Harsh Morality (and fear)

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 121080


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:

<snip>

> Pippin:
> Dumbledore is feared by Voldemort.

You will note that the fear there is Voldemort's, directed at 
Dumbledore.  That indicates *Voldie's* corrupt moral condition, NOT 
Dumbledore's.  If Voldemort were not evil, he would not fear 
Dumbledore, n'est pas?

What Harry fears is fear, which is the thing that makes vice all but 
inevitable.  Fear makes trust and love impossible, and Voldemort 
does not love, we know.  And of everyone in the Potterverse, he is a 
locus of fear, both as an object of it and someone who partakes of 
it deeply.

> You could argue that Snape ought to perceive what Harry (and 
> James) were really like, but how, if JKR is as good at hiding 
> things from him as she is from us?

See 121079 below, please, for my answer to this argument...

As we know, I think the things which she hides are of a different 
nature than the things that you think she hides from us. :)  But I'm 
more interested, there in the thematic resonance of Snape's failed 
perception...because often, Snape strikes me as, in that area, 
failing in the will to do so.  It's in front of him.  But he refuses 
to think through what is in front of him, because it would disrupt 
the categories and classifications which he has imposed on his 
world.  That's part of what he's doing in the Shack, when he wants 
Black and Lupin to be be guilty so very, very badly.  Likewise, he 
needs to see Harry the way that he does, because he's not terribly 
good at admitting that he's wrong.  Interesting to see which way 
this all goes.

-Nora waves around the bottle and dances...privately, in celebration