Dirty Harry (WAS: The intended murder of Pettigrew and moral corruption)

[Kelsey Dangelo]

No: HPFGUIDX 116534


imamommy at s... wrote:
> Harry may make a lot of mistakes, but he can't become what 
> Voldemort is: he can't become a cold-blooded killer.  

Eggplant:
> Actually I hope to see something like that in the series, I think 
> it would make things very interesting. At the end of the series I 
> want some people to denounce Harry, I want others to say he did 
> what he had to do, I want moral ambiguity, I want controversy not 
> a paragon of ethics. I was delighted in the last book when Harry 
> used a Unforgivable Curse, not because I thought it was the right 
> thing to do but precisely because I thought it was not. <snip>
> 
> In short at least to a degree, I want to see Harry Potter turn into 
> Dirty Harry.

 
Kelsey:
Oh, I love this idea (and the name! “Dirty Harry”). Wouldn’t that be a twist? Wouldn’t that put a wrench in the RW presses that talk about how cute Harry 
is? 

Cute, little, socio-pathic, soiled Harry.

But I think I might see a hole in that bucket of water.

Harry’s an angry teenager, but he’s a goody-two-shoes. From day one, he just intrinsically knows what’s right and what’s wrong (knowing he doesn’t want to be associated with “dark wizards” of Slytherin). Yeah, he gets fuddled in knowing who’s good and who’s bad (Snape vs. Quirrel). Sure, he falters when he gets mad. But his underlying motives are almost always so pure and good. They’re not even for the sake of increasing his own fortune (i.e. winning the triwizard cup for fame, glory, and cash). His motivation may not exactly be saintly (the side of “good” was chosen for him the moment Voldie killed his parents and tried to kill him), but he’s good by definition.

He’s probably having a crisis at the moment with Sirius gone, but that’ll come to motivate him further.

Oh, I’ll put galleons on that he’ll have a big moral dilemma (my dream scenario: whether or not to bring Sirius back from the dead or whether or not to kill Bellatrix). But he’s going to do the right thing in the end.

Harry just isn’t the Byronic hero. He’s not the anti-hero. He’s not Anakin 
Skywalker (redeemed hero). He’s good defined by the evil that is Voldie 
(hence why Voldie is such a unsatisfactory villain—he’s just evil, flat, 
boring, evil) and vice versa. Harry’s good, flat, boring, good. Well, maybe 
not so boring. Harry and Voldie are archenemies. Just as there is no gray 
area for Voldie, there’s none for Harry. [I don’t think that this in anyway 
lessens the impact of the books at all, there’s 4.5 billion other characters 
in the books that are various shades of gray, white, black, red, purple, 
green, etc.]

In short (too late), Voldie cannot be redeemed. Harry can’t go evil (for any short or long amount of time). They define each other as opposite ends of the poles.

But I’m really eager and open to having my mind changed!

Kelsey, who is horrified by the recent realization that her star tattoo is named after Sirius’ murderer.