Savior complex? (was "Harry and Tom")

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 110830

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Josh Warren" 
<wjwarren4269 at c...> wrote:

> I will argue that PS/SS is not the savior complex, but self-
 preservation. Harry is determined to stop Voldemort from getting 
the  stne and coming back to kill him.<\

Pippin:
But, why, *why*, should Harry think that the Stone would be safer 
in his hands than it would be guarded by all the protections 
Dumbledore has placed around it? And in fact, it's doubtful that 
Quirrell could have extracted the Stone from the mirror before 
Dumbledore arrived, if Harry hadn't done it for him.

I think that in Harry's young mind, his right to be regarded as a 
bona fide hero and his escape from Dursleydom are bound 
together -- he *is* playing the hero to some extent, though not 
consciously. As the Sorting Hat told him, he has a nice thirst to 
prove himself.  I think he made the unconscious assumption that 
if he didn't prove himself to be the hero everyone thought he was, 
he was going to be sent back. And to hark back to the original 
topic, Tom might have some of the same issues.

Tom might have emerged from his sorting thinking that his right 
to be at Hogwarts instead of the orphanage depended on his 
proving himself to be a true Slytherin. And what better way to do 
that than to step into the role of Dark Wizard and Slytherin's Heir?

Maybe the ordinary person wouldn't have the ability to choose not  
to love, as the ordinary person probably couldn't choose to be as 
brave as Harry. But these are not quite ordinary people...they 
have choices we don't.

Pippin