A time loop

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 95758

-gregory_lynn wrote:
<snip> 
> I think Voldemort, Harry, Hermione, Ron, Luna, and perhaps others
are aspects of the same person.  Harry doesn't seem like a full person
to me.  <snip>

>  He doesn't suggest being an Auror, Ron does.  He doesn't 
> talk about that night in the graveyard though everyone wants him to.  
> He doesn't even let Hermione say the DA was his idea.  He never 
> pushes himself forward
ever.
> 
> Neither does he seem to have much of a conscience.  He feels bad 
> about the inquiry Mr. Weasley faces as a result of the Anglia crash 
> and what else?  He doesn't feel bad about lying to Moaning Myrtle.  
> He doesn't feel bad about breaking a million rules, he just worries 
> about being caught.  He doesn't worry about stealing stuff from 
> Snape's private stash.  He doesn't seem to think that the acts 
> themselves are wrong (mind you, some of them aren't), he just seems 
> to be trying to avoid consequences.
<snip> 
> I think Hermione is the conscience.  At first, I thought she would be 
> the intellect or perhaps the logic and reason faculties but no 
> longer.  It seems that most of the reason she is the best student is 
> because she is the most diligent.  She's the one that listens and 
> takes notes in History of Magic.  She's the one that took her 
> Transfiguation homework so seriously that she went to the library to 
> look up the Ministry of Magic list of registered Animagi.  She's the 
> one preparing study plans.  She's not a better student because she's 
> smarter, she's a better student because she prepares better, more 
> thoroughly.  <snip> Meanwhile, it is Hermione's voice he hears in
his head reminding him not to break rules and such.  Hermione is all
about doing what she is supposed to do.  A student is supposed to
study.  A prefect is supposed to enforce and abide by the rules.  The
organizer of a secret society is supposed to take steps to keep it
secret.  <snip> She does what she's supposed to do
she's the conscience.
><snip>

 In book 2 he finds his way into a secret 
> place to kill one of Voldemort's allies. <snip>


Carol:
I'm not going to respond to your whole post because your reading,
though interesting, is too allegorical for my taste (sorry!), so I'll
just respond sporadically to the points that jumped out at me.

First, if Harry is "not a full person," it's probably because for ten
of the first eleven years of his life, he was mostly trying to survive
life with the Dursleys. If you're constantly being yelled at,
criticized, or sent to your cupboard, you don't have much scope for
personal development. Just as he's starting to figure out who
JustHarry is, he has The Boy Who Lived imposed on him as a built-in
identity. (I think it's actually a good thing that Snape stepped in to
keep him from becoming an instant celebrity. With friends of his own
choosing rather than a band of followers, he can find his strengths
and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, and whatever else constitutes a
full personality. (All of us are incomplete in some way. My athletic
component, so to speak, is nonexistent. Harry's musical one appears to
be missing--and Hogwarts is no help at all in that respect.)

As far as conscience is concerned, I do think that Hermione acts at
times as the "conscience" of HRH, but not consistently and not on all
occasions. She's not a Percy, for whom rules are rules and must not be
broken. But Harry does have some sense of right and wrong, or at least
of fairness and unfairness or good and evil. His life with the
Dursleys didn't provide him with the true discipline (teaching as
opposed to punishment) that would develop, with practice, into
self-discipline. He's having to learn this for himself, which is why
he hears Hermione's voice in his head at times. But Hermione is not
just the Trio's Superego. She's a full-fledged character in her own
right, with some annoying flaws (SPEW!) but some endearing traits as
well. I would argue that she *is* intelligent, with a better memory
and better powers of concentration than either of the boys--not just
better study skills and self-discipline. She's also logical, able to
figure out the riddle in SS/PS and to understand and analyze
Umbridge's speech in OoP, which slipped like water through the boys'
minds. 

One last quibble. I don't quite see how Diary!Tom qualifies as an ally
of Voldemort's. He's more like a manifestation or embodiment. 

Carol, with apologies for responding to minor points rather than the
main idea