Requiescat in Pace: Unforgivables

[lizzyben04]

No: HPFGUIDX 174784

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" <justcarol67 at ...>
wrote:
>
> lizzyben:
> > 
> > Before DH, I predicted that Harry would use an Unforgiveable Curse,
> but I totally got the circumstances & message all wrong. I thought 
> > that Harry would use the Curse in some sort of extreme dire 
> > straights when he is consumed with emotion, and that it would be a 
> > dramatic "the ring is mine!" type of moment. It would be Harry's low 
> > point, his dip into evil, before rising above to use love & good 
> > instead. That would've sent a message about the dangers of 
> > unrestrained hatred, rage & revenge. <snip>
> 
> Carol responds:
> I agree that, from both a literary and a moral standpoint, that would
> have been better. But it didn't happen, and perhaps we should move on
> from this one disappointing moment to an examination of the book as a
> whole. 

lizzyben:

Well, I've been off the Internet for awhile, so it's still new &
interesting to me, though I realize most people are probably sick of
the topic. For me, the crux of the issue is that I really can't
appreciate the message that the author is trying to give if I feel
that it's contained in a novel that contains shallow, sloppy, morally
confusing characterizations. So, whatever deeper message DH contains,
it didn't really resonate with me. 

Carol:
We could, for example, examine the (purported) wisdom of
> Dumbledore--his remarks on choices and death and mercy, for example,
> and see where they lead. I see various motifs ("themes," as most
> readers would call them) that we can examine, among them, love, death
> and the afterlife, Harry as Seeker (what, besides Horcruxes, is he
> seeking?), truth, redemption, forgiveness, self-sacrifice, hope vs.
> despair, overcoming doubts and self-doubt in particular. I could go
> on, but I really hope that others will look for and examine these
> sorts of elements. And if we're disappointed in Harry, how about Ron?
> What does Luna represent? And so on. BTW, I think that JKR is a
> Christian novelist trapped in a world that is so antagonistic to
> Christianity that she feels she has to hide the Christian elements in
> a secularized setting.


lizzyben:

I've really struggled to figure out *what*, exactly, was the theme of
this series. What was JKR trying to say? Why did she write 7 books
about this? Based on the epilogue, it seems like it was intended to
have a simple message of good brave Gryfindors beat the bad guys. Is
that worth a series? These novels do not seem Christian to me, in the
sense of embracing tolerance, forgiveness, non-judgment etc. There's a
distinctly Old Testament flavor to the books.

It seems like the larger theme does have something to do with death,
but again it doesn't really resonate with me. It seems like Harry's
voluntary embrace of death was meant to be a courageous act of
self-sacrifice, dying for our sins, redeeming the Wizarding World. But
the problem is, dying is not a struggle for Harry - it's what he's
been trained to do. DD has been brainwashing Harry into becoming a
martyr for his cause since Harry first arrived at Hogwarts. So when
Harry obediently trots off to his death, called by the siren's song of
dead loved ones, it felt less like a triumphant act of bravery, and
more like a submission to DD's manipulations. That part sickened me;
it didn't inspire me. 

> Lizzyben: 
> > The morality of the Wizarding World is sort of facinating in its
> total dysfunction, but I think it's ultimately useless to try to make
> much sense of it. 
> 
> Carol:
> I'm not so sure. I think we've gone from dysfunction and corruption to
> anarchy and worse. Obviously, JKR did not approve of either Crouch or
> Fudge (or Scrimgeour, who at least dies bravely defying the DEs
> offpage), but Voldemort and the DEs are much worse. Even Umbridge has
> become more evil (influence of the locket Horcrux?), which did not
> seem possible after OoP. It's true that we don't get a clear picture
> of the WW after the Battle of Hogwarts, but Voldemort and the DEs are
> gone, order is restored, it's safe to put your kids on the Hogwarts
> Express, and the hostility between Gryffindor and Slytherin seems to
> be reduced to House rivalry. It *is* important that Harry named his
> second son after two headmasters of Hogwarts, a Gryffindor and a
> formerly hated Slytherin, Severus Snape. Personally, I like having the
> epilogue leave a lot to the imagination.

