Of Sorting and Snape

[lanval1015]

No: HPFGUIDX 175588

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Sydney" <sydpad at ...> wrote:
>
> 
> lizzyben: 
> 
> > Well, each individual person will have individual 
interpretations -
> > especially of a chapter that seems so laden w/metaphors. I don't 
think
> > that it's literally supposed to be Snape. It's supposed to be 
LV, I
> > totally agree. But IMO, on a symbolic level, it's much more than 
that.
> > Basically, I think the "baby" is the shadow, that has been 
rejected &
> > purged. 
> 
> Sydney:
> 
> Jumping in here because I had the exact same reaction as Lizzyben, 
so
> it's not just her.  The symbolism in that scene was all kinds of
> weird-- two guys congratulating each other on their love and
> compassion while ignoring a crying wounded baby?!  
> 

Lanval:
One of those guys is dead and knows precisely *what* the creature 
described as a small wounded child represents, and states that 
neither he nor Harry can help. 

Sydney:
> If that baby is the soul-piece that Voldemort put in Harry, it gets
> all kind of messed up. Because, okay, this is a crying wounded baby
> that's been inside Harry since his parents were murdered.

Lanval:
Which has everything to do with LV's curse, nothing whatsoever with 
his parent's murder.

Sydney:
 Inner child,
> right? I mean on the symbolic level of course-- surely that was 
pretty
> explicit in OoP that Harry's rages and connection to Voldemort are
> symbolic of teen angst and hormones or whatever? 


Lanval:
Wasn't explicit to me. Harry's rage was teenage angst and hormones, 
and Harry's rages when his scar hurt was LV's rage coming through.

Sydney:
 I mean, that's what
> I thought it was.  I thought it was really clever.  Don't all
> teenagers act like their possessed at some point?  So, even at that
> point in the book when I was grasping at straws I was thinking.. 
okay,
> here's the part where Harry comes to terms with the darkness inside
> him, even if its.. uh.. nothing to do with him actually in plot
> terms... because that piece randomly disappeared and this is a 
whole
> other piece... whatever.  To me:  symbolic afterlife land, Harry,
> crying wounded child bit like the bits that got put in Harry the 
night
> his parents died.
> 

Lanval:
Again, what does his parents dying have to do with LV's damaged soul 
that broke apart without him intending it? 


Sydney:
> So what should you do with your wounded inner child? IGNORE IT.


Lanval:
Correct. Because it wasn't Harry's Inner Child. At all.

Sydney:
 Ignore
> the crying and the pain! It's disgusting! It's not a part of you. 
Do
> you hear me Harry? The flayed thing in agony that's been inside you
> for 16 years has NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU.

Lanval:
It doesn't. 


Sydney:
 When the crying gets too
> much, just beat the crap out of some Bad People. It'll make you 
feel
> better!!


Lanval:
Bzuh? come again?

"Pity the living, and above all, those who live without love."


>
Sydney: 
> And that's when I thought, "This series is WHACKED."
> 

Lanval:
Oh well...


> 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. We spent half the last book establishing that. 
> That's why the offer was so easy to make. There's no suggestion 
that
> Harry would ever have to do something about it, just like he never 
had
> to have a normal conversation with Draco or come to terms with a 
Snape
> who wasn't safetly dead. 
> 

Lanval:
And Harry owes Draco a 'normal conversation' because...?

He did come to terms with Snape. Very much so. Whether he would have 
done so with a living Snape depends entirely on whether Snape would 
have still revealed his secrets, no? 


Sydney:
> I really hated that 'remorse' bit in the Harry/Voldemort convo 
because
> it actually came out like a taunt.. 'ha ha you're a psycopath and
> can't feel remorse and you're going to hell. Die sucka!' I can roll
> with that stuff in R-rated action movies (especially when the hero
> kicks ass on account of his hard work and mad ass-kicking skills, 
not
> through some random technicality). But in a children's book that's
> back-slapping itself about how it's all about love and compassion 
it's
> just revolting.
> 


Lanval:
Sure, if you're going to merrily ignore what Harry says.

DH, Bloomsbury Ed. p.594:

"It's your one last chance", said Harry, "it's all you're got 
left...I've seen what you'll be otherwise... be a man... try...try 
for some remorse."

It's still open. Tom Riddle still has a chance. There's still a 
choice, even now. That this point *shocks* him, "beyond any 
revelation or taunt" is there in solid black print. He knows this is 
no taunt.

