Harry a Hero? Was: The magic power of love.

[msbeadsley]

No: HPFGUIDX 80474

I have been following this thread and finally felt compelled to add 
my couple o' knuts worth.  I apologize; the level of quotes of quotes 
got so confusing I gave up on who said what and pasted in stuff 
without attribution.

> > So, from this here very illuminating bit of canon, I'd say not 
> > only does Harry go after the Stone to prevent *Voldemort* from 
> > destroying the world (or at least Hogwarts ^_~), but that he is 
> > also quite aware that Voldemort will kill him even if he 
> > *doesn't* try to defend the Stone.

> Okay, okay :-) You're perfectly right, I must admit it. Though if I 
> were nasty, I'd say this disproves the selfless hero image...

Selfless hero?  No such thing.  Someone who dies to save the world 
dies with (maybe for) a profound sense of satisfaction:  "I did it, I 
saved the world."  Even those who die not knowing if their sacrifice 
succeeded die with satisfaction:  "I did my very best to save the 
world."  (A morally rarefied version of extreme sport?)  The hero is 
trying to have things come out his/her way.  Ultimately, altruism 
doesn't exist, if one follows your logic to its conclusion.

> > Harry and Ron *tried* to go to Lockhart (who was *supposed* to be 
> > searching for Ginny) to tell him where to look. Of course, 
> > Lockhart wasn't actually going to try to save her -- but neither 
> > were (from Harry and Ron's perspective) the other teachers. 
> > Anyway, I'm not sure *I*, at least, could expect them, once 
> > they'd wrested control from Lockhart, to go traipsing around the 
> > castle looking for *another* teacher to help them. I'm quite 
> > impressed they spared the time to go to Lockhart in the first 
> > place, honestly.

> Personally, I was very puzzled, the first time I read the book, to 
> see Harry and Ron going to Lockhart. I thought they would have 
> known that a) he wouldn't even go searching for Ginny, and b) he 
> would be useless anyway even if he did. It's only when the Memory 
> Charm incident happened that it all made sense to me : "Ah, it's to 
> keep Ron back, so Harry has to go and fight alone".

I don't think so.  Although Harry and Ron *thought* Lockhart was a 
git, they didn't know yet that he hadn't had anything to do with the 
heroics in his books.  They were put off by his ego and mystified by 
what they saw as the difference between the actions in his books and 
the buffoon who showed up in the DADA classroom, but he was still a 
*teacher*; and it's not like there was a handy guard in the corridor 
they could report to.  Besides, this is confusing why *Harry and Ron* 
behaved as *they* did with why JKR *wrote it* as she did.

> But anyway : why would they think that no other teacher would go 
> looking for Ginny ? Even if the teachers "officially" turned that 
> task over to Lockhart, it was obvious to me that all the others 
> would keep trying to figure out where she was.

But the important question is, would it be obvious to Harry and Ron?

> When a student goes missing, *all* the teachers have a duty to look 
> for her.

I think assuming more efforts than Lockhart's would be too 
sophisticated for Harry and Ron at this stage of the game.  
*Especially* with Dumbledore out of the picture.  They don't know 
that anyone else, especially anyone in authority, sees Lockhart as 
the ineffectual boob as they suspect he is.

> Moreover, Harry and Ron were the *only* ones in the whole castle 
> who knew where to look for Ginny. If they had been killed on their 
> rescue mission, nobody would have been able to find any of them. I 
> find it at best irresponsible and at worst horribly stupid not to 
> tell any teacher what they knew and where they were going. Imagine 
> that your kid knew where another kid who was kidnapped is being 
> held captive. 

If my kid had a history of being stonewalled by adults, I can readily 
imagine just what happened.

> Wouldn't you expect your kid to tell someone (you, the police, 
> whoever) what he knows ? If he went and freed the kid on his own, 
> wouldn't you lecture him about how irresponsible and stupid it was 
> to go all alone, no matter how good a job he did, how heroic he is?

No.  I might tactfully, even covertly, suggest ways his rescue 
mission might have been reinforced to ensure success.  What I might 
have lectured him for is failing to leave word of where *he* was 
disappearing to.  That's another matter.  That has to do with my 
concern for his well-being, not for how he didn't share what he knew 
with anyone else.  They didn't *know* where Ginny was; they only 
strongly suspected.  If matters hadn't escalated, it's perfectly 
conceivable to me that they'd have gone back for more adult help.

> > 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.
 
> I don't think Harry is *playing* at anything.

> I didn't mean playing as in having fun. I meant playing as in 
> playing a role, as in having a distorted vision of reality, as in 
> believing that he's the only one who can do things right.

Harry is not playing a role.  Harry is being Harry.  His self-image 
*does* consist of being the only one in his world who can do the 
things that (he thinks) need doing.  He spent ten of his first eleven 
years with people who illustrated that to him daily:  injustice?  
Nobody else cares, it's up to me; to save myself or anyone else, it's 
all the same.  It's up to me.

> > He perceives that someone is in trouble, and he instinctively 
> > tries to help them.