lizzyben:

Well, it'd be redundant for me to repeat my objections to the
epilogue, but the main problem is that little to nothing appears to
have changed in the WW. Despite all the talk about house elves &
goblin rights, it doesn't seem like oppressed groups have gained
rights, the house rivalries are just as strong, and the heroes have
settled into comfortable middle-class complaceny. There hasn't been
radical change, or social reform, so it's just a matter of time till
Dark Lord III rises.

Carol:
> To return to your point, I disagree that it's useless to try to make
> sense out of it. I think that's exactly what we should be doing rather
> than focusing on that accursed Crucio or where Sirius's letter came
> from--which I realize that you're not discussing, but other posters
> seem to be hung up on it. (Clearly, JKR wasn't thinking about the
> improbability of the letter being there. She needed it as a plot
> device. And, no. It's not the continuity editor's job to catch that
> sort of plothole, which involves memorizing the history of a minor
> character. She's more interested in DD and the Invisibility Cloak and
> Bathilda and, ultimately, the Snape connection. I think we should just
> realize that JKR is a human being who has produced several thousand
> pages of printed text over seventeen years, or whatever, and accept
> the inevitability of errors and inconsistencies, large and small.)

lizzyben:

I don't really care about how the letter got there or other details &
I'm willing to cheerfully accept illogical plots as long as the theme
& characters remain consistent. My biggest problem w/DH isn't plot
holes, but the way characters (like Snape) were dismissed or twisted
in order to serve the plot. And in the way that the theme itself is
totally muddled by moral confusion & contradictions. The morality of
the WW clearly doesn't make sense, as even the baseline rules are
violated by the heroes w/o repercussions. 

<snip thoughtful response>

> Carol:
> Revenge against the Carrows, I'll grant. But this is Harry who still
> has the soul bit and has not yet experienced his epiphanies. 

lizzyben:

That's an easy out. There's no indication in the text that the Horcrux
is responsible for Harry's actions, or that he was in anything less
than totally aware of what he was doing.

<snip>
> lizzyben:
> The mean teacher is killed by the symbol of his 
> > own house & his body is left at the scene of his worst moment.
> 
> Carol:
> "Mean teacher" doesn't even enter into DH. We have Snape as undercover
> DE, Snape as the lifelong Platonic lover of Lily and secret protector
> of Harry, which continues even after he realizes that Harry isn't
> being protected for Lily and that Harry must sacrifice himself to
> destroy the soulbit. And terrible as his death is, he dies performing
> a last (rather spectacular) magical act that will enable Harry to
> defeat Voldemort and at the same time to see Snape as Snape truly is.
> That his body is not placed alongside those who died in the battle
> does not mean that it isn't retrieved from the Shrieking Shack later
> and given a funeral befitting a headmaster and a hero.
> Leaving his body to rot in the Shrieking Shack is simply not
> compatible with giving his name to your second son.

lizzyben:

Ah, well, I disagree that Snape got a hero's death. He got a villain's
death, just as Regulus did. And honestly, this is probably my real,
fundamental problem with the novel. Snape was not redeemed - he did
not go to the afterlife, and he did not find forgiveness or peace. He
was all the things you say, but it didn't matter. Snape's ultimate
path was one of penance & pain, not redemption & renewal, and this is
something I find difficult to get over. Indeed, I'm not sure JKR
believes in redemption at all - the concept is antithetical to the
strict Calvinist sorting that exists in the WW. You're either part of
the Divine Elect or you're not, and if you are one of the unworthy, it
doesn't matter what you do to try to atone. You will always be "less". 

