Character (was: Re: Lupin is Ever So Evil, Part One )

[nkafkafi]

No: HPFGUIDX 130322

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "lealess" <lealess at y...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "nrenka" <nrenka at y...> wrote:
> >big snip
> 
> > Because he [Dumbledore giving second chances] believes in the
> > possibility of things which are there but 
> > hidden becoming manifest.  But if it was never, ever there to 
begin 
> > with, then it cannot become so.  
> > 
> 
> 
> lealess:
> <snipped>
> Is essentialism then a black or white
> thing, a born bad or born good, in the blood thing -- a Griffindor 
or
> Slytherin thing -- determined at birth?  Leaving second chances 
aside,
> although I think that is a good point (who gets second chances -- 
only
> the ones Dumbledore knows to be good? what about the string of
> disastrous DADA teachers?), what is the role of choice here?  Are 
you
> saying that character determines choices, and not moral soul-
searching
> or reflection, or a momentary lapse of awareness?  Leaving out a
> sociopath like Tom Riddle, who probably doesn't have a choice based 
on
> whatever causes sociopathology, what about someone who makes a wrong
> choice and then works to correct it, who reforms (Snape, 
hopefully). 
> What about someone who fails to make a right choice once (Lupin not
> taking wolfsbane before a full-moon evening) -- were all their 
choices
> predetermined by character?  If that is true, then what does
> essentialism say about their characters?

Neri:
Perhaps JKR's apparent essentialist/existentialist contradiction 
might be resolved depending on the relevant point-of-view (very 
similar to discussing the book in two different ways, either from 
within the plot or using "meta-thinking"). When estimating another 
character as an object you are allowed to be an essentialist, but 
when considering yourself as a subject you should to be an 
existentialist. So DD is allowed to estimate that Neville doesn't 
have Harry's ability to make the right choices, but Neville himself 
is not allowed to say "I don't have the strength to make the right 
choice, and therefore it's OK for me to take the easy and wrong 
choice". DD is allowed to say that Kreacher is to be pitied because 
he's what wizards made of him, but that doesn't mean that Kreacher is 
allowed to say "I'm what wizards had made of me, therefore it's OK 
for me to send Harry Potter to his death".

As to JKR herself, since she's writing these characters she's allowed 
to be even more than an essentialist. She can be a determinist and a 
fatalist. From her POV she's allowed to say "Tom is a sociopath and 
utterly evil. He had never known love and never will. And besides I 
needed an evil overlord for my story and I invented Tom for that 
role". But that doesn't mean Tom is allowed to say "I'm a sociopath 
and therefore I have no choice but to kill people". From Tom's POV as 
a subject, he has a choice if to kill people or not.


Neri