The Fundamental Message of the HP books? (was Re: Appeal of the story ...)

[Judy]

No: HPFGUIDX 175606

I wrote the following post a few days ago. I held off posting it, 
because the debate over the book's message had died down, and I felt 
that the topic had been upsetting some people. But, since the topic 
has come up again, here is my post. I have made very few changes to 
it in the past few days, so it isn't directly a response to things 
posted here today.

I love the Harry Potter series, and I enjoyed reading Book 7. But, I 
have to agree that when I reached the end of the book, I was 
disappointed by the moral message that JKR seemed to be pushing.  
And, the more it gets discussed here, the more dismayed I feel, 
because I'm starting to feel that the only way to get even a slightly 
uplifting message out of the book is to really dig for it.  

Like many of the other posters here, I found that the ending of the 
book had a lot more revenge and a lot less redemption that I had 
expected. After Dumbledore's very moving speech to Draco at the end 
of HBP, I was expecting that at least Draco and Narcissa, if not 
Lucius, would see the error of their ways, be sorry, and be rescued 
at some point by the Order or the Trio. Instead, it just seemed that 
the Malfoys accidentally ended up helping Harry's side, without any 
real sort of reconciliation.  

I had also expected that Moaning Myrtle would somehow play an 
instrumental role in the defeat of her murderer and therefore be able 
to finally leave her toilet and move on to "the next great 
adventure." I was never comfortable with how Myrtle's misery was 
presented as a joke. I mean, she's a little girl who was murdered!  
Doesn't she ever get to rest in peace? But her situation never gets 
resolved. Then, the story of the Grey Lady is introduced, but after 
she confesses her faults and helps Harry, he just runs off and leaves 
her and we never hear from her again. Couldn't she somehow move on, 
if for no other reason than that her mother could finally see her 
again? 

What bothered me most, though, was Dumbledore.  I actually wasn't 
bothered at all by the fact that he had been teenaged friends with 
Grindelwald, resulting in tragic consequences. It seemed pretty 
realistic to me that a 17-year-old might fall in with a bad friend 
and show poor judgment. Frankly, with the horrible things that had 
happened to Dumbledore's family and the fact that he had no parents 
to guide him, I would have been surprised if everything had gone 
RIGHT n his life. I also wasn't that bothered about the part where 
Dumbledore says has Harry has to die, because I didn't expect Harry 
to die. (My reasoning was simple – there were a lot of pages left to 
fill, and I just couldn't see JKR writing 60 pages of Harry walking 
to his own execution. I assumed that Dumbledore didn't expect Harry 
to die, either, but that would take too long to explain here.) 

No, what bothered me about Dumbledore was how he treated Snape. Now, 
I'm saying this as a disappointed Dumbledore fan, not as a Snape 
fan.  Friends, Snape-haters, countrymen, lend me your ears – I come 
not to praise Snape, but to criticize Dumbledore.

Dumbledore said, "Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who 
seek it." He also made a big speech at the end of GoF, right after 
Voldemort came back. Here is part of this speech: "'Every guest in 
this Hall,' said Dumbledore, and his eyes lingered upon the 
Durmstrang students, 'will be welcomed back here at any time, should 
they wish to come.'"  (GoF, US edition, p. 723.) 

Well, I assumed that Dumbledore was saying in both quotes that he 
would help anyone who sincerely asked him, and was emphasizing that 
this meant even Dark Wizards – I mean, otherwise, what was the point 
of "his eyes lingered upon the Durmstrang students"?  I thought this 
meant that if someone on the Dark side showed remorse, they would be 
welcomed back. Yet, in Book 7, we find Snape, on his knees, begging 
for help, and Dumbledore says, "You disgust me." And then, even 
though Snape has already voluntarily given Dumbledore vital 
information about Voldemort's plans, Dumbledore demands payment from 
Snape before he will agree to help someone on Dumbledore's OWN side. 
(I know Snape wasn't literally asking for help while at Hogwarts, but 
Dumbledore represents Hogwarts.)  Worse, after Snape does what 
Dumbledore asks, and Dumbledore fails to deliver on his side of the 
deal, Dumbledore practically ridicules Snape's grief; when Snape says 
he wants to die, Dumbledore asks, coldly, "What use would that be to 
anyone?" And then, we don't see any kindness from Dumbledore to Snape 
until Snape's been working for him for 14 years. Sheesh, if this is 
Dumbledore's idea of being welcoming, I'd hate to see what he's like 
when he's unwelcoming.  