Oh well, if you for some reason associate this with mad ass-kicking 
skills in R-rated action movies, so be it. 





<snippage of some stuff about Charles Manson and Adolf Hitler>




> lizzyben:
> 
> >On an individual level, if we don't recognize the
> > shadow, if we don't integrate it into our personality, we'll 
project
> > those qualities onto other people instead & hate them for it. 
> But
> > societies do that too. On a collective level, sometimes an entire
> > society will project their shadow onto some "other" group, which
> > becomes the recipient of all the flaws that society cannot admit 
to
> > having - and the society will then seek to punish or purge that
> > "other" group. That group becomes the society's appointed 
scapegoat
> > that can safely hate & revile. In turn, the "other" group can 
project
> > its own shadow onto the first group, creating a cycle of mutual
> > destruction & hatred....DD is encouraging Harry to reject a part 
of
> himself, &
> > see it as an "other" instead - that's classic shadow projection.

Lanval:
Indeed, if you take the *flayed-looking child* to be a part of 
Harry, or a metaphor of Snape, or whatever. If you take it as 
Voldemort's damaged soul, then all this Jungian analyzing and Shadow-
dancing stuff just sort of... falls apart.

 

lizzyben:
 On
> > both an individual & collective level, Harry & the Gryffindors 
are
> > caught in a deep cycle of shadow projection that almost 
guarantees
> > more hatred, scapegoating, dehumanization, violence & conflict. 
IMO,
> > this is why so many people feel uneasy about this chapter & the
> > ultimate ending of the novel.
> 
> 

Lanval:
What's you suggestion? I've heard much about "feeling uneasy", I'd 
really like to hear some clear, definite examples of how this series 
*should* have ended.


> 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.  


Lanval:
Are we still talking about a fanatical pureblood supremacist who 
decided to take over the WW by means of torture and murder, and who 
damaged his soul to the point where there's very little help for it, 
when you write "total loser Slytherin"? Just trying to clarify.


Sydney:
> "Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown" is a message I can respect if I'm
> settling down for a bleak, fatalistic look at the irretrievably
> corrupt nature of humanity. From book about children I find it 
pretty
> appalling, especially as it turns out only a quarter of humanity is
> irretrievably corrupt and don't worry, it's Not You. It's 
fascinating
> at the same time, because it's a wonderful portrait of one whopping
> un-dealt-with Shadow issue but it seems to be entirely unconscious.
> It's not like JK doesn't know about this Shadow thing-- she said
> somewhere that , 'yeah, dehumanizing the Other is terrible! That's
> what Voldemort does!' Ummmm... talk about missing the point!
> 

Lanval:
'kay, for the non-psychology majors among us: by "this Shadow thing" 
you mean Jungian Shadow theory which can be summarized 
as "dehumanizing the Other is terrible"?

A referral to the precise quote of what JKR said would be helpful 
too.


Sydney:
> It's like... it's a series where.. dehumanizing and projecting the
> Shadow.. is something THOSE AWFUL PEOPLE DO.  Nothing to do with 
us! 
> Let's congratulate ourselves on how we don't do that and that's why
> it's cool when We beat people up with our Good magic and totally
> different when They beat people up with their Dark Magic.
> 

Lanval:
This is getting very intriguing! Can you point me to the specific 
parts where:

1. "The Shadow" (which appears to be A Fact regarding human 
existence? Yes?) is dehumanized and projected by AWFUL PEOPLE
2. NOT AWFUL PEOPLE congratulate themselves on not dehumanizing and 
projecting The Shadow




Sydney:

> This is a series that answers the question "What would Jesus do?" 
not
> with, love thy enemy, judge not, turn the other cheek, heal the 
sick,
>  (and render unto Ceasar, one of the wisest ones IMO), but 
with 'allow
> your enemies to kill you so you can come back to life and confer 
some
> bizarre magical protection on your exclusive club of followers.'  
It's
> so weird. IT'S SO WEIRD.
> 
> -- Sydney, who swore she wouldn't get drawn back in, but who had to
> support Lizzyben on this point
>


Lanval:
I'll just give up here; Carol argued it so much more beautifully and 
eloquently anyway. So did Pippin in another thread; thanks to both.



houyhnhnm:

There *is* something mean spirited in the books. The stories
appeal to the mean in readers and for some they are not nearly
mean enough, as we have ample evidence.



Lanval:
*is clearly a mean person* 

Sigh. There really isn't much to add, is there.