Last Judgement Love - Choices

[saraquel_omphale]

No: HPFGUIDX 137386


Mari:

> This is something I've been turning over in my mind a lot in
> relation to the Harry Potter series. JKR certainly seems to be
> leading us towards a concept of love that is not just a feeling, it
> is a *choice*. Love can mean choosing to do something that totally
> goes against your inclinations, but you do it anyway because it is
> the right or necessary thing to do.

>Valky replying to Mari's post:
>If we are looking for Love and Choice and the finality of death 
rolled
>into some tangible climax to the series I reckon that the Agape (the
>God Love) as viewed from this last Judgement standpoint has got to 
be
>right on the money. <snip>
>And as I said to you earlier, and
>can't pass the opportunity to say again, it doesn't seem like love,
>it's not an emotion or a feeling, it's actually so pure it's brutal,

Saraquel:
Who is also really enjoying this thread and the amazing quality of 
the posts on the topic.   I want to see if I can get my head around 
a few concepts that I have been toying with, that are to do with 
choice, the power of this type of love, how the characters in the 
book will interact with it, whether it is possible to actually 
experience it as your own – perhaps I mean generate it, or whether 
it flows through your choices, when they are in harmony with it.  As 
you can see that's a lot of things to link together, but I usually 
find that by writing it out, unexpected connections are made, and 
hopefully things come together – so please bear with me. 

Mari, thanks for pointing out about the importance of choice, this 
whole aspect is really interesting. It is your choices that 
ultimately decide to what purpose you put the innate power within 
you. To good or evil – or for most us the endless shades of grey in 
between. 

In the Horcrux chapter DD spends a long time getting Harry to 
understand that he is making a choice to face Voldemort, and that 
Harry's power lies in making that choice.  If Harry continues to 
think that he must face Voldemort because the prophecy tells him 
that is his fate, then he becomes, IMO and I think DDs opinion (if 
I'm reading it right), Voldemort's victim. Whether he defeats 
Voldemort or not, he is the victim of Voldemort's choice to pursue 
the prophecy. Some of his power would not be directed outwards on 
the task in hand, but inwards. His power would not be illuminating 
his will to do the task, but feeding his resentment of why me?  So 
his attention would not be in the present, but in the past, on the 
history of the prophecy and everything connected with it. Only by 
connecting with his choices of the present can he access the power 
that he has within himself.

As a character, Snape is tied to his past resentments. I'm in full 
flow here so please forgive me Valky, for not quoting you directly, 
but I know I'm standing on your shoulders here and that this has 
been a theme of yours and I think others in this thread. His whole 
raison d'etre is connected to the "injustices" he sees have been 
visited on him by James, Sirius, and probably a whole host of other 
people and events that we speculate on. His present actions are 
totally governed by his past, and continue to colour everything he 
does. He renders himself choiceless because of this, and is trapped 
in a web of his own making.  Those around him, Dumbledore and 
Voldemort make choices which profoundly impact upon him and I think 
we could interpret some of his actions as resentment about this.  So 
although Snape has a lot of magical power and ability, it never 
seems to get him out of the mess, only further into it because the 
reasoning behind his choices is always connected to past and not 
present realities.

It seems to me that JKR implies that Voldemort's choices are based 
on his fears particularly of death and the unknown. In PS Uk ed p211 
Quirrel tells Harry how Voldemort taught him that "There is no good 
and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it."  I 
interpret that to mean that Voldemort sees power as control, 
controlling others through fear. So Voldemort does not recognise the 
connection between choice and power. He hands Harry power over him 
because he thinks he can intimidate Harry to the point that Harry 
*believes* he has no choice.  He has power over Draco, because, 
ultimately when DD offers Draco a way out, Draco is too afraid of 
Voldemort to make the choice to accept DD's offer.  So to Voldemort, 
it matters not whether you are trying to be good or evil, both are 
meaningless when you are under his control.

In the graveyard scene in GoF, it was Harry's *choice* to come out 
fighting and not be intimidated that caused the Priori Incantatem 
effect which terrified Voldemort.  Voldemort was terrified because 
he had lost control of the situation and has no other resources in 
his arsenal, he has nothing else to choose.  

