Triumph in tragedy (Re: tragedy or triumph?)

[iris_ft]

No: HPFGUIDX 107097

I reply here to Hans and Valky.
Well, I suppose that what I'm about to post is nothing new and 
already lies in the archives, but as I'm too lazy to explore them 
tonight, you will have to forgive me if I this is `Bis repetita'.

Hans wrote:

 (snipping)
"
 Why is this process often depicted as being full of
suffering and sorrow, when in fact liberation is the most wonderful 
and
beautiful thing there is. I just don't know why Harry has to suffer 
so much.
I don't know why Jesus' crucifixion is regarded as such torture. And 
the
Alchemical Wedding with its 7 decapitations isn't exactly a tea party
either. Yet what can be more ecstatic than to be liberated from our 
own
inner evil? Sure, it's hard work. It's painful to have to give up 
the forces within us that enslave us to the past and which have 
accumulated to become world-dominating, but in essence the process 
is overwhelmingly joyous.

(snipping) 
To attempt to answer my own question, perhaps the darkness and 
tragedy are
there to offset the ultimate light and sublimity of it. I guess 
people are
in fact attracted by the struggle of light against darkness. The 
harder and
darker the struggle, the more effulgent the ultimate victory of the 
light.(snipping)"

Hi, Hans,

You titled your post `Tragedy or triumph'. As for me, I would rather 
say `Triumph in tragedy', because that's precisely what, IMO, Jesus' 
crucifixion or the Alchemical Wedding are. That's also what the 
Harry Potter books are, by many aspects. I think more precisely of 
GoF and OotP. In both books, Harry passes through very painful 
trials, and he is in a certain way defeated. In GoF, he is 
kidnapped, tortured and raped (that how I summarise what happens in 
the graveyard); and he ends up with the double burden of feeling 
responsible for Cedric's death and for Voldemort's return. In OotP, 
he passes through physical and mental torture, and he ends up with 
another double burden: feeling responsible for Sirius's death, and 
being by now the Prophecy Boy, he who has to kill or being killed.
In both cases, it's a tragic situation, and that's by the way how 
JKR herself depicts it in OotP, when she writes `
his life was a 
tragedy'(sorry, but I don't remember in which chapter it appears) 
or `He was – he had always been- a marked man' (last chapter). But 
that's something we already knew, since the beginning: it's written 
in the very first book, in `The Sorting Hat' chapter, when we can 
read that Mac Gonagall is going to lead Harry to his DOOM.
Since the very first book, JKR refers to tragedy. And what a 
tragedy: in Harry's case, it's not a belittled word, the one we tend 
to use whenever something very sad happens. It's the original term, 
the philosophic one, the Greek term.
When she writes the story of Harry, JKR explores the same world the 
Greek tragic authors depict in their works. Of course, the context, 
the style and the sociological references are different, but the 
essence is the same.
`Harry Potter', like Greek tragedies, is a painting of human 
passions (by `passions', understand `pains' or `sufferings'). And 
regarding tragic heroes, what looks a priori like defeat or a death 
finally turns out to be a triumph. That's all the paradox of 
tragedy: though they die, though they are defeated, the heroes, 
because they suffered and faced their consciousness, finally 
triumph. Sometimes they are mean, sometimes they act evil, and 
sometimes they make the bad choice. But they try to move ahead, they 
have a consciousness, and they face the truth. For that reason, they 
are human, plainly human. And for that reason too, they show 
greatness. Taking the alchemical vocabulary, we can say their story 
and their final defeat, or death, are the different operations that 
lead to a pure truth: the greatness of human hood, our Philosopher 
Stone. Because being human is actually a great job, even if we, like 
Harry at the beginning of his journey, don't always understand what 
it means. It's not that easy, and Voldemort is there to prove it. He 
preferred to hide behind a snake mask instead of facing his human 
condition. Harry, on the opposite, faces what he is. Sometimes it's 
not brilliant, but even when, like a tragic Greek mask, he looks 
terrible, he stands the trial, and he learns. 
There's more concerning tragedy. It has what the Greeks called `a 
cathartic function'. The Greeks thought a depiction of human 
passions had a purifying power. The authors hoped people would leave 
the theatre better than they had come in ( I agree that what I'm 
currently writing can sound oversimplifying, but I can't put in a 
post what it took authors complete books to explain). Of course, it 
doesn't work like a Transfiguration incantation. A tragedy can't 
that radically change the way people behave. But it makes them 
think, it plants seeds in their mind and, who knows, one day those 
seeds can give something new. It also puts people face to face with 
what they are. It makes consciousness work. And every time 
consciousness works, even if it hurts, even if it doesn't lead 
to `purification', it's an improvement.
Well, maybe JKR didn't have that aspect of tragedy when she started 
writing the story of Harry and when she made him what he is. 
However, her books, being written according to the tragic code, 
happen to have the same cathartic function. Those who read them have 
to face soon or later their own consciousness. Harry learns, and 
they learn from him.

That's how I feel concerning the `tragic dimension' of the books. 
It's of course only my point of view.
 
 
Valky replied to Hans:
(snipping)



 
"To that end, I would be disappointed if JKR was to, herself, attempt
to muffle such a beautiful message with soft renderings of
the "Death and Rebirth" or *too* mild portrayals of the suffering of
Harry.
I am positive that she won't."

Iris:

I hope you are right, Valky. And I agree with you: the saddest 
ending to this story would be a sloppy ending. Wizards, centaurs, 
goblins and elves dancing together, huge fireworks in the Hogwarts 
sky
 BRRR!!!

"She has already done so, and very well, in her first book of the
series. Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone *is the Childrens
Book*. It is age appropriate and has the entire message encapsulated
so brilliantly that JKR may never have needed to write another if
she were just writing for children.
I firmly believe that the series is intended to grow with the reader
and the dark and serious themes that we expect at the end will not
seem out of place in their context."

Iris:
Yes, the Philosopher's Stone book looks like a children book. It 
reminds me that many alchemical treatises are written like 
fairytales, that they look like fantasies. The Alchemists themselves 
used to call their work `a children game'. It doesn't matter: at the 
end of the book, there are chapter 16 and 17. And they definitely 
don't look like a children tale, by many aspects.

Valky:   
"So here I am merely saying that, when I said we could avoid
gratuitous carnage in the final books, what I intend is to
acknowledge that the notion of decapitating our beloved R and H
conjures an image of unnecessary graphic bloodshed in the context of
the books."
(snipping)

Iris:
JKR doesn't need to paint carnage, actually. What always struck me 
in her books is her ability to paint extremely violent situations 
without using all the `banging and bloody stuff' other authors tend 
to put in their books when they want to show violence. Sometimes she 
seems to write using a scalpel, or maybe one of Umbridge's detention 
black quills. It doesn't make noise, it doesn't spatter. But it 
hurts.


Amicalement,

Iris