> Most of us would also react like that, don't you think? That's not 
> compassion, though. 

I looked it up, and found:  "Deep awareness of the suffering of 
another coupled with the wish to relieve it." (American Heritage 
online)  I don't know how deep Harry's actual awareness of another's 
suffering is, but he does understand suffering and imagines that what 
anyone else feels is similar to what he has experienced.  Add his 
obvious desire to relieve it, and, yes, I'd say that's compassion.

> > Yes, maybe this is indicative of a hero complex, but hardly a bad 
> > or dishonorable thing. I mean, even when Hermione brought it up 
> > in OOTP, I didn't get the impression that she thought 
> > Harry's "saving people thing" was a negative trait, just that 
> > Voldemort might be trying to use it against him.

> It's not a bad trait in itself. But it gets bad when it leads him 
> to believe that he's a cut above others and that he can dispense 
> with a healthy amount of caution and with listening to others' 
> advice.

The hero thing is his motivation; the heedlessness has to do with how 
he has been repeatedly told: "Voldemort was nearly destroyed when he 
tried to kill you, and *nobody knows why*."  Nobody understands the 
event which defined his existence; why ask anyone anything?  And as 
far as Harry can tell, caution had zilch to do with why he survived 
the first time.  He goes careening into whatever's ahead, assuming 
(so far correctly) that the borrowed time he is on will not run out 
yet.

> > 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.
 
> Again, I don't think he was *acting* anything.

> Almost everyone I know is acting something, but that's another 
> matter :-)

Was Harry merciful?  Yes.  Did Harry disdain Peter?  Yes.  Did he 
think that leaving Peter alive was less a travesty than adding the 
burden of his execution to Lupin and Black's karma?  Probably.  
When's the last time you did anything without a little mix in *your* 
motivations?

> > He spared Peter because, when it really comes down to it, he's 
> > too good of a person to murder a defenseless (if despicable) 
> > person.

> No, he showed that trait when he couldn't bring himself to kill 
> Sirius that same night. But at least he tried, at least he hated 
> Sirius, because Sirius was a strong opponent. But Harry felt only 
> disgust for Peter, he didn't hate him, because he didn't feel he 
> was a worthy opponent.

"...at least he tried, at least he hated..."?  Are you arguing that 
trying to hate Sirius enough to kill him was a *good* thing?  Because 
Sirius was a worthier opponent than Peter?  *Urg*.

> Moreover, do you realize that once again he showed complete 
> disrespect for others' feelings ? Because he, Harry, didn't care 
> enough about Peter to kill him, he wouldn't allow Sirius and Remus 
> to choose for themselves whether or not they wanted to kill him. 
> What right did he have to do that ? Remus and Sirius were at that 
> moment feeling one of the worst kinds of betrayal there is: one of 
> their intimate friends had pretty much killed another friend. How 
> did Harry dare telling them what to do ?

Do you really think Harry could have stopped Sirius and Remus if they 
had been bent on that course of action?  A kid against two adults 
who, as children, co-wrote the Marauder's Map?  He swayed their 
thinking by getting in their way.  What right does anyone ever have 
to do anything contrary to another's desires, anyway?  All anyone can 
do is warn, "You'll be *sorry*, you know" and hope it inspires 
agreement, or at least doubt.  Harry did.

> > I think the idea that Jo is trying to present is that heroes are 
> > normal people who manage to act extraordinary in the midst of 
> > extraordinary events.

> Absolutely !!! That's precisely why I don't agree when people try 
> to convince me that Harry is so incredibly wonderful, that he's a 
> cut above all others. He's not. He just has good opportunities to 
> make use of his talents, a cold head, good wits and reflexes, and a 
> great deal of luck. He's good, but he's not exceptional.

He thinks he's supposed to be.  He has been told since his entry into 
the Wizarding World that he has a mysterious quality; he, as a baby 
in his crib, was all that stood in the way of Voldemort's ultimate 
victory.  *Something* happened there.  And it may very well *have* 
resulted in him becoming more than he was; what else did he get from 
Voldemort?  *Just* the ability to talk to snakes?  Unlikely, IMO.

> > And besides....he killed a *basilisk* with a freaking *sword*. 
> > ^_^ If he doesn't get to be a Hero, does he at least get the 
> > Knight-In-Shining-Armor distinction?

> Oh ! A Knight-In-Shining-Armor, that he is, for sure :-) A bit too 
> much for my taste, even :-) As for being a Hero, he is that too. 
> But he's not "better" than anyone else.

What makes "better"?  If Harry believes he has a responsibility to 
act when he sees the world going down the tubes, then I'd say 
that's "better" than the guy who just goes back to his PlayStation.  
Now we're getting into semantics.  Do you really want to go there?

> You know, Malfoy is a Hero too. Not for you and I, but if our 
> values were the same as his, we'd worship him for his daring 
> attitude, his cunning, his knowledge, his perseverance, etc... He's 
> just as much a Hero as Harry, just not to the same people.

The Church of the Bouncing Ferret.  Now *that*, I like!

Sandy, aka "msbeadsley"