The Message of DH (WAS: Unforgivables - from a different angle)

[houyhnhnm102]

No: HPFGUIDX 174646

Ceridwen:

> These books did not, in the end, show what we should 
> be trying to do. The message is conflicting. We should 
> not be like the Bad Guys, yet the Good Guys can be as 
> much like the Bad as they like. There is no higher message, 
> no means of rising above. Everyone is as devious as the 
> next person, therefore, Good and Bad must be relevant 
> to who is on Our Side and who is Against Us. The books, 
> to me, actually say, "If you are not for Harry, you are 
> against him." Is it surprising that people don't care 
> for that message?

Julie:

> We (at least many of us) *wanted* to see the series 
> end with the Good Guys showing moral superiority over 
> the Bad Guys, even though they generally failed to do 
> so throughout the previous books.

houyhnhnm:

That is what I wanted, too.  The story *seemed* to be 
about good and evil and how to live your life.  Lately 
I have been wondering if the theme Rowling was really 
persuing was not how to live, but how to die.

Although she apparantly conceived the idea of an 
orphaned boy who finds out he's a wizard, before her 
mother's death, the work was begun in earnest after 
the death.  Maybe Harry's journey turned into Rowling's, 
struggling with the idea of death, fear of one's own 
death and fear of loss of loved ones by death.  In other 
words, HP is not the story of a boy wizard struggling 
with evil but a grown woman struggling with her own mortality.

Maybe it would be more productive to examine the books 
in terms of how successful she was in developing this 
theme, rather than in looking for a moral consistancy 
which isn't there about making choices in this world.

I don't have the time or energy to go back through all 
the books and try to compose such an essay and I'm not 
sure I would be any happier with the books than I am 
right now, but doing so might explain some of the 
inconsistancies that we are all wrestling with.

I don't think my attitude towards death is very much 
like Rowling's.  Although I am afraid of death, I doubt 
if I share either her indignation at its existence or 
her certainty that it can be overcome.  I've always 
thought that right way to deal with death lies in 
living properly in this world and making the right 
moral choices.  What lies on the other side (if anything) 
will takes care of itself when and if we get there.