All children are born fairly innocent and pure of 
heart (at least in my belief system).  As they get older, they do gain more 
knowledge.  Is that a bad thing?  I don't think so, not in and of 
itself.  But what do children do with the knowledge they gain?  I think 
that says a lot more than how one starts out.

>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.

If I understand you correctly, then we are probably singing the same song 
here.  It is my point exactly that we can't know anything at all about 
choices Harry will have to make.  We don't even really know if he will have 
to make any.  That was just a best guess we have based on how things seem 
to be going now.  Some people think Harry has a destiny to fulfill, in 
which case talking about choices doesn't seem to have any point.  However, 
those of us who think there is more to it that simple destiny and fate may 
want to think about choices, but again, we have no way of knowing for sure 
what those choices will be or even whether a choice will be pivotal in the 
story's outcome.

>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.

Because an interpretation is common doesn't mean that it is correct.  I'd 
warrant that most of us have been wrong in many of the plot twists up to 
this point.  Of course, maybe it's just me who was surprised that Quirrel 
was the bad guy, that Sirius was the good guy, that Scabbers was something 
more than a lazy rat, that Moody wasn't really Moody.  Some people see 
Harry as being manipulated, but I don't.  And I don't think I'm the only 
one, nor do I think that there are only 5 of us in the world.  I'd think 
that the view that he is not being manipulated in order to serve some 
purpose is just as common as the belief that he is.

>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.

But what IS "this kind of knowledge"?  We all pretty much agree, as far as 
I know, that we don't KNOW what the knowledge is that Dumbledore is 
withholding. For all I know the knowledge could be that Harry is really 
Voldemort's son, that came out of a test-tube experiment with unicorn blood 
and polyjuice potion.  The Potters caught on to it and kidnapped 
Harry.  Okay, that is a wild stretch and wouldn't be born out by details in 
the text, but the point is, I have no idea what the knowledge is and can't 
therefore judge whether Dumbledore is right or wrong for withholding 
it.  From what I know of Dumbledore so far, I am willing to trust what he 
is doing.  I may later want to join in some condemnation of him, but not 
just yet.


Carol Bainbridge
(kaityf at jorsm.com)

http://www.lcag.org