So how does this reflect on the plot, and how Love Saves the Day?

Well, lets get back to Harry, and what might prevent him from making 
appropriate choices. Because ultimately, whatever those things are, 
if Harry is going to come out victorious in the end (and hey, this 
is an all action fictional story after all) he is going to have to 
resolve those things. If we assume that JKR has embodied weaknesses 
in our Hero's antagonists, then he should be able to learn from them.

In my mind, Harry has already conquered fear of death, he has always 
been willing to face death right from PS, but by the end of HBP, we 
see him facing Snape without fear of death: p564 "Kill me then," 
panted Harry, who felt no fear at all, but only rage and contempt." 
So that seems to be that one conquered.

Now for being bound to the past.  IMO Harry has not conquered this 
one at all yet.  It is his desire for vengeance over the death of 
his parents and the death of Sirius, that leads him into the, for 
me, dangerous territory of unforgivable curses.  There is no way, 
IMO, that Harry can beat Voldemort or Snape in this arena.  Both 
Voldemort and Snape know it too. As long as Harry is thinking this 
way, it's curtains for him.  He is going to have to come to terms 
with the death of his parents and both Snape and Voldemort's role in 
it.  

I think maybe, revisiting GH and going into his memory of what 
happened (because I do think that Harry will get that memory into 
the pensieve and go into it) will be the factor that allows him to 
come to terms with this.  I think, he will realise when he has seen 
it, that his parents *chose* to die.  He has already realised that 
his parents did choose to die, 

HBP p479 "It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged 
into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the 
arena with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that 
there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore 
knew – and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride, and 
so did my parents – that there was all the difference in the world."

But he has not yet, IMO quite thought through the implications of 
this.  In PoA, he would not allow Sirius and Lupin to kill Pettigrew 
because:

P275 "I'm not doing this for you (Pettigrew), I'm doing it because I 
don't reckon my dad would've wanted his best friends to become 
killers – just for you."

It is just a small step now to realise that his parents would not 
want Harry to perform unforgiveable curses and perhaps even an AK, 
just to get revenge.  I believe Harry will see his mother, willingly 
take a choice to end her life, with dignity and honour, even though 
she could have walked free.  Death was not a punishment for Lily, it 
was a choice she willingly embraced.  Harry killing Snape on the 
grounds of revenge, would be meaningless in this situation. In some 
ways, it could be seen as dishonouring her choice. It would serve no 
purpose for Lily, James Harry or Snape.

After Sirius death, those around Harry kept insisting that it was 
what Sirius would have wanted.  Sirius would have been happy to go 
out fighting for a cause he believed in.  Sirius took the choice to 
go to the MOM. Once Harry starts to accept that people make choices 
to die willingly because they believe in what they are dying for, it 
will relieve him of his greatest vulnerability with regards to 
Voldemort, IMO, which is the feeling of responsibility he has for 
the safety of his friends.  

It is very significant, IMO, that JKR has set the age of consent in 
the WW at 17.  What she is saying here, is that all the main 
protagonists (except Ginny) are of age, adult and responsible for 
the choices they make.  The fact that the protection ends on Harry's 
17th birthday, is like saying that now, no-one else is responsible 
for him.  So Harry is going to have to realise that all his friends 
have choices to make, and that they choose to put themselves in 
danger.  It is not his responsibility what happens to them.  In 
fact, although he would walk to the ends of earth to protect them 
(which is his motivation in parting from Ginny), he cannot in fact 
save them.  It is this feeling that he can save people, which has in 
the past, put his friends in danger (MOM in OotP).  I might be 
reading this one really wrong, but I think JKR might be going down 
the road of saying no-one can save you from yourself, and neither 
can you save anyone else from themselves.

Well I haven't even touched on the Love stuff yet, that I wanted to 
investigate, but I think this post is quite long enough already.

Saraquel
Who is contemplating writing a PhD on The Concept of Choice in the 
Harry Potter Universe :-)