The magic power of love. Was: BANG! You're dead!

[Doriane]

No: HPFGUIDX 80361

> Hans:
> 
> This Stone is able to bring an unlimited healthy life amongst 
> undreamed of wealth and luxury. It can guarantee absolute and total 
> power, fame, esteem. Money ("gold") can buy all these things. Yet 
> Harry wanted none of these. His divine inner quality was beyond 
> wanting any of that. He was more interested in saving the world - 
> you and me!

Nope. Harry was simply an 11-year-old boy who wanted love and family 
more than anything else. And he knew that money can't buy that, 
because he'd received love and acceptance during a whole year without 
ever having to pay for it. That's why he didn't care about the stone. 
As for wanting to save the world, I don't think he thought as far as 
that. He just didn't want the bad guys to steal something from DD. 
Remember : originally, he didn't come to fight Voldemort, but Snape. 
And even when he gets the stone, he still thinks he's only fighting 
Quirrell.

> This is going to earn me a rap on the knuckles - but do you 
> remember that brilliant scene in the movie where Harry holds the 
> Stone in his hands and Voldemort tempts him? Did you see the 
> longing in his eyes? But nothing stopped him from his determination 
> to stop Voldemort getting the Stone. 
> 
> How many of us can truly say we could pass that test? You never 
> have to see a doctor again, you can buy the best palace in the best 
> spot, you can help your poor grandmother who's dying of cancer by 
> paying for the best doctor in the world, and so on - without limit.

That's movie contamination. In the book, LV just goes on to demanding 
the Stone from Harry, if I remember well.

> By making THAT choice Harry invoked the wrath of Voldemort, and it 
> was only THEN that his mother's love-guard was needed.
> 
> Harry here shows supreme selflessness and courage.

Harry is courageous, I'll give you that. He has to be, or he would 
never have survived the Dursleys' abuse. But as for supreme 
selflessness... To me, he's only showing loyalty to DD, the only 
father figure he ever had : DD is guarding the Stone, LV is trying to 
steal the Stone from him, LV is a baddie, so no he won't get the 
Stone. I personnally think that at that moment, Harry hasn't yet 
realized that LV would go as far as killing him to get the Stone. 
He's just an 11-year-old boy, and kids that age can't imagine that 
someone would kill them. He's survived all the abuse from the 
Dursleys, so it's kind of logical that he's not too afraid of LV.

> Yes Fawkes saved him. But why did Fawkes COME? Because Harry 
> invoked him! How? By showing his loyalty to Dumbledore.

Again, DD was the only father figure Harry had at that time. So what 
he said to Riddle is a bit like : "no, you're not the best. My daddy 
is !!" Especially since he's been told that DD was the only wizard LV 
was ever afraid of, so it's easy for him to 'brag' that way.

> So it's Harry's own action that invoke Fawkes' help. This of course 
> totally leaving aside the fact that Harry was there to save Ginny, 
> whom he didn't even particularly know very well.

Hum, I wouldn't take that as such a good point for Harry : it's a big 
sign of his hero / saving people complex. Basically, Harry thought he 
was big enough to save Ginny (or whoever for that matter) on his own. 
I mean, he *could* have gone and requested help from McGonagall of 
whoever, but he didn't even think of it.

> Harry's superb inner qualities shown here are compassion, loyalty, 
> bravery.

Loyalty, yes. Bravery, hum : his actions border on foolishness to me. 
Basically, he's never run into his limits. He hasn't learned that he 
isn't all-powerful in the magical world (how could he ? He *did* 
defeat LV twice). So he's intimately convinced that he can win over 
anyone in a fight. As for compassion, I don't think so. As I said 
before, he doesn't care much about Ginny, it's more to do with 
playing the hero.

> Oh yes, ONLY compassion. Are we talking about Harry Potter and the 
> Prisoner of Azkaban? In my copy Harry wins the battle against fear. 
> Not just fear of something, but the fear of fear itself (as Lupin 
> says). In my copy Harry summons a patronus that drives off 100 
> dementors! I don't want to get into time travel; let's keep it 
> simple. Harry summons the patronus because of the practice he's had 
> with Lupin. If he hadn't had that practice he wouldn't have been 
> able to do it.

So a) he'd practiced that skill, and b) he knew he would succeed 
because he'd seen himself doing it. What kind of victory is that ? If 
I saw myself doing something I've been training for, it wouldn't take 
me any courage to do it. Harry did *not* win over his fear at this 
moment in my idea.

As for compassion... Well, he did show something towards Peter, but I 
wouldn't call it compassion. He wasn't trying to save Peter, he was 
trying to act noble towards his father's friends. Basically, what he 
said is : Peter is such a lowly character, he's not worthy of your 
becoming murderers. So what he showed towards Peter was disdain, a 
total lack of consideration. Served him well, by the way.

> If you or I or anyone else had faced Voldemort with Harry's wand we 
> would have been cinders in a nanosecond. There was no luck there at 
> all. It was a matter of will-power. 

If I may say so, you don't know how much will-power your fellow list-
members can display. I see no reason why Harry should be the only one 
able to display such will-power. Take Neville for example : he showed 
in OoP that he had tons of will-power too, when he fought so hard to 
better himself in the DA.

> She (JKR) won't say that because Harry didn't push Voldemort out by 
> mental discipline.

Which is lucky, because it would be inconsistent with the will-power 
Harry showed in GoF.

> The whole point of book 5 is that the liberation of the mental
> ego is NOT achieved by mental discipline but by Love.

Maybe. Even though, as I've said time and again, I don't see Harry as 
an especially loving person. He doesn't care about many people, and 
even those he does care about, he doesn't mind hurting, sometimes 
quite badly.

> To sum up Harry's inner qualities:
> Book 1: selflessness, courage.
> Book 2: compassion, loyalty, bravery
> Book 3: (as well as the above things:) victory over fear
> Book 4: a will-power greater than Voldemort's
> Book 5: a Love which is greater than any power one person can have 
> over another (my conclusion)

And how does that make him any more special that a 13-year-old girl 
who's completely lost any hope in life, who doesn't think things will 
ever get better, who suffers horribly every single day of her life, 
but who won't commit suicide only because she doesn't want to "do 
that" to her mom and sister ? Maybe I didn't save the world, but I 
think I displayed pretty much all the qualities you quoted above. But 
I don't think you'd me consider a hero, would you ? In the same way, 
I don't consider Harry a hero : he is he, he's got his own qualities 
and faults, but he's no greater that anyone else. In fact, no one is 
greater that anyone else, because there is no absolute scale to 
measure people.

> Is there just a chance of one in a trillion that you're serious in 
> what you're saying? That you missed those vital few lines in each 
> book?

No. Golly and I just don't interpret them the way you do. And none of 
us (Golly, you and I) is wrong.

Del