Does Dumbledore love Harry?

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 124897


Eggplant wrote:
> 
> If it's insipid for the hero of a story not to live happily ever after
> is Hamlet insipid? 

Well, Hamlet is a different thing than HP.  Hamlet is more in line
with Greek Tragedy whereas HP seems to be more in line with Christian
allegory.  I wouldn't call Hamlet insipid.  Rather I would say the
final act is melodramatic and over the top to the point of losing
emotional impact for many modern people, me included (and I
acknowledge reactions were almost certainly different among the
audiences for which these plays were first written).  I just can't
watch Hamlet or one of the Greek Tragedies without rolling my eyes and
breaking into occasional guffaws.  


I tend to think it rather saccharin if nothing but
> good things happen to the characters we like but that's just me, your
> mileage may vary. 


And how in the world does the avoidance of the Death scenario equate
to "nothing but good things happening?"  I think the whole "noble hero
gives his life for the world" (different from Hamlet, but more in line
with a possibility for HP) is a hackneyed quasi-religious theme that
has no real place in good writing outside of sermons and Sunday School
literature.  Now, if Harry were to, for instance, win and live but be
permanently scarred in some way, THAT would be both more realistic and
more emotionally evocative.  Providing it is handled well of course. 
If Harry were to slide into permanent bitterness and becomes another
Snape, for instance, we are into the over the top, eye-rolling
territory again.*

Lupinlore

* P.S.  I don't think this scenario is likely from JKR, by the way. 
The only example we have in her writing of someone who battled and
killed a Dark Lord is Dumbledore, and he seems to have come through
the experience rather well.