Last Judgement Love - Was (Re: No AKs )

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 137222

There were many different responses on different threads about Love, 
so I cut and pasted all my responses here, hoping I didn't forget 
anything!

Saraquel (post #137139):
> In some ways it is the easy way out in terms of the diet we are 
> normally fed which is blood, guts and violence win the day.  But I 
> think JKR is setting the book up to be different.  She did not
> make Harry the conventional superhero.  His courage is the courage
> to love against the odds.  His lesson IMO, is that if he really
> wants to beat Voldemort, he has to stop thinking unforgivable
> curses and start thinking power of love.  He has to stop seeing
> love as a nothing, a luxury for the easy times, and start to see
> it for what it really is, what DD knows it is.  OotP p743 UKed
> "There is a room in the Department of Mysteries,' interrupted
> Dumbledore, `that is kept locked at all times.  It contains a 
> force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death,
> than human intelligence, than the forces of nature."

Jen: Very well said, Saraquel. I think that sums up Harry's dilemma 
completely. I hope there's a moment when Harry remembers the 
conversation between Dumbledore & Voldemort in the Pensieve: 

"Of some kinds of magic," Dumbledore corrected him quietly. "Of 
some. Of others, you remain...forgive me....woefully ignorant.
<snip>

"The old argument," {Voldemort} said softly. "But nothing I have 
seen in the world has supported your famous pronouncements that love 
is more powerful than my kind of magic, Dumbledore."

"Perhaps you have been looking in the wrong places," suggested 
Dumbledore. (chap. 20, p. 444, US)

That last line! Doesn't that just sum up the lesson Dumbledore wants 
Harry to learn? That sometimes the *places* we search for our answer 
can lead to more problems. Harry has been convinced since hearing 
the prophecy that he can't defeat Voldemort because he is not as 
magically powerful. And this has led him in some doubtful directions 
in HBP, like trying out new spells without knowing the effects, and 
trying to cast Unforgivables and dark hexes at Snape. Dumbledore 
keeps redirecting him back to the proper places to learn what is 
truly important: 'Talk to Ron and Hermione; don't set too much store 
by the Prophecy; remember what you've learned about Voldemort's 
weaknesses; recognize your own strengths.' 

Dumbledore tries to convince Harry in the Horcrux chapter how 
*little* it matters that Voldemort is more skilled. It's sort of 
like Fleur saying "I am good-looking enough for both of us, I 
theenk." Well, Voldemort is powerful enough for both of them, I 
theenk, and Harry only needs to follow the course he and Dumbledore 
started on and Voldemort will mess up the rest :). In his ignorance, 
Voldemort just keeps handing Harry the weapons of his own demise, 
one after the other. 

Saraquel:
><snipping>
> Harry somehow lures Voldemort into the Room of Love, not that 
> difficult if he has all Voldemorts Horcruxes in his hands as bait. 
> The Room of Love is like a gigantic mirror in which one sees 
> everything about oneself  illuminated in the light of what is
> Right – with a very big capital R.  At that point there is 
> blinding self-realisation, which brings about internal agonies 
> which the cruciatus curse can only hint at. <snip> One sees
> oneself measured against perfection, and motives count.  Hence it
> will not be an easy ride for Harry either.  All this crucio stuff
> against his enemies will come back to haunt him at this point, and
> he too will have to go through the mill and out the other side.
> But his pure untarnished soul should get him through it. However,
>  for Voldemort and his evil Horcrux bits, there will be literally,
> hell to pay.  Quite whether this will kill Volemort or just leave
> him crumpled and vanquished, or what I don't know. 

 
> Valky:
> IMO this theory is really strong Saraquel, because I agree that we
> should look outside the box of Lovey dovey Mushy sweet things about
> Love when looking for this final Love that will defeat Voldemort.
> Throughout the series we have seen Love in forms of compassion,
> Friendship, sacrifice, loyalty.. all the sentimental stuff, AND we
> have also seen the Terrifying Power of Dumbledore *decidely not
> mushy*, <snipping> So far Harry has used a sentimental Love
> against Voldemort (in OOtP),and it hurt him and he ran away. But
> it wasn't the end of Voldemort, it didn't destroy him. But what
> about it threatened him so much thathe ran. I think this Power
> that Voldemort fears, must truly *be* terrifying and not just to
> Voldie. So I like Last Judgement Love, a lot. Because it *is* 
> terrifying. 

