Compassionate hero (WAS Re: Appeal of the story to the reader)

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 175689

> Nita:
> Well, the young man is not dead yet, is he? Would Harry appreciate 
her
> "toughness" if it prevented her from reacting to his death at all?

zgirnius:
Of course not! In the scene where Harry compares her (internally) to 
Cho, Ginny makes her concern apparent in a stoic fashion, discussing 
why she had no present to give Harry on his birthday:

> DH, "The Will of Albus Dumbledore":
> "I didn't know what would be useful. Nothing too big, because you 
wouldn't be able to take it with you."
> He chanced a glance at her. She was not tearful; that was one of 
the wonderful things about Ginny, she was rarely weepy. 

zgirnius:
Her desire to give Harry a gift that would be useful and helpful in 
his mission is a sure sign that she appreciates the danger he is 
facing, and is worried/ saddened by it, and by the fact that she is 
not allowed and not able to help. Harry fully understands this 
subtext, I feel, this is why Harry expects she might be weeping, 
hence the glance at her. 

Shortly after, they kiss, and their tryst is interrupted by Ron and 
Hermione.

> DH, "The Will of Albus Dumbledore":
> He looked at Ginny, wanting to say something, though he hardly knew 
what, but she had turned her back on him. He thought that she might 
have succumbed, for once, to tears. He could not do anything to 
comfort her in front of Ron.

zgirnius:
In other words, by the end of the scene, Ginny *is* brought to tears. 
(OK, we don't know this for a fact, but that was certainly how I, and 
Harry, read it). Harry wants to comfort her, and is not remotely 
annoyed by this reaction. Within the scene, his joking "I think 
dating opportunities are going to be thin on the ground", is an 
attempt to reassure Ginny, and that it is precisely the right thing 
to say to her in that moment seems to be confirmed by the fact that 
her response is to initiate the kiss. They are neither of them 
particularly effusive about their love, but it seems to me this suits 
their personalities, and they are a good match.

I liked DH Ginny, I guess!

> Nita:
> I wouldn't. I'd rather be liked for my own merit than because I'm 
not
> as bad as someone else. Actually, I feel a bit sorry for Ginny. I
> wonder how supportive Harry will be when her parents die.

zgirnius:
I addressed your latter point above. To your former point, Ginny is 
restrained in showing her fear and sadness, so Harry is appreciating 
her on her merits. 
 
> Nita:
> Er, that's not how it happened in my book. *First* Harry learns
> valuable information, including that Kreacher was still loyal to
> Regulus, LV's enemy. *Then*, with a lot of encouragement from
> Hermione, he manages some compassion.

zgirnius:
Nor was Kreacher a completely unknown mama animal worried about her 
young. He was the guy who conspired to send Harry to the DoM. For 
Harry to express compassion instantly, without learning anything 
about Kreacher, would have been a far greater step than the fairy 
tale hero's, to my mind.

> Nita: 
> Watching someone die is an act of compassion now? Well, I don't 
know.
> I don't think so.

zgirnius:
He did not merely watch, he approached Snape. I do not believe Snape 
could be saved at that point. If he could be, I think he himself 
would have been the right person to do it. Snape has forgotten more 
about healing than Harry knows at that point, it would seem to me. 

So what more could Harry have done for him than he did? And again, he 
approached a man he considered his mortal enemy, so things like 
holding his hand as he died, or whatever other random exhibition of 
sympathy, would have been out of place (not to mention, probably 
unwelcome). Harry does comply with every request of the dying Snape, 
including the last one, which is of no practical value to 'the 
cause'. (Oh, man, that scene got to me...)

> Nita:
> Again, let's look at the sequence of events here. First, Harry asks
> Griphook to lie for them. Without any reward or explanation, the
> goblin does so. Under torture. 

zgirnius:
I don't think he did it for Harry. He is not pleased to be there, and 
to be treated so by the Death Eaters.

> Nita.
> Then, Harry buries Dobby, his devoted
> follower who had just saved Harry at the cost of his own life.
> Griphook is impressed, and agrees to help them further, in return 
for
> Harry observing goblins' inheritance laws instead of wizards', for
> once. Harry uses his semi-trust.

zgirnius:
Harry would have returned the sword, of course. But I conceded this 
point, that Harry was planning to double-cross him to an extent.

