Love and Vengeance (WAS: The Dursleys and Being Nice and Civil)

[elfundeb]

No: HPFGUIDX 145721

I've been mulling over notions of vengeance, justice and love in HP for some
time, and since the subject of vengeance has come up, this is a good
opportunity to try to sort out some of the apparently contradictory messages
that seem to appear in the books.  These reflections spring to some degree
from a Christmas Eve homily in which the former pope was quoted as having
said something to the effect that evil can be defeated, but it will be
supplanted by a new and different evil if conventional weapons are used to
defeat it.  The only weapon that can vanquish evil forever is love.  (The
pope apparently was referencing the rise of Communism after WWII.)  I cannot
find the quote, but will use the concept as a springboard anyway.

This is long, but some of it consists of quotes from the books . . . .

Taking Lupinlore's second point first (which I agree with) because it helps
set up the discussion of the second point:
Indeed, in such a world the individual is, in a sense, the only locus
for true justice, because larger organizations and formal
authorities, although necessary, are so tainted that any justice they
attempt to provide would inevitably be twisted and off the mark, if
not downright ineffectual.

 HP opens during an interregnum in the struggle to defeat Voldemort.  The
interregnum has occurred because Harry, marked by love and sacrifice,
deflected Voldemort's curse.  VWI was fought primarily with Voldemort's own
weapons.  From GoF ch. 27:  "[Crouch] rose quickly in the Ministry.  The
Aurors were given new powers -- powers to kill rather than capture, for
instance. . . . Crouch fought violence with violence, and authorized the use
of the Unforgivable Curses on suspects."   Some of the DEs were killed by
Aurors -- Rosier and Wilkes, for instance.  But the Aurors did not appear to
have any success against Voldemort himself.  The developments of OOP and HBP
make clear that the Ministry and the Aurors -- even if they no longer use
Unforgivable Curses to fight Voldemort, cannot defeat him permanently
because their weapons are those of conventional political and military
warfare rather than those of love.

Harry cannot defeat Voldemort operating through the Ministry because its
weapons do not include love.  Only the Order of the Phoenix, which operates
outside the official Ministry crime-fighting organization, that uses the
unconventional weapons that actually could defeat Voldemort.  Interestingly,
in the battles fought by the Order against the DEs, the Order members appear
to fight defensively.  Certainly none of them attempts to cast an
Unforgivable Curse.  (In HBP, the dead DE was killed by friendly fire.)


Now back to Lupinlore's first point:
Where this comes back to your main point is in the question of
justice. Given such a view of the world (talking now about her
fictional universe) the only kind of justice possible is comeuppance
or, if you prefer, vengeance, because that is the only kind of
justice an individual, acting more or less outside of the corrupting
and questionable constraints of larger organizations, can exact.
Indeed, in such a world the individual is, in a sense, the only locus
for true justice, because larger organizations and formal
authorities, although necessary, are so tainted that any justice they
attempt to provide would inevitably be twisted and off the mark, if
not downright ineffectual.


Debbie:
Revenge is a form of justice.  It's a method that Harry's godfather,
Sirius, obsessed with killing Pettigrew, certainly endorsed.  It's also a
method that has been employed already by the government.  However, the
Prophecy tells us that "[t]he One with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord .
. . will have power the Dark Lord knows not . . ."  (OOP ch. 37)  The
implication, well discussed here, is that power will be the difference
between success and failure.

In HBP ch 23, Dumbledore confirms that the power that Harry has that
Voldemort knows not is the power to love.  Dumbledore's exposition of the
meaning of this power is intermingled with notions of vengeance, seemingly
in support of Lupinlore's proposition that the only justice in HP is
vengeance.  He states:  "Voldemort singled you out as the person who would
be most dangerous to him -- and in doing so, he *made* you the person who
would be most dangerous to him. . . . If Voldemort had never murdered your
father, would he have imparted in you a furious desire for revenge?  Of
course not!"

Dumbledore goes on to state that "'you have never been seduced by the Dark
Arts, never, even for a second, shown the slightest desire to become one of
Voldemort's followers!'  'Of course I haven't!' said Harry indignantly.  'He
killed my mum and dad!'  'You are protected, in short, by your ability to
love!' said Dumbledore loudly.  'The only protection that can possibly work
against the lure of power like Voldemort's!  In spite of all the temptation
you have endured, all the suffering, you remain pure in heart, just as pure
as you were at the age of eleven, when you stared into a mirror that
reflected your heart's desire, and it showed you only the way to thwart Lord
Voldemort.'"

