What if the theme of Harry Potter were -- we are our own worst enemy? (long)

[mclellyn]

No: HPFGUIDX 123800


Gadfly McLellyn writes:

This past summer I happened to come across the book MAN AND HIS
SYMBOLS by Carl Gustav Jung.  From that book I postulated the theory
that the ending of the Harry Potter books would be that Harry Potter
and Voldemort had to merge into one being (post 110941).  Most of us
are aware that Jo Rowling likes to foreshadow what is coming.  The
sorting hat saying the houses have to unite might be foreshadowing the
unifying of opposites -- Harry and Voldemort.  Also, Paracelsus is
mentioned twice in the books.  Once in the first book as a chocolate
frog card and in THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX when Peeves is going to drop
a bust of Paracelsus on the next person to go up to the owlery.    In
another C. G. Jung book called ALCHEMICAL STUDIES, he writes about
Paracelsus and behold one of the sections is named "The Union of Man's
Two Natures".   

In MAN AND HIS SYMBOLS, Carl Jung stated that in dreams we become
aware of parts of our personality that we prefer not to acknowledge
consciously.  Dreams are peppered through the Harry Potter series and
in ORDER OF THE PHOENIX the dreams are becoming more important.  Go
back through the series and see how often Harry's dreams are
foreshadowing some event in the books.  Carl Jung goes on to say that
the unconscious and the conscious "implies the existence of two ...
personalities within the same individual ....And it is the curse of
modern man that many people suffer from this divided personality."
(page 23 MAN AND HIS SYMBOLS)  Before you dismiss this as only people
in mental wards are like this, have you ever had someone complain to
you about someone else and think why can't this person see they are
exactly like the person they are complaining about?  Oh, hi Mom.  Now,
if my Mom were to realize she is like the person she is complaining
about then Carl Jung would call it the "realization of the shadow";
the philosophers would say "know thyself" or "an unexamined life is
not worth living"; Jesus would say "take the log out of your own eye
before you try to remove the sliver from your neighbor's eye."  The
wisdom is similar.  Is it any wonder there are so many mirrors in the
Harry Potter series?  Mirrors are used to examine yourself.  

"Dr. Jung has pointed out...Ego and shadow, although separate, are
inextricably linked together in much the same way that thought and
feeling are related to each other"  MAN AND HIS SYMBOLS p118.  This, I
believe, is how Harry and Voldemort are linked.  Realizing that there
is the aspect we do know about ourselves (the ego conscious) and the
aspects we refuse to recognize about ourselves (the shadow
unconscious), I thought if I say symbolically that Harry is
consciousness and Voldemort is unconsciousness then this would tie
many things together from the Harry Potter books.  For example:

1.)  The prophecy makes more sense.  MAN AND HIS SYMBOLS explains why
neither is truly alive while the other survives.   Carl Jung's basic
message is a person "becomes a whole, integrated, calm, fertile and
happy when the conscious and unconscious have learned to live at peace
and to complement one another."  (page 14 MAN AND HIS SYMBOLS) It is
interesting in ORDER OF THE PHOENIX  p835  when Dumbledore is about to
tell Harry about the prophecy that Dumbledore says, "Five years ago
you arrived at Hogwarts, Harry, safe and whole, as I had planned and
attended.  Well -- not quite whole."  Harry and Voldemort are only
surviving and not truly living.  It is hard to live a calm, fertile,
happy life when you have a mortal enemy to worry about constantly and
haunting your dreams.  According to Jung, neither is whole as long as
they are divided and not assimilating the important qualities and
powers of the other.  In other words, neither is truly alive.

2.)  This gives some insight why in ORDER OF THE PHOENIX Dumbledore
says in his office, "But in essence divided?"  after Harry tells him
about Mr. Weasley being attacked by the snake.  Harry, the conscious,
and Voldemort, the unconscious, were briefly united in the relaxed
state of Harry's dreams.  Exactly where Jung says the unconscious
visits us.  

3.)  This theory of Voldemort being the unconscious explains some
characteristics about him. Voldemort being the unconscious explains
why he knows everyone's hidden thoughts detecting everyone's lies and
fears.  Voldemort is part of the "collective unconscious" in Jungian
terms and that is why Voldemort always knows.  If someone made a
potion or performed a charm to turn Harry's attacker into the
unconscious self, with no body, then he isn't quite mortal and isn't
able to die.  You could say that the Avada Kadavra curse hit both
Harry and Voldemort killing something in each of them.  Perhaps
killing Harry's shadow unconscious and Voldemort's physical being?
Killing half of each equals killing a whole?  Only book 7 will tell.

4.)  Dumbledore didn't kill Voldemort in the lobby of the Ministry of
Magic because he knows that Harry's task is to become whole with his
shadow unconscious - Voldemort.  I believe that Dumbledore may have
gone through the uniting of the unconscious shadow with his ego
consciousness when he defeated the dark wizard Grindelwald.  Notice it
doesn't say Dumbledore killed Grindelwald on the chocolate frog card.
  I believe Jo Rowling is foreshadowing the fact that Harry and
Voldemort will not die when Dumbledore tells Voldemort in Phoenix p
814 that "We both know there are other ways of destroying a man, Tom."
  Maybe you can defeat them in the magical world by fusing with them
-- assimilating their powers.  MAN AND HIS SYMBOLS states it this way:
 "Even evil must not be a triumphant or degrading enemy, but a power
collaborating in the whole."  p270 .   I believe we see this evil
being a collaborating power in Dumbledore.  He has a frightening and
powerful rage that we see in PHOENIX, "An awful voice filled the
kitchen, echoing in the confined space, issuing from the burning
letter on the table.  "REMEMBER MY LAST, PETUNIA." (p 40).  Later in
the book, "He was so angry,"  Hermione in an almost awestruck voice. 
"Dumbledore.  We saw him.  When he found out Mundungus had left before
his shift had ended.  He was scary." (p 64).   I believe these awful
and scary parts of Dumbledore are the Grindelwald within - so to
speak.    

If the plot device is that Harry and Voldemort are aspects of the same
person then it is logical to say that the theme of Harry Potter is we
are our own worst enemy.   So many times we put limits on ourselves. 
We don't see all we could be capable of.  Think of when Harry is
sitting in Mad Eye Moody's office as the fake Mad Eye is trying to
give him hints on how to get by the dragon.  Think of what you are
good at.  Nothing but quiddich Harry thinks.  Yet he is a  young
wizard who earlier in the book got in trouble because he can produce a
 powerful Patronus.  Harry doesn't acknowledge the part of himself
that is powerful.  Perhaps it would seem too much like the wizard who
says there is only power and those too weak to use it?  Harry, like
all of us, needs to expand his view of himself.  For those prone to
the alchemical philosophy and believe Harry will be decapitated,
perhaps decapitation is symbolic for letting go of your old ideas of
who you are.  That is the true liberation.  I believe this is
Harry/Voldemort's final journey:  "In the case of an adult, a sense of
completeness is achieved through a union of the consciousness with the
unconscious contents of the mind.  Out of this union arises what Jung
called "the transcendent function of the psyche," by which a man can
achieve his highest goal:  the full realization of the potential of
his individual self."  p149 MAN AND HIS SYMBOLS.  Hmm, so Harry can
grow old, have twelve children, and become the Minister of Magic?   I
think Trelawny got that one right.