Of Sorting and Snape

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 175585

> houyhnhnm:
>  
> > > And Voldemort didn't have to end up as a helpless, 
> > > suffering, moaning creature for eternity.  He could 
> > > still have avoided his fate, even after the terrible 
> > > things he'd done, even after shredding his soul into 
> > > pieces, if he had been able to feel remorse.  
> 
> Sydney:
> 
> But Voldemort never could take Harry up on the offer to feel remorse--
> he's a psychopath.

Pippin:
Psychopaths can't feel for other people, but Voldemort could have felt remorse
for what he'd done to *himself*. Voldemort was not interested in the welfare of
his own soul, the part of himself that could survive beyond death, because he
intended and expected that he would never have to die. But that wasn't a 
function of his pathology -- he simply decided, when he learned that there
were wizards, that being a wizard should mean that you don't have to die. 

He thought his mother must have been a Muggle, because she died. Later
he learned differently, and it seems he immediately turned to making
horcruxes, ignoring the warnings that no wizard had ever found existence
in such a form desireable. 

Remember also  that if he'd been returned to vapor form he would have 
existed in constant pain, from his description far more agony than we saw 
in King's Cross, (he is only whimpering, not experiencing pain beyond
imagination) and Harry, alive or dead, still would not have been able to 
do anything for him.

Funny, people pray for the serenity to accept the things they cannot change, 
and yet it's disturbing to see it. We're used to seeing Hollywood heroes who
are never presented with a challenge that can't be overcome, I guess. 

I didn't initally see the shadow reading, but even so, Harry decides to
go back to Earth and embrace the shadow. He's the one who brings the
Slytherins back to Hogwarts, which enables their second chance. 

Dumbledore does not return, but Dumbledore is depicted in a more damaged
state than Harry, broken nose, halfmoon glasses and weeping for the
wrongs he did. 


Sydney:
> I totally wanted to fall into sentimental goo and instead I just found
> myself in this big bucket of bile. "Aren't those people awful? Aren't
> I great person for hating those awful people?  I'm soooo much better
> than.... a cross between Charles Manson and Adolf Hitler!  Go Me!" 
> *backslaps!*

Pippin:
Wow, I didn't get that at all. I was overwhelmed with pity for Voldemort
and dismayed that there was nothing Harry or DD could do for him.
Actually it sounds like you were too, only you didn't think you were 
supposed to be, because the sentimentality wasn't played up. Of
course you're entitled to your reaction, but I really think it is okay to
feel pity here despite JKR's seeming cold-heartedness. You know,
like it's okay to think that Jonathan Swift doesn't really want you
to think eating babies would be a serious solution to the Irish
problem <g>

> Sydney:
> 
> Yeah, that's why it just seems so cracked to me, this whole series.
> This is a world that's going to convulse in civil war like clockwork
> every fifty years, because there's just no self-reflection or attempt
> to say, 'hey, mistakes were made, we need to look at what we have in
> common as human beings here' And now it seems yeah, there's no
> turning around the child's version of Brave Perfect
> Anachronistic-notions-of-human-rights Gryffindor and how he was
> betrayed by that total loser Slytherin, and Our Side was totally right
> and Their Side was totally wrong forever.  That was the one thing I
> was ready to lay money on was going to get reversed.. "Little White
> Horse" being the obvious reason why.  Oh, and all of human history. 
> That too.

Pippin:
The thing is, I think we're supposed to see that Harry grew out of his
childish innocence and received in exchange the power to help
make the changes you want to see. But JKR didn't show him doing it,
because that's not a big adventure about fighting evil. That's a life
like Arthur Weasley's, going to the office and trying to
convince people that it's wrong to take advantage of Muggles  etc one
day at a time. It's not about forgetting it, but it's not about thinking
that you can wave your wand, or kill one baddie, and the WW's
problems are all going to disappear. I thought the Fiendfyre was
supposed to show us the folly of trying to make cataclysmic changes.

I think that JKR's biggest mistake was giving the epilogue a heroine's
ending, because people don't understand that's what she did. The
hero is supposed to get a kingdom, dammit, and it's disturbing
that JKR  *only* shows us Harry, Ginny, Draco, Ron and Hermione  
with their happy families.  Good enough for Psyche but not for  Prince 
Charming, you see?

Pippin