Lily, who is presented as practically a saint, isn't much better.  
I've wondered ever since Book 5 whether Snape ever apologized for 
calling her a Mudblood. I never would have dreamed that he did 
apologize and in response Lily slammed the door in his face, but 
that's pretty much how it happened. 

Now, my point here isn't to say that Snape *deserved* Dumbledore's 
help, or that he was *entitled* to Lily's forgiveness. That's a 
separate issue (and Snape's moral status has been debated a LOT here 
lately.) My point is, what sort of message is the book sending about 
forgiveness, when even the most moral characters in the story refuse 
to forgive? 

JKR has said that Dumbledore is supposed to be "goodness 
personaified," and he did often seem, in the first 6 books, to be 
presented a very moral message of kindness and forgiveness. In Book 
7, though, that seemed to go out the window. I do realize that there 
are other interpretations of Dumbledore's behavior towards Snape -- 
maybe he's only acting angry at Snape to try to manipulate him into 
helping Harry, maybe Dumbledore sees himself in Snape -- but as I 
said, you have to dig for these alternate interpretations. I think a 
lot of readers will be left with just the surface reading, that if 
someone who's done evil wants to make amends, you should punish them 
instead instead of welcoming them back. 
  
I have to say, over the years when I've seen members of the Christian 
Right criticize the books, I had this sort of smug feeling: "They 
just don't get it. The books DO promote the values that the Christian 
Right says it wants – forgiveness, love, kindness, and self-
sacrifice."  Now I'm wondering – do they? 

I know that some people here say they enjoyed the way the good guys 
got revenge in Book 7. But to my mind, that is a HUGE problem.  Here 
we have the world's best selling fiction series, and it's leading 
some readers to ENJOY the idea of revenge. Don't we already have 
enough entertainment pushing the idea that violence and revenge are 
good things? (And if I may interject a note as a psychologist here, 
the evidence is overwhelming that when violence is presented as a 
good thing in entertainment, it makes people more likely to see 
violence as a good thing in real life.) I find it very sad that 
millions of children will read a story that could have ended with an 
uplifting message of forgiveness, conciliation, and redemption, but 
instead ended in a message of vengeance.

And then, there's the whole issue of predestination and "the Elect":

lizzyben:
> Those memories pounded in, again & again, that no, Snape actually
> had no inherent moral compass at all. And the break-up of the
> friendship was totally his own fault. And his love was obsessive and
> weird, because Slyths can't have normal relationships. And he hated
> Harry for no reason! And the only morals he ever got were from Lily
> & DD - his exposure to the golden glow of Gryffindor goodness
> diverted him from his natural selfish slimy Slytherin ways. And,
> most importantly, he didn't really change. Because people can't
> really change in this universe.

I think there are other ways of reading Snape's memories, and I'm not 
sure that this is the reading that JKR intended.  Unfortunately, 
though, I do suspect that this is the message the story will give to 
at least some readers. 

And from Montavilla47:
> I guess I should have seen that coming since HBP, when we are
> shown that Voldemort was damned from before he was born,
> because of the way he was conceived.
> What tripped me up was that statement by Dumbledore that
> "it is our choices that show who we are."
> But I should have realized it.  Choices "show" who we are. . . 
> They don't "make" us who we are.  They only "show" it. 
> So, we already are who we are *before*
> we make the choices, and therefore we cannot choose to
> become someone else.

Montavilla, I have to agree that the Harry Potter series sends the 
message, on at least some levels, that people are either born good or 
born bad. And, I feel really cheated by this. I mean, if people are 
just BORN good or evil, then there really isn't such a thing as 
*choice* in the first place, is there?  So, why did JKR keep talking 
about choices? 

