My shocking idea

[Wanda Sherratt]

No: HPFGUIDX 72860

The two threads, "The Emotion" and the one about Harry dying, are 
moving on similar lines right now, discussing a theory about Harry 
giving his life out of love, and so defeating Voldemort.  I think 
that this is going to be the final outcome of Book 7, but I have my 
own rather jarring theory about how it will all come together.

I've noticed that Rowling tends to patiently build up themes, making 
them more and more complex as the stories go along.  She's moved the 
racism theme from the initial ugly name-calling in CoS all the way 
up to revolt and civil war in the magical world, with the giants, 
centaurs and house elfs in varying stages of war against the 
wizards.  Another theme which is getting bigger, but I think still 
has some way to go, is what I think of as the "Golden Rule" theme - 
treating others as you would be treated, and what happens if you 
don't.  This theme is causing us to re-evaluate characters that we 
thought we understood:  Snape started out in PS as a typical baddie, 
but by now we know there's more to him.  In OotP, we saw glimpses of 
the bad treatment he endured in the past.  Rowling didn't use his 
case as an example, but instead, she had Dumbledore talk about a 
minor character, Kreacher, in order to teach the lesson to Harry.  
Kreacher, we're told, has been made what he is by the bad treatment 
he has gone through.  Bad treatment has been meted out to other 
magical beings, too, and eventually there are consequences, as we 
are now beginning to see.

Well, though Kreacher is the immediate example, my mind naturally 
went to Snape when I read this part.  How much of his badness was a 
result of the treatment he went through?  There will always be a 
question of choice and free will, but there seems no doubt that 
those who tormented him made it easier for him to choose the bad 
road.  A Christian would say that James and his friends put a 
stumbling-block in his path, and that is generally reckoned to be a 
sin.  What I think Rowling is trying to get across is that badness 
seldom comes out of the blue; few people are bad just because they 
have logically decided that it's better than goodness.  I think 
we're even starting to see a bit of shading in the character of 
Dudley, who for the first time shows that he has vulnerabilities.  
If this is the case for Dudley, I think it will also have to be the 
case for Draco.  There's always been lots of speculation about what 
his home life is like; I think that soon we're going to find out, 
and we'll discover that he also is partly the product of the way he 
has been treated by others.

This brings me to my most controversial guess: that the deepening of 
character is going to extend all the way to Voldemort himself.  When 
Dumbledore called him "Tom", I don't think he was doing it in a 
sneering way; I think he was addressing himself to the human being 
he once knew.  If all these other characters went bad because they 
were mistreated, in the end we will learn that Tom Riddle was the 
same.  That he was not always pure evil, that he had a chance for 
good, but that he chose evil partly because of the way he was 
treated.  I have my own ideas about what pushed him to the dark 
side, which I won't go into.  But I think Harry is going to learn 
that compassion, which he was already starting to feel for Snape, 
(and that is one of Harry's most admirable moments, when he realizes 
that he feels bad for his most hated teacher) must extend all the 
way to the Dark Lord himself.  I think Harry's sacrifice will be 
even bigger than Lily's was; he won't be dying just to save his 
friends, but to save his worst enemy.  I think Harry's death is 
going to be *truly* Christ-like, and he'll be able to look at 
Voldemort and see not the all-powerful dark wizard, but the ruined, 
destroyed human being he once was, and respond with love and 
compassion.  Any ideas about this, or am I just raving?

Wanda