> Carol:
> And the paranoid Auror was confined to his own trunk for ten months,
> the fraudulent Mermory Charm specialist ended up in St. Mungo's with
> his memory wiped out by his own curse, the werewolf who forgot to
> drink his potion and endangered his students is relieved of his job,
> and DD's right-hand man is forced to kill him and endure the hatred of
> the Order while posing as a DE. That's the DADA curse, remember? And
> its last victim is Amycus Carrow, who turned the class into a course
> in the Dark Arts and is made to suffer his own fate. Hoist on his own
> petard like all his predecessors? Is the DADA curse the reason for
> Harry's casting that Crucio? (BTW, Umbridge's ultimate fate is Azkaban
> and surely she deserved to go there if anyone did.)


lizzyben:

Yes, hoisted on his own petard. That's the common theme in the various
ironic ways that villians are punished. It's not just a function of
the DADA curse, but a function of the way justice is dished out in the
wizarding world. Carrow is crucioed because he crucioed students,
Umbridge is hauled away by anarchy & chaos because of her desperate
need for control, etc. This is JKR's sense of justice (or revenge,
depending on your POV). Good guys die, often, but their deaths are
portrayed as tragic, not ironic. 

> Lizzyben:
> And the book gets revenge against the Slytherins, symbol of everything
> we don't like, by exiling them & purging them from the school. The
> message: revenge is sweet. <snip>
> 
> Carol:
> Snape and Regulus are heroes who finally receive recognition. Phineas
> Nigellus and Slughorn play their roles in vindicating Slytherin. Only
> Crabbe goes completely over to the Dark side, and only Crabbe dies as
> the result of a spell he cast himself.

lizzyben:

And every Slytherin student goes to Voldemort, no Slytherin student
joins the DA, Pansy points out Harry, etc. Yes, there are exceptions,
but the overall message about the Slyths is very clear. The Slyths are
meant to represent all the evils of our world, all the things we hate,
and we are therefore supposed to be happy when they are defeated by
the noble Gryfindors. That's a revenge plot.

Clipping here from "20 Master Plots" -

"The revenge plot pattern is has not changed in over 3,000 years.
Revenge is predominantly an action plot, but it can be a character
plot too. It appeals to a deep emotional level and is vigilante
justice. Simply stated, the protagonist suffers a real or imagined
injustice and retaliates.

Most often, the hero must take justice in his own hands, since the
system is inept, incompetent, full of loop-holes, extremely limited in
some manner. This appeals to the audience's frustration with
bureaucracies.

The main rule is that the punishment must equal the crime. This holds
absolutely true if the hero is the one seeking revenge. (Eye for an
eye
) ... More modern revenge tales let the hero "bask in
self-righteousness," feeling "justified and liberated by the act of
vengeance." This makes a strong appeal to the audience to feel
cleansed – catharsis."

Truly, this description matches the atmosphere & message of the Harry
Potter novels much better than other plot structures. In the various
revenges against Umbridge, Slytherins, Durselys, etc., the heroes get
to "bask in self-rightousness" as the evildoers are suitably punished.

Carol:
 Snape's death scene reverses
> that as he fulfills Snape's last request and goes from shocked
> numbness at the means and motive for his death to an understanding of
> a man he thought he hated.
> 
> Revenge? I see redemption and forgiveness.
> 
> Carol, who thinks that Harry's last acts in the book (the Crucio
> aside) are the antithesis of revenge
>

lizzyben:

I agree that *Harry* forgives Snape, but my problem is that the novel
does not. We never get to see the scene of reconciliation, never get
to see Harry's reaction to Snape's memories. We never see Harry faced
w/the shock of revising his initial opinion of Snape. Harry's
forgiveness happens totally off-scene, in the 19 years between the
ending & the epilogue. Snape's ending was almost a throw-away after
all the buildup of the past 6 novels. What we *see* is Harry exacting
revenge against his enemies, as the other heroes do the same. And it's
consistent w/the theme created in all of the prior novels - beginning
w/the House Cup dis way back in Book One. Revenge is sweet. It's not
the only theme, but it's an important one, and an ugly one.


lizzyben