OOP: The unknown power

[dungrollin]

No: HPFGUIDX 119137


Dungrollin wrote:

<snip>

> The thing is, JKR hasn't ever talked about sacrificial love,
> has she? She's said that the trait she values above all others
> is courage. Which leaves those of us who find the idea a little
> slushy with some hope that what lies behind the door may be
> something more original, (and less overtly religious).

Geoff replied:

Well then, how do you equate that with the following....

'"But why couldn't Quirrell touch me?"
"Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot
understand, it is love. He didn't realise that love so powerful as
your mother's for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible
sign... to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who
loved us is gone, will give some protection for ever. It is in your
very skin."'

(PS "The Man with Two Faces" p.216 UK edition)

If that isn't JKR talking about sacrificial love, then I'm the next
DADA teacher...

It is never slushy love in such a situation. As I said earlier, the
problem is what do we mean by "love"? There are examples of
sacrificial love throughout life. Parents who give up their lives to
save their children, folk who step into a dangerous situation for the
sake of others in peril (I think of my local lifeboat crew who
frequently lay their lives on the line for strangers in trouble).

As a side issue, I believe as a Christian that Christ's sacrificial
love is the heartbeat of the universe but others may not want to be
overtly religious. My answer is I'm not religious, I have a faith;
there is a difference rather like the four types of love recognised
in Greek. The fact is that, without real, sacrifical love, the world
becomes a dictatorship where what we do is driven by fear and there
is no room for showing compassion and empathy for its own sake. We
might all as well join Voldemort on the "what's in it for me" merry-
go-round.

Dungrollin replies:

That's exactly the paragraph that I was talking about in the bit
you snipped.  The point I was trying to make was that the 
phrase `sacrificial love' is never used in canon (just like
`life debt' and `wandless magic'), and JKR has never
(to my knowledge - please correct me if I'm wrong) used it in an
interview.

Indeed.  What do we mean by love, and sacrificial love, at that?  I 
would disagree that lifeboat crews are a good example.  Do they all 
*love* the unknown people they're risking their necks for?  Not 
slushy love, definitely, but IMO not love at all.  And in order for 
it to qualify under `sacrificial love', it would have to be
the love for these strangers that *causes* them to risk their 
necks.  I might just about stretch to `compassion' in a few
cases, but that's not the same thing.

As for your last two sentences, they're not fact at all,
they're your opinion, and in relation to the RW I disagree 
completely.  (Imagine the big smiley that I'm too stuffy to use.)
 
Sacrifices don't have to be made with love in order for them to
make the world a better place.  Small acts of kindness, compassion 
and empathy are not worthless because they are done out of a sense 
of obligation rather than love.  (I'm talking about the effects of 
these acts on the RW, not on the effect upon one's soul, on which 
I'm not qualified to write).  And since I disagree with you on what 
constitutes a sacrifice made because of love, (I think they're rarer 
than you do because of your broad definition of love), I don't think 
the world would be a dramatically poorer place without them (poorer, 
yes, but not hugely so – Christ is a special case, I'm not
talking about him).  I certainly doubt that it would leave 
us `driven by fear' and with `no room for showing compassion and 
empathy for its own sake'.  

However, in the Potterverse it appears that sacrifices made with 
love are smiled upon as more meaningful, powerful and magical than 
those made without love.  Apparently (though I live in hope that 
I'll be proven wrong) if Snape were to die saving Harry it would
be a poorer sacrifice as he would have nothing but contempt for 
Harry until the end.  Which is funny, because I'd have far more 
respect for a Snape-for-Harry sacrifice for an idealistic goal (i.e. 
defeating Voldy) than for a Lily-for-Harry sacrifice with the love 
that a mother can't help but feel for her son (and hormones, and 
genetics) on her side.  The former would require fighting so many 
instincts where the latter would require going along with them.

Oh, yes, please... Snape snuffs it saving Harry, and it transpires 
that sacrificing one's life for a person one deeply hates gives
ten times the protection that Lily's sacrifice did...

Dungrollin
Who is going to refrain from making any last controversial comments 
here, no matter how tempting they may be.