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

[lealess]

No: HPFGUIDX 130333

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "nkafkafi" <nkafkafi at y...>
wrote:

>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. <snip here>


lealess:

I think I see what you are saying, but I am still confused.  Taking
Dumbledore as an example of point of view, if he sees Kreacher as the
creature the wizards made, do you think Dmbledore still excuses him
completely for the choice Kreacher made?  Dumbledore also hoped Snape
would overcome his hatred, and I would speculate hoped that Lupin
would control his lycanthropy.  Why would he have set either on their
paths if he had an inkling of what the outcome was sure to be?

Dumbledore seems the sort to see good in anyone, even Tom Riddle, who
he addresses as a person and not a monster of destiny.  I am not sure
he sees others in terms of absolute character, but rather as complex
individuals with some inate character traits or patterns of behavior,
capable of making choices independent of those traits or patterns. 
Dumbledore also makes mistakes in his estimation of the choices people will make, as noted above and up to keeping Harry in the dark in OotP.  (If he is seeing everyone in absolute terms, then he is not doing a very good job of it.  In terms of consequences for choices, he does seem fatalistic, I'll grant.)

Further, you are saying that characters cannot fall back on an
essentialistic excuse for their own behavior.  Fair enough, but will
it even matter, in an essentialist world, if they question their
motives from their POV?  They are bound to follow their natures, and
will end up following a certain path regardless, it seems, so wrapping their brain cells around choice is an exercise in futility.  Following up my own questions about Snape and Lupin, two mysterious characters, does it follow that Lupin will always let someone down in a stressful situation, and Snape will always make extreme choices, and both are ever doomed to do so, based on character, regardless of whether they indulge in a moment of reflection beforehand?

I can see that an author is allowed to write characters in a
deterministic/fatalistic way, of course, especially when the whole
story is plotted out in advance.  I also appreciate that readers
can/have made their own essentialist determinations, as any discussion of Snape or Lupin will show.  I am not convinced that we as readers, interacting with the text, should necessarily do that.  But that is our choice ... or is it?

lealess
(muddying the waters even more)