Vengeance (WAS: Characters you love, hate, other stuff)

[ssk7882 <skelkins@attbi.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51720

Scott (who will never go wrong on *this* list proclaiming the
sexiness of brainy assertive girls!) wrote:

> There's been some discussion about the evils of vengeance; that 
> seeking vengeance is some sort of dark character aspect. I find the 
> modern view of vengeance interesting, when one looks at vengeange 
> in the eyes of the Greeks. To the Greeks, vengeance was a noble 
> pursuit; it was upholding one's honor, and whole wars were started 
> out of a desire for retribution (both Persian Wars, actually, were 
> wars of vengeance). Vengeance was something that 'Real Men' sought 
> at all costs. I don't necessarily hold with this view. I don't 
> necessarily hold with Ghandi's "An Eye for an Eye blinds the 
> world," either.

Well, I guess that the question that really interests me the most 
here is: what does the *story* tell us about vengeance?  What role is 
vengeance playing within the story itself?

As I'm reading it, vengeance is being presented in the books as one 
of the chief spiritual perils for the characters.  

Harry's desire for vengeance in PoA leads him to nearly kill Sirius 
Black, who is an innocent man.  Sirius' obsession with vengeance leads
him to break the blameless Ron's leg, and to throttle his own 
godson.  Sirius and Remus wish to kill Peter in vengeance, but 
Harry stops them out of concern for *their* spiritual well-being -- 
and whatever we as individuals might make of that decision, I think 
that the author presents it as wholly positive.  Dumbledore praises 
Harry for it, and on the metaphoric level, it is the decision that 
enables Harry to fend off the dementors: by preventing the vengeance
killing, as his father would have done, Harry is proven a worthy
heir to James, who then appears in the form of Harry's own patronus 
to fend off the dementors, symbols of madness and of spiritual 
despair.

Snape is at his nastiest and his least rational -- the end of PoA, 
for example -- when he is acting out of a desire for vengeance: on 
Sirius, on Lupin, and often, through Harry, vicariously on James.  
When Snape is at his most admirable -- when, for example, he is
working to save Harry's life -- it is when he is denying himself
the pleasures of vicarious payback to follow instead a somewhat
loftier goal.

Moaning Myrtle was bound to Hogwarts after she had made a nuisance
of herself trying to get some payback on her adolescent tormentor.
I think it strongly suggested that this inability to let go of her 
anger over having been picked on as a student is in fact what is 
keeping her a ghost, what prevents her spirit from finding rest.

The unwillingness to forgive past wrongs characterizes Voldemort,
of course, who murdered his father and paternal grandparents to 
"pay them back" for their treatment of his mother and himself, 
and who in the graveyard tells his erring Death Eaters: "I do not 
forgive."  

In GoF, Barty Jr. is shown as highly motivated by vengeance as
well.  He gloats over his father falling prey to the Imperius Curse.  
He avenges himself vicariously on Lucius Malfoy, that hated Death 
Eater who never suffered, by targetting the man's son.  He begs Harry 
to tell him that his master tortured the other DEs for their 
disloyalty.  He *is* Payback Man.  He is also, I think, depicted as 
profoundly wicked, as well as quite, *quite* mad.

Tha ambiguous nature of the desire for vengeance plays a central
role in GoF, I think.

-----------------------------

Lying in the darkness, Harry felt a rush of anger and hate toward 
the people who had tortured Mr. and Mrs. Longbottom. ... He 
remembered the jeers of the crowd as Crouch's son and his companions 
had been dragged from the court by the dementors. ... He understood 
how they had felt. . . . Then he remembered the milk-white face of 
the screaming boy and realized with a jolt that he had died a year 
later. . . .

It was Voldemort, Harry thought, staring up at the canopy of his bed 
in the darkness, it all came back to Voldemort ... He was the one who 
had torn these families apart, who had ruined all these lives. . . .

----------------------------------

The "rush of anger and hate" that Harry feels at the thought of the 
terrible wrong done to the Longbottoms is the source of vengeance.  
His pity for Crouch's son, whom he believes at the time to have
been innocent, leads him to the realization that such expressions 
of hatred can be seen as every bit as much Voldemort's doing as
the original wrong itself.  

The passage is ironic because Crouch's son is actually not dead
at all; instead, he is Harry's unseen antagonist throughout GoF.  
It is also, however, profound, in that part of what *makes* 
Crouch Jr. so utterly consumed by evil is his own inability to 
reach the same conclusion that Harry himself just has: that the 
pursuit of vengeance leads, ultimately, to the loss of ones very 
soul. 

These indications combine to make me feel that JKR is most 
definitely taking the stand that the desire for vengeance is,
while natural, normal and even to some extent beneficial, in that it 
can lend one the strength to resist (anger over Voldemort's taunts 
about his parents lends Harry strength in both the Chamber and the 
Graveyard), also a very serious spiritual peril, a lure and a trap 
for the unwary.

Part of what interests me so much about this, though (and part of why 
I keep obsessing on scenes like the Train St...er, *Step* and how 
they are constructed), is that this emphasis on Vengeance-As-Peril 
seems so very much at odds with the author's fondness for 'just 
deserts' humour and 'comeuppance' resolutions to her plotlines.

It is difficult for me, as a reader, to reconcile these two aspects 
of the books, particularly when, as with the Ferret Bouncing 
incident, the author seems to wish to have her cake and eat it too: 
the scene is meant to be funny and enjoyable -- Draco had it coming --
 and yet it is also given a secondary meaning within the text: Moody 
is really Crouch Jr., who was giving free rein to his vindictive 
nature, which is in turn presented as a symptom of his very evilness.

Authorial ambivalence?

Oooooh, yes.  I think so.

And in a lot of ways, I think that ambivalence is part of what makes 
the books work so well.  I think that one of the reasons that Snape 
is such an interesting character is that JKR knows how to make his 
grudge-holding and his vindictiveness really *palpable.*  She knows 
how to make it seem real.  I suspect that she can do this so well for 
exactly the same reason that she can write such appealing come-
uppance humor scenes: because she really does *get* the desire for 
vengeance.  She understands how it operates.  She knows how it 
works.  She knows how it feels. 

Which also may be why it is that she emphasizes it so very strongly 
as a spiritual peril within her books.


-----------

Oh, and one other thing...

Scott:

> When I signed onto this list, I expected to discuss predictions and 
> speculation as to what happens in future books- not full blown 
> philosophy discussions. I'm just a simple Math Major, dang it! Math 
> is so clear cut- you're either right, or wrong, and you're not 
> generally judged on either (well, not morally, heh). 

Oh, dear.  Well, I certainly *hope* that nobody's judging anyone 
here.  I personally think that it's a lot of fun to discuss these 
aspects of the books, but only when we can keep it from getting too 
personal.  

A Math Major, eh?  So how many students at Hogwarts, then, do you 
think? 

<evil grin>


-- Elkins