Jen: I talked about compassionate love at one point on this thread, 
feeling Dumbledore symbolizes this. And Saraquel replied: "To me, 
Last Judgement Love (for want of a better phrase) is the highest 
form of compassion....It destroys evil in the soul, leaving it pure, 
and in knowledge of its true nature, rather than damming it to 
eternal torment."

The point I made about all the good Dumbledore did for many people 
and creatures is really only half of the equation for compassionate 
love. I think we saw the other half in the cave, after Dumbledore 
drank the potion. I feel certain he was reliving the most terrible 
times in his life, times when he made mistakes and misjudgements 
about people and situations, leading to people or creatures being 
tortured or killed. It reminded me of a quote by Milan Kundera in 
The Unbearable Lightness of Being: "For nothing is heavier than 
compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one 
feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the 
imagination and prolonged by a hundred echos." 

So compassionate love, which is actually very similar to what 
Saraquel is proposing, is not exactly for the faint of heart! I 
suspect one mistake, one of the "correspondingly huge mistakes" DD 
alludes to in HBP, was not being able to influence Tom Riddle to 
make better choices during his time at Hogwarts. DD still had hopes 
when he met Tom at the orphange that Tom could learn to use his 
magical abilities in a more positive way. And he probably believed 
there was good in Tom, because that's what he does! But Riddle 
turned his back on Dumbledore early on and begin to search for 
mentoring in all the wrong places.  

> Valky:
> I agree that Dumbledore's love was remarkable. And for a long time
> he tried to instil the same compassion and goodness in others. I
> think there will be a compassionate love in the final
> confrontation and it will help Harry to win. By Saraquels theory
> Harry's Compassion would be a reason he survives the raw force of 
> this "Judgement Love" which I like a lot, but I don't know how 
> compassion itself could Vanquish Voldemort except that it could
> cause him to destroy himself to escape it if he couldn't run away.
> Unless you were hoping that Harry's compassion could somehow 
> *save* Voldie from himself in the end? I wouldn't argue with an
> ending like that, if JKR figured a way to save Tom somehow it
> would be OK with me but somehow I think that in Harry's story LV
> can't be saved *and* kept alive it's one or the other dead or
> doomed IMHO.

Jen: I suppose in the end I feel compassionate love will vanquish 
Voldemort indirectly, as a result of Voldemort's ignorance about it. 
Like the phoenix song coming out of the Priori Incantatem web of 
light that night at the graveyard. Harry was not doing anything to 
call forth the Phoenix song, but there it was. The song and the 
echos guided Harry through that episode because he deperately needed 
help, and because he possessed a pure heart and soul. It wasn't 
Dumbledore trying to save him this time, or another of his allies. 
Harry must have felt completely alone until that moment. 

Ack, I can't get at exactly what I mean. But I see something 
happening after the Horcruxes are destroyed, when Voldemort is 
mortal, where he will bring about his own downfall. His pure evil 
will call forth something from Harry or around him that will lead to 
his final defeat.

One possibility is what SSSusan suggested in post #137151:
> In the end, Harry will come, probably solo, to the understanding
> that he must sacrifice  himself.  He will be willing to do so
> because of his love for (many) others -- **not** because of 
> romantic love for Ginny, but because of deep, compassionate,
> altruistic agape love & concern for others.
> 
> But here's the TWIST I'm hoping for.  Harry will come to believe 
> this, and he will come to DECIDE that he will sacrifice himself,
> thus ensuring (somehow! -- leaving this up to JKR's magical
> creativity) Voldemort's demise.  However, in the process of 
> offering himself up, Harry will (somehow!) discover, quite
> surprisingly, that he does not NEED to die.  The belief & the 
> willingness to have died will turn out to have been enough.

Jen again: You know, all my theorizing leads me back to the same 
place--another failed AK :). I don't know why I'm stuck on this. But 
I could see Harry deciding to do what Susan suggested above, 
believing it's the only way to save the WW, and telling 
Voldemort, "kill me now." Voldemort, still blind to the power of 
sacrificial love ONCE AGAIN, will attempt to kill Harry and again 
the AK rebounds and kills him instead. I really won't harp on this 
idea again, but I do love the symmetry of Harry, like Lily, choosing 
to die, and by making that compassionate choice to save the WW, 
defeating Voldemort once and for all.

Jen, starting to sound like a broken record so she obviously needs 
to move on to another thread.