Now, I'm not convinced that, in the real world, there is actually 
such a thing as free will. Perhaps all of our actions are determined 
by some combination of biology, environment, and sheer random chance. 
(Eggplant, I LOVED your line, "I don't believe any concept in 
philosophy has caused more confusion or been more unproductive than 
that of free will; an idea so bad it's not even wrong.) But, I also 
don't think there's any actual magic in the real world either. So, 
free will in a STORY is fine by me – in fact, a story showing how one 
could freely choose to do good might be just the environmental 
influence that someone needs to do the right thing instead of the 
wrong thing.  But, "anyone can freely choose to be good" doesn't seem 
to be the message that the books are sending. 

Consider, for example, that the Slytherins mostly wind up being good 
accidentally while trying to be selfish or while actively OPPOSING 
the good; when Slytherins actually try to help, they can't.  Draco 
helps out Harry a lot, but only by fighting Harry and getting his 
wand stolen. Crabbe helps out by attacking the Trio, destroying a 
Horcrux (and himself) in the process. Narcissa conceals that Harry is 
alive, but only to help Draco.  Slughorn tries to help – he fights 
but doesn't accomplish anything much.  Regulus winds up worst of all. 
A Death Eater driven mad by remorse, he tries to destroy Voldemort's 
invulnerability and ends up just making these worse; the Trio would 
have saved months of work if Regulus had just gone about his merry 
way and left the Locket in the Cave. 

(Actually, when reading about what happened to Regulus, I kept 
thinking, "Why didn't he have Kreacher apparate him out of the Cave, 
go straight to Dumbledore, and have Dumbledore destroy the Horcrux?"  
But now that I know what reception Snape got when he went to 
Dumbledore with vital information, I'm thinking that Dumbledore 
probably would have just told him, "You disgust me, Regulus. Now, 
what will you GIVE ME to destroy this Horcrux for you?")  

Snape does help the side of good, but it is mostly off-page. Anyway, 
Dumbledore has already said that maybe Snape should have been in 
Gryffindor. So, it doesn't really change the message that whether you 
are good or not is pre-ordained.

So, take the fact that Snape's redemption is not as complete as it 
could be. (I really, really wish Harry had said to someone, after 
Voldemort was defeated, "PROFESSOR Snape's body is in the Shrieking 
Shack.") Combine with the knowledge that Regulus's remorse 
accomplished nothing (and that Regulus is still presumably a water-
logged Inferus.) Add in the fact that no other putative "Bad guys" 
seem to have been redeemed at all.  Now, pour in the fact that the 
House system is still intact and Slytherin House still is viewed 
negatively (by at least some). Sift in the observation that so many 
of the Good Guys are Gryffindors and that so few (if any) Slytherins 
are, and sprinkle with the sad outcome that there seems to be no 
major improvement in the status of elves, giants, and centaurs (even 
though many of them fought bravely in a war that HUMANS started). 
Stir this mixture seven times counterclockwise, once clockwise, and 
you wind up with a very unpleasant philosophy indeed

Now, I'm hoping that following was NOT the philosophy that JKR was 
intending to promote, but one reading of the books is: "There is a 
Superior side and an inferior side. (Plus a bunch of people in the 
middle who don't really matter much either way.) You can't choose to 
join the Superior side; you have to be born into it, and it is mostly 
dependent on who your parents were. Those who belong to the Superior 
side will be rewarded. Those inferiors who assist the Superior side 
MAY be rewarded, if the Superior side gets around to it. Those who 
harm the cause of the Superior side will be punished, so matter how 
truly, sincerely sorry they are for the harm they have done."

Yeah, reading Book 7, one could come away with that as the philosophy 
that JKR is pushing. But isn't that VOLDEMORT's philosophy?  So, 
maybe he got the last laugh after all? 

This leaves me wondering, if maybe JKR just wasn't all that clear, in 
her own mind, of what message she wanted to convey, and how she 
should convey it. At least, I hope she just wasn't clear.  I would be 
even more upset if "Revenge is a good thing," and "You can't be a 
good person unless you're born that way," were really the messages 
she wanted to communicate. 

Anyone feel like re-writing the ending to the book?  :-)

-- JudySerenity, long-time fan of the Harry Potter books, but very 
very disappointed in the message they seem to be sending.