The Powerful Slytherin (Re: Snape/Harry coincidence?)

[saraquel_omphale]

No: HPFGUIDX 140627

Saraquel:
Loath to snip any of Jen's post, which being about themes and so 
eloquently written, of course had me enthralled from the start!  But 
I am going to take it up at the point where Jen starts to talk about 
power being the Slytherin trait that Harry now needs.

Jen wrote:
>I think the one Slytherin trait Harry is lacking at the moment is 
>coming to terms with the idea of power. In fact, Harry is much more 
>like the Slytherins in this respect than a Gryffindor. What could 
be 
>more powerful and ambitious than preparing to defeat the greatest 
>dark wizard ever?!? He's biased against the idea of holding power 
>after he meets Voldemort in PS, then when introduced to the likes 
>of Barty Crouch Sr., Umbridge and others who abuse their power. But 
>the truth is, Harry is seeking power over his enemies every time he 
>casts a dark magic spell! When he defies Scrimgeour and the MOM, 
>and takes his place beside Dumbledore, he's merely choosing which 
>powerful leader to attach himself to. And of course he continues 
>to reject and minimize the power within himself, the key to 
>Voldemort's defeat.


Harry has not yet understood, as DD has understood, the power that 
resides within him and its uniqueness.  Yes, Jen, no need to wonder 
where I'm going back to on this one :-)  I think that you are right 
about the examples of power that have been in Harry's life and his 
rejection of them on the one hand, but resorting to those same dark 
magic powers on the other when he is threatened or feels powerless.  
Because, I don't think he dares to trust to love, and has no concept 
of what love really might be, or what its power might be.

Then he has also seen what has happened to the only person he knew, 
who trusted to love – Dumbledore.  He saw Dumbledore's love and 
mercy on the tower with regard to Draco, but then he saw how 
powerless DD was when Snape arrived.  What happened when DD 
*pleaded* with Snape?  What Harry saw was apparently (and I'm taking 
things at face value here) DD reduced to a position of powerlessness 
in the face of evil, and evil won plain and simple.  As far as Harry 
was concerned, for all his love-is-power, DD could not save himself. 
Where love (in the form of compassion) may have been effective in 
dealing with Draco, when faced with the person Harry considers an 
evil person (I know I'm generalising here to simplify, because as 
has been discussed on the list, there are so many dynamics going on 
between Harry and Snape, but in general, at the end of HBP, I think 
Harry would consider Snape evil.) Dumbledore's faith in love did not 
protect DD from whatever curse it was that Snape threw at him – and 
from Harry's POV, it was an AK, exactly the same curse which has 
already been thrown at him by LV and the curse which he is 
anticipating will probably kill him.

There is only one place that Harry is going to be able to see the 
power of love in action and understand what it is, and what it means 
and that is GH.  I am wondering if a second hand narration of what 
happened there is going to be enough to convince Harry.  JKR has all 
but told us that there was someone else at GH who presumably, could 
tell Harry what happened.  But in a sense, Harry already knows what 
happened, he knows that his mother's love caused an AK to rebound, 
but he cannot have any real concept of how or why it happened. I 
think he needs to actually see it happen, so I am betting that after 
getting a description from whoever that person was, he will go into 
the pensieve with his own memory, and I think that that is the 
experience which will not only convince him of the power of love, 
but show him how to use it.  I think that the protection of Lily's 
love is an actual something that is in Harry, and that Harry will 
see that power enter him when his mother dies. This is the only 
place he will be able to get proof that love alone saved him from 
the AK.

The power of love is more powerful than the AK.  We have been 
debating on the list, when is an AK not an AK – when is murder not 
murder.  Is it the AK itself that causes problems, or is the context 
in which it is cast.  I'm not going to take sides here, but context 
is not something that cannot be ignored.  The context is created by 
what the participants view to be good or bad, not necessarily by 
what the observers view to be so.  For instance, it has been argued 
that if DD wanted to die to save others and asked Snape to do it, 
then it was not murder.  So taking that argument over to the power 
of love – there is always the context in which this power is used.

I'm wondering if the power of love only works in a *just* situation, 
or that it is only something that can be used defensively and not 
offensively.  But if that is so, then Harry has to learn that, and 
he has to trust that.  OK, I need to take a detour to explain this – 
bear with me.
 

I want to bring in here part of the inaugural speech made by Nelson 
Mandela,
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear 
is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light, not our 
darkness, that most frightens us.  We ask ourselves, who am I to be 
brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you 
NOT to be?"

Having power is such a scary thing.  To have power without love, and 
no sense of good and evil, is to have power without responsibility, 
which is what Voldemort has and it leads only to pain.  I must 
admit, that I have always found it somewhat unbelievable that 
Voldemort has any followers whatsoever, the way he treats them.  We 
have yet to see Voldemort, showing anything other than cruelty.  As 
Riddle, we saw him exert his charm, but that seems to have gone now. 
I can't remember who it was earlier on the list who speculated that 
probably only Bellatrix would sacrifice herself for Voldemort, the 
rest IMO are more likely to turn him in and help Harry to his 
victory.

For Harry, who has a very deep sense of responsibility, power is a 
very frightening thing.  To wield power, is to make decisions which 
have consequences.  We have already seen him struggling with this.  
Concepts of right and wrong are very important for Harry, was he 
right to go to the Ministry when he thought Sirius was in danger? He 
struggled with the fact that he had endangered the lives of his 
friends, and that Sirius lost his life. He knows that his decisions 
have repercussions for those around him.  Therefore, the more power 
he has to yield, the greater the repercussions are likely to be.  It 
is not so much the power, but the trusting himself to wield it 
correctly which is so frightening. I'm reminded of DD's huger 
mistakes speech.

To requote Jen:
But the 
> truth is, Harry is seeking power over his enemies every time he 
> casts a dark magic spell!

Harry was terrified of the use of his power with the sectumsempra 
spell.  His remorse was palpable. And here we are again, back to 
choices!  Harry has to learn to trust his own judgement.

For Harry, I don't think that destroying Voldemort is a moral 
problem. To us readers, and to Harry, Voldemort has no saving 
graces – nothing, as I've said above, that could possibly redeem 
him. Nothing that could make it any sort of mistake to take him 
out.  Perhaps that's why JKR has made him so evil through and 
through.  But we are watching Harry edging towards taking out 
Snape.  Even if you believe Snape is ESE, does that give Harry the 
right to pass judgement on him and take him out at the next 
opportunity? For most of us Snape is ambiguous.  

So having taken Saraquel's detour, we now get back to whether the 
power of love is offensive or defensive. Let us assume that Harry 
finds his power, he discovers what happens at GH, and gets in touch 
with his power of love.  What is going to happen when he next meets 
Snape? Will he abandon silent curses and crucios in favour of trying 
to use his new found power?  What will happen?  Will he then find 
out that the power of love cannot be used from the motivation of 
hatred? That if there is hatred there is no power for him?  In fact, 
that the crucial thing about his power is that requires him to have 
forgiveness in order to use it?  That in order to wield this power 
he has to become totally vulnerable in a way? Now that is scary.  

I think I'm about thought out for this post.  I'm not sure where 
that leaves us, but hopefully Jen or someone else will move us along.

Saraquel
Who is now abandoning herself to Beethoven.