Why should Harry save the WW?

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 123322



Just hopping back on the forum, I didn't mean to participate, but this
one bothers me :

Alla wrote:
" Why does Harry have a duty to save WW? I am not talking about
metathinking look at all - because Harry is the hero of the story,
etc. I am asking why Harry who does not know that he is the main
character in the books has a duty to save WW, who , IMO treats him
quite horribly from times to times."

"My main argument was that Harry was NOT given the possibility to
exercise the conscious choice of whether to  be a Hero or not (...)
while at the same time Harry is being blamed for acting selfishly and
immaturely in OOP. It had been said that his behaviour could cost WW
the war, so in that context I was asking - why should Harry care, when
they treat him that badly AND force him to be their weapon?"

"What I DO disagree with is the argument that Harry has ANY obligation
to WW in general and therefore he had no right to be angry in OOP,
especially when Harry did not even know that he is the Order most
precious weapon. It should be Harry's CHOICE, not something that is
forced upon him."

Del replies:
It's in cases like that that it is useful to get out of this forum for
a while. Because then the first answer that comes to your mind when
considering such question is :

Harry is not being forced to do or be anything.

Consider the Prophecy :

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... Born
to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies
... And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have
power the Dark Lord knows not ... And either must die at the hand of
the other for neither can live while the other survives ... The one
with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh
month dies..."

Several things come to my mind when reading this prophecy :

1. This Prophecy doesn't mention anything about saving the WW. It
talks only of a very private battle between Harry and LV only. For
example, the WW could already be extinct when this happens, or it
could happen in 50 years at a time when both Harry and LV will be
forgotten from the WW public and it won't even make the news.

2. The only time when it mentions an obligation is when it says that
either Harry or LV must die at the hand of the other. But this is not
a *moral* obligation. The Prophecy doesn't try and force Harry to do
anything : it just tells him that either he will kill LV or LV will
kill him, period (according to the most widely accepted understanding
of this passage).

3. The Prophecy doesn't impose any kind of duty on Harry. It doesn't
say that Harry has to make ANY choice. It says that Harry will be born
with a special power, and it mentions some choices that LV will make.
But it doesn't say ANYTHING about Harry making choices.

So the way this Prophecy is written:
1. Harry doesn't have to make any specific choice. He can choose to
wait for LV to come, he can choose to become a saint, or he can choose
to become a DE, and the end result will still be the same as far as
the Prophecy is concerned : kill LV or be killed.
2. He also doesn't have to develop any specific mentality : the
Prophecy says he can vanquish LV, not that he will become the Saviour
of the WW or anything like that. Technically, Harry could vanquish LV
and then take his place, and he would still fulfill the Prophecy.
3. He doesn't have to develop any kind of ability or power, because he
was BORN with the power to vanquish LV.

There might be *people* forcing things on Harry, like DD. But they are
pulling those obligations out of thin air, because the only basis for
them is the Prophecy, which does NOT mention those obligations *at all*.

Harry is perfectly free to be and become whatever he wants. He has a
pretty unusual circumstance in his life in that he has a would-be Evil
Overlord breathing down his neck, but he is in no way obliged to make
this circumstance the center of his life. Some people are born with a
disability, or with the "wrong" skin colour, but they don't have to
make that characteristic the center of their life. Harry is restricted
in his choices because of the shadow of LV, but who isn't restricted
by something or other? There are many people who lived in
circumstances where their lives were daily at risk for example, but
they didn't necessarily stop working for the life of their dreams
because of that. In OoP, Harry was very restricted in his moves by
Umbridge and the Order, but that didn't keep him from doing his best
to live the life he wanted. Now that he knows about the Prophecy,
there's no reason he shouldn't keep on doing just that: live the life
he wants, as much as his circumstances permit.

The only thing the Prophecy tells Harry is that *at some time* in his
life, he will have to either kill LV or be killed by him. That's it.
It doesn't tell him that he has to build his life around this fact or
that he must take each step in his life with this one single idea in
mind. It doesn't even tell him that he will have any influence on
whether he or LV will die! For all we know, maybe it will all depend
on whether *LV*, not Harry, will do something in particular. Or maybe
it will all be an accident and Harry will end up killing LV while
trying to do something else entirely.

Just because DD built Harry's life around the fact that Harry is the
one with the power to vanquish LV doesn't mean that Harry has to do so
too. He hasn't done so until now for obvious reasons, and yet he
managed very well with LV.

Maybe the only choice Harry has to make is to go on with his life as
though LV was nothing more than an annoying buzz in the back of his
head? Maybe *this* is the path that will lead him to somehow defeat LV
in the end?

After all, if Harry builds his entire life around defeating LV, what
will be left to him when he does defeat LV?? And where will he find
the whatever it will take to defeat LV if he doesn't have anything to
fight for, anything to look forward to? We must remember that it was
because he *had* something, or rather someone, to look forward to that
he managed to kick LV out of his body at the end of OoP. If Harry
hadn't had the perspective of seeing Sirius again, he might never have
been able to summon the surge of love that drove LV out of his body.
It could be that *this* was the reason Sirius had to die : so that
Harry would realise where his strength comes from and how to summon
it. And this would mean that, far from cutting himself from his
friends and getting into some military routine, Harry would on the
contrary have to delve even more deeply into his "normal" life,
because this normalcy is what can trigger his special power.

Am I missing something?

Del