Voldemort's animus toward the Potters/the prophecy (was Replay)

[Berit Jakobsen]

No: HPFGUIDX 85843

Kneazy wrote:
> 
> 2. A man, now also a woman, distinguished by the performance of
> extraordinarily brave or noble deeds;  an illustrious warrior

> DD doesn't want the Dementors as allies because he can't *trust*
> them. ("Voldemort can offer them so much more" is the phrase he
> uses.) He tells Voldy that there are things worse than death and 
this
> is what he threatens Voldy with. Doesn't sound compassionate to me.
> Yes, there are  things he won't do. But, to coin a phrase, just  
because
> you won't  stab someone in the back, it doesn't mean you won't kill 
> them face to face in a fair fight. DD may be moral, but he wants 
> Voldy destroyed. Voldy kills for no good reason, he enjoys 
inflicting
> pain and suffering. To say that the person who kills him is sinking 
to
> his level is to  equate surgery with sadism.

Me:

I agree with your definition of what a hero is, Kneazy: "A man, now 
also a woman, distinguished by the performance of extraordinarily 
brave or noble deeds;  an illustrious warrior." I'm just saying it's 
possible to be a hero performing brave and noble deeds without 
resorting to the means of the enemy. We can see the making of a hero 
in Harry: His almost reckless willingness to risk his own life for 
his friends. I just don't think, having gotten a "feeling" of 
Rowling's standpoint through Dumbledore's and Hermione's words, that 
that involves Harry spending the next two years learning how to MEAN 
the cruciatus curse and the avada kedavra. As Bellatrix said; in 
order for these unforgivable curses to work properly, one has to 
really MEAN them. And I for one does not want a hero that has 
to "mean"/become evil in order to fight evil. There's a really good 
reason these three curses are classified as unforgivable...

You also mention how Gandhi and Mandela are hardly heroes, among 
other things because they were not as noble and "pure" in their 
intentions/actions etc. as one would wish, and I'm sure a lot of 
history books have "bypassed" some of the truth. But I'm not saying a 
hero has to be perfect. Harry isn't. He has already done the grave 
mistake of attempting to use one of the unforgivable curses (against 
Bellatrix in MoM). But hopefully he'll grow, mature and make the 
right decisions in life...

By the way; I can see that it's hard to argue for a totally pacifist 
view when you're faced with characters like Hitler and Voldemort... 
I'm just seeing the problems with such a course of action (not saying 
it shouldn't be done in extreme cases). The problem is killing 
doesn't just eliminate the enemy; it does something to the killer's 
psyche. And that's what I am worried about. Yesterday evening I 
watched a documentary (sorry, don't know who has produced it) on the 
effect of war on the mind of the soldiers. Soldiers from all over the 
world were interviewed (British soldiers fighting at the Falkland 
Islands, American Vietnam veterans, Israeli soldiers fighting the 
Syrians etc.). And everyone told the same thing: How being forced to 
kill significantly changed something inside them. They described in 
their own words, how killing produced hatred and a view of their 
enemy as animals. Some of them even confessed they started liking 
killing... And these guys were just ordinary, "good" guys. They were 
all affected by the killings. In the few instances where the soldiers 
first thought the enemy was fellow allies and then later had to kill 
them when they understood they were hostile, they experienced major 
emotional trauma afterwards (and even psychological breakdowns). 
Because they suddenly realised they had killed a human being, not 
just a "rodent". Voldemort might not classify as a human being any 
longer, I can see that (though it looks like Dumbledore does; calling 
him "Tom"...:-) But, I am glad Harry was prevented from killing Peter 
in the shrieking shack... For his own well-being.

Berit