And later in the same chapter --

"[Harry] thought of his mother, his father and Sirius.  He thought of Cedric
Diggory.  He thought of all the terrible deeds he knew Lord Voldemort had
done.  A flame seemed to leap inside his chest, searing his throat.  'I'd
want him finished,' said Harry quietly.  'And I'd want to do it.'"

So, Harry *thinks* his mission is to kill Voldemort to avenge the deaths of
James and Lily, Sirius, Cedric and countless others.

However, that seems more akin to the conventional weapons employed by the
Ministry than to love.  To me, equating love with vengeance is a
contradiction in terms.  Forgive me for quoting the Bible, but I cannot help
think of the following passage (edited for brevity) when I read what JKR has
written about the power of love:

"'You have learned how it was said:  Eye for eye and tooth for tooth.  But I
say to you:  offer the wicked man no resistance. . . . You have learned how
it was said:  You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy.  But I say
this to you:  love your enemies . . . For if you love those you love you,
what right have you to claim any credit?  Even the tax collectors do as
much, do they not?'"  (Matthew 5:38-48.)

A mother's love for her child can be very powerful, and in fact Lily's love
for Harry forms the basis of Harry's protection from Voldemort, as
Dumbledore points out again and again.  ("Your mother died to save you.  If
there is one thing that Voldemort cannot understand, it is love.  He didn't
realize that love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own
mark."  PS/SS ch. 17).

The problem is that I'm sure Narcissa loves Draco as much as Lily loved
Harry.  That she arranged to protect Draco through an Unbreakable Vow
instead of offering to sacrifice herself instead doesn't mean she loved
Draco less than Lily loved Harry; it means that she arranged for someone
else to do the sacrificing.  So when Dumbledore goes on to emphasize Lily's
sacrifice ("If he had not forced your mother to die for you, would he have
given you a magical protection he could not penetrate?"), it is the act of
sacrifice as an expression of love, not the love itself, that strikes me as
extraordinary.  For love itself to be extraordinary, it must extend beyond
those friends and family that are the usual and expected objects of that
love.  And it must reject vengeance.

Furthermore, is vengeance really consistent with Harry's purity of heart?

Harry's purity of heart has now saved him from Voldemort at least three
times.  First, in PS/SS, it allowed him to retrieve the Stone.  In CoS it
brought Fawkes and Gryffindor's sword to him.  And in GoF phoenix song gave
him courage because of his purity of heart.  It plays a role elsewhere as
well.  In both OOP and HBP he has tried to cast Unforgivable Curses, but
failed in both attempts.  Snape tells him during his escape from Hogwarts
that Harry lacks the nerve or the ability.  I think that's true, but the
reason why is is purity of heart.

The phoenix connection is very important to assessing the likelihood that
Harry could ever kill Voldemort.  According to Fantastic Beasts, the phoenix
"has never been known to kill."  Thus, I associate Harry's purity of heart
with the renunciation of vengeance.

 Another clue that Harry will not avenge his parents' and Sirius' deaths
appears at the very end of HBP, Despite his apparent resolve, Harry is far
from eager to take on his task.  "'Then I've got to track down the rest of
the Horcruxes, haven't I?' said Harry, his eyes upon Dumbledore's white
tomb, reflected in the water on the other side of the lake. 'That's what he
wanted me to do . . . . I've got to find them and destroy them and then I've
got to go after the seventh bit of Voldemort's soul, the bit that's still in
his body, and I'm the one who's going to kill him.  And if I meet Severus
Snape along the way,' he added, 'so much the better for me, so much the
worse for him.'"

He's preparing hinself to kill Voldemort because he thinks it's what
Dumbledore wanted him to do.  But it's almost as though his resolve is
hardened by the thought of meeting Snape along the way and avenging
Dumbledore's death.  But we know that's not going to happen.  The inclusion
of Snape in his thinking here seems a sure sign that he does not yet
understand the nature of his mission.

Moreover, Harry has already questioned the notion of vengeance as justice on
the basis that it stains the avengers.

>From the Shrieking Shack (PoA ch. 17).  "Harry raised the wand.  Now was the
moment to do it.  Now was the moment to avenge his mother and father.  He
was going to kill Black.  He had to kill Black.  This was his chance . . .
The seconds lengthened.  And still Harry stood frozen there, wand poised,
Black staring up at him, Crookshanks on his chest."

I see this passage as a defining moment for Harry, an implicit realization
that vengeance is not a sufficient motivator for killing, though he doesn't
appreciate it yet  ("Harry stood there, feeling suddenly empty.  He hadn't
done it. His nerve had failed him.  Black was going to be handed back to the
dementors.").  Harry has shown flashes of the higher justice that mercy
represents.  Later on in the Shrieking Shack (PoA ch. 19), he prevents
Sirius and Remus from doing the same thing:

"'NO!' Harry yelled.  He ran forward, placing himself in front of Pettigrew,
facing the wands.  'You can't kill him,' he said breathlessly."  He tells
Pettigrew, "'I'm not doing this for you.  I'm doing it because -- I don't
reckon my dad would've wanted them to become killers -- just for you.'"

 Surely if killing tears the soul, Harry cannot kill Voldemort without
sacrificing his own purity of heart.  I've written in the past that I am
attracted to Horcrux!Harry theories because it would allow him to defeat
Voldemort through his own self-sacrifice rather than by killing him
outright.  While I still like that idea (and believe that Harry will
demonstrate a willingness to sacrifice himself, I don't believe that the
denouemont of the series will be Harry's death (by sacrifice or otherwise,
and whether or not he is a horcrux).

Instead, I think Harry will discover that the key to vanquishing Voldemort
is love, exemplified by mercy. Voldemort will understand that he is wholly
dependent on Harry's mercy.  And Harry, being pure in heart, will grant it.


So why does Dumbledore insist that Harry has 'got to' try to kill
Voldemort?  (HBP ch. 23).  Way back in PS/SS, Dumbledore characterized
Voldemort by his lack of mercy.  PS/SS ch. 17:  "He left Quirrell to die; he
shows just as little mercy to his followers as his enemies."  In contrast,
the Good side is expected to show mercy.  POA ch. 19:  "'Harry,' whispered
Pettigrew, shuffling toward him, hands outstretched.  'Harry, James wouldn't
have wanted me killed . . . James would have understood, Harry . . . he
would have shown me mercy . . .'"

Is Dumbledore himself setting too much store by the Prophecy, because
it states that "either must die at the hand of the other" ? But Dumbledore
tells Harry that the Hall of Prophecies at the DoM is full of prophecies
that have not come true, and further that *this* prophecy would not be
fulfilled but for the fact that Voldemort acts in reliance upon it.

Perhaps Dumbledore is simply acknowledging that the desire for revenge is a
natural human response to grief.  Perhaps he has not yet discerned how Harry
can use the power of love as a weapon as well as a shield.  Perhaps
Dumbledore knows that it can be channelled into a higher form of justice,
but realizes that Harry must discern for himself how to do that.

In fact, the mercy Dumbledore is willing to grant to Draco on the Astronomy
Tower seems much closer to the "Love thine enemies" quote than it does to
his approval of Harry's "furious desire for revenge."

 HBP ch. 27:  "Malfoy stared at Dumbledore.  'But I got this far, didn't I?'
he said slowly.  'They thought I'd die in the attempt, but I'm here . . .
and you're in my power . . . I'm the one with the wand . . . you're at my
mercy . . .'  'No, Draco,' said Dumbledore quietly.  'It is my mercy, and
not yours, that matters now.'  Malfoy did not speak.  His mouth was open,
his wand hand still trembling.  Harry thought he saw it drop by a fraction."


He doesn't just forgive Draco; he offers him a shot at redemption.  Maybe
Dumbledore's actions on the Tower foreshadow the final confrontation.

I see that Jen Reese summed up this concept very nicely last night:
Even though Harry possesses great quantities of love, he
> underestimates its power just as Voldemort does. Since Harry found the
> courage of James inside himself in POA, he will likely come to terms
> with Lily's love and discover that power inside himself as well. And
> hoo boy, will he need it! Voldemort will definitely be using Harry's
> hatred of Snape to tempt him in Book 7 in my opinion, and Dumbledore
> tried mightily to tell him his love will be his only protection
> against the lure of Voldemort's power. Luckily we can count on Harry
> figuring this out in time to save himself from the temptation to kill
> Snape and get on with the business of Voldemort.
>
> And for anyone who likes the game of Clue: Harry defeating Voldemort
> in the locked room with the gong spell. <G>

How about Harry in the Locked Room with the Candlestick?  Since love
is sometimes represented by a lit candle.

Debbie


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