[HPforGrownups] Re: Merope (wasLily the popular girl)

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 168080

>
>> Magpie:
>> I couldn't believe that either. What Dumbledore says is that Merope 
>> "lacked
>> Harry's mother's courage" which is just...obnoxious.
>
> Pippin:
> Fortunately he didn't say that. He said, "Yes, Merope Riddle chose death 
> in
> spite of a son who needed her, but do not judge her too harshly, Harry.
> She was greatly weakened by long suffering, and she never had your
> mother's courage."
>
> "Lack" implies inadequacy,  "never had" does not.
> Dumbledore says  clearly that  Merope should not be judged harshly
> even if Lily would have chosen differently. Harry himself once said that
> if you only have a half life, a cursed life, then death is better.


Magpie:
I admit I don't quite see how "lack" implies inadequacy where "never had" 
does not. To me it seems like the same distinction, perhaps just stressing 
that it's been there since birth. Isn't Dumbledore saying to Harry that he 
can't expect from Merope what he could expect from his own courageous 
mother, comparing the two? Merope's ultimate despair still seems like 
something he's saying would not afflict someone with courage.

At least I think that's what people react negatively to in the line when 
they do. It's just hard to hear it for me and not have it sound 
condescending or judgmental. Being a courageous person doesn't make one 
immune to depression, and people who kill themselves or want to die due to 
depression don't do so out of lack of courage, from what I understand about 
the illness. Merope didn't even kill herself, she just died, and years later 
Dumbledore's making this judgment. (Ironically Tonks' loss of her powers is 
not liked by a lot people for the same reasons.)

> Jen:
> I've thought at times that JKR dismisses Merope's storyline so
> Dumbledore can impart key information for the rest of HBP and the
> series as a whole.  The fact that Lily had a choice is crucial, and
> the notion that despair can sap magical powers comes up later with
> Tonks.  Merope's 'choice' to die even though magic supposedly would
> have saved her is the antithesis of Riddle's assessment that magical
> people can't die.

Magpie:
Although ironically for me that line of Dumbledore's actually seemed to 
validate it in a strange way. Because it was sort of saying that Merope had 
chosen to die despite magic offering life.

Jen:
> One thing that might transpire from this passage is Harry rethinking
> the tower.  Whatever happened with Snape, Dumbledore made a choice
> not to raise *his* wand to save himself from the moment Draco
> arrived.  Harry assumed Dumbledore 'cost him[self] the chance of > 
> defending himself' because he took the second to immobilize Harry,
> but I wonder how that could be the case after seeing Dumbledore in
> action all these years, even a weakened Dumbledore in the cave.
>
> There's the element of Dumbledore needing to be wandless and
> defenseless for the Draco storyline to work, but that moment might
> also prove crucial for Harry realizing the same force that drove Lily
> to sacrifice herself out of love for Harry was also what guided
> Dumbledore when he made a choice to give up his wand rather than
> having it taken from him.  And that realization is just a step away
> from Harry understanding he can access that same power and make a
> similar choice at a crucial moment.

Magpie:
That could definitely come into play, I agree. Certainly one of the central 
themes of the book is that there are worse things than death and choosing to 
die, even passively, isn't usually a bad thing. Merope's problem isn't even 
that she chooses not to save herself, but that she's leaving Tom alone. 
Though given Tom's personality it's hard for me to really connect that to 
anything. I don't think Tom would have been any less what he is if he'd had 
a mother.

-m