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

[arrowsmithbt]

No: HPFGUIDX 80481

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Laura Ingalls Huntley <lhuntley at f...> 
wrote:
> Del:
> > 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.
> > <SNIP>
> > 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.
> 
>> 
> 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.


Kneasy: (no hero)
I have to agree with Del.
Does Harry  really understand who or what Voldemort is? It's only been
a few months since he first heard of him. He hasn't lived with years of
seeing adults, your parents even, turning pale at the mere mention of
his name. The ultimate bogey-man. The merciless killer.

And an eleven year old thinks he  can beat him.
Not my definition of heroism.

He knows that V killed his parents. But what are his parents to Harry?
Can he remember them? Are they anything more  than just words?
A vague concept of something other people think he ought to feel 
strongly about. How can you feel strongly about something or some-
body you have never known? You can't. Not when you're just eleven
years old. You just pay lip service and hope one day it will make sense.
 
Death is even more of a puzzle. Death is what happens to old people.
It can't, won't happen to me. I'm on the good side! Besides, I haven't
finished my homework. Young people can't grasp the finality, the
permanence of death these days. Not unless they are very unlucky.

(There is much to be said for the old traditions. Then death came 
to a home, full of relatives keeping watch. The coffin was in the front
room. From there to the cemetary. It  was a ritual. It helped you
develop an understanding of the finiteness of it all. Of your place
in the continuum. Now, of course, all different. Everything is distant,
aseptic. It's easy to believe that granny isn't in there; she's just gone 
away. Nothing really  important at all. The generation now aged, say,
forty and less, are the first in human history not to follow the ritual.
Rituals are there for a reason. They mark the human condition.)

He talks of V flattening Hogwarts, hunting friends and family down,
destroying everything in his path, yet blithely suggests that three
children can stop him. How?

"Well, we  get past Fluffy," (vague plan) " avoid the other security 
measures provided by Hogwarts staff" (no plan and no idea what the 
traps are) and "stop him." (no plan). Then what? (no plan).
So might mice vote to bell the cat. Good strategy, but the logistics
and tactics come up short. (Let's put the show on right here in the barn!)

Heroism is a bit different. A hero knows and *calculates* the risks in
a course of action, but takes them anyway, even if the odds are bad.
Otherwise it's luck or foolhardiness. Harry doesn't have a clue what
he has to face or how he will deal with it. That's foolhardiness.

One day Harry might be a true hero, but not yet. So far he hasn't
had to go and deliberately seek out Voldemort, knowing that he
might fail, but doing it anyway. Cedric has given him a nasty taste
of the realities. If you fall, you don't get up again. Up to now it's 
been skirmishing, chance encounters, no planning from Harry.
The real battle is to come. Then he will have a chance for heroics.