> Nita: 
> Well, I don't think Harry did it out of compassion. Do you? I think 
he
> (rightly) sees himself as someone who wouldn't leave non-Evil people
> to die, and acts accordingly. It's a good self-perpetuating cycle. 

zgirnius:
I am afraid I do consider 'being a person who would not leave a non-
evil person to die' synonymous with compassion, though I may be weird 
that way. I would say Severus Snape demoonstrates compassion on 
occasion. So to get a clearer idea of what I am supposed to mean by 
that word...I looked it up. Merriam Wenster online defines compassion 
as:

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/compassion:
sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire 
to alleviate it

zgirnius:
Harry's thought process as the Room of Requirement is consumed by 
flame is as follows:

> DH, "The Battle of Hogwarts":
> He swooped as low as he dared over the marauding monsters of flame 
to try and find them, but there was nothing but fire: What a terrible 
way to die...He had never wanted this...
> "Harry, let's get out, let's get out!" bellowed Ron, though it was 
impossible to see where the door was through the black smoke.
> And then Harry heard a thin, piteous human scream from amidst the 
terrible commotion, the thunder of devouring flame.

zgirnius:
So, Harry thinks of the fate in store for Draco, and finds it 
terrible. Draco sounds 'piteous'. I see both the sympathetic 
consciousness, and the desire to alleviate the suffering, myself.

(Oh, total aside...marauding monsters of flame, LOL. Total 
coincidence I am sure.)

> Nita:
> Oh,
> and by the way, Draco tries to save Harry by pretending not to
> recognize him first.

zgirnius:
Word! Draco is one of *my* Good Slytherins. It's not about which side 
he and his family are on in the war, it is about what he does. He 
tries to drag Goyle, unconscious and twice his size, out of that 
inferno instead of running for his life.

But the attempt to help out at Malfoy Manor is not why Harry rescues 
him, as indicated in the citation above. So it in no way makes 
Harry's action less than compassionate.

> Nita now:
> This is a bit hard to explain. I just get this feeling of things
> happening just to show how Wonderful Harry is while reading DH that 
I
> don't get in the fairy tale. 

zgirnius:
I don't understand, I am afraid. But then you did say it was hard to 
explain, and it is apparent that we had very different gut reactions 
to the book. This may be one of those points where neither of us can 
put a finger on anything specific enough to explain to the other what 
we are seeing.

> Nita:
> In other words, the hero messes up, realizes it, and then works hard
> to undo the damage. I can sympathize with that.

zgirnius:
Yeah, it is not Harry's fault that he needs to defeat Voldemort, this 
is a fundamental difference between Rowling's story and the fairy 
tale you compare it to. The whole mess fell on his head when he was a 
one-year-old. Any mistakes he made after that could have contributed 
(and did contribute) to the difficulties he faced, could have 
contributed to losses and sorrow he experienced, but the 
Harry/Voldemort conflict is something Harry did not cause and cannot 
prevent.

Of course, once upon a time there was a lovely princess with flaming 
red hair, who shut the door in the face of her old friend as he 
strove to apologize to her for words he had uttered in a moment of 
pain and humiliation. And a brave prince who had too much fun hurting 
and humiliating that same old friend of the princess with his 
friends. The prince and princess married and produced... Our Hero. If 
that old friend had not become a Death Eater, word of a certain 
prophecy would not have gotten to Voldemort... take it or leave it. 
<eg>

(I feel an urge to interject that it is Snape's own fault that he 
reported the prophecy and became a Death Eater. Nonetheless, I stand 
by the factual correctness of the paragraph above).

> Nita:
> And for some reason I
> feel like JKR loves Harry so much that she can't let him mess up and
> be scolded for it, not even by himself. I mean, he makes a bad
> decision about the goblin, right? Let's have some consequences! 

zgirnius:
I suppose the loss of the sword and discovery of the Horcrux hunt is 
not enough of a consequence? I do agree that Harry does not beat 
himself up about it. 

Though, I think the biggest mistake by Harry in the series occured in 
OotP, and it led to the death of Sirius Black. Harry does recognize 
his own responsibility in that death, and it pains him deeply. 
(Though, naturally, the most responsible persons are Voldemort and 
Bellatrix. And of course, he shifts the blame to Snape, which feels 
soooo much better. But I never thought we were 'supposed' to believe 
that was a good thing. It was one of those things that contrinuted to 
my conviction that Snape would prove to have always been DDM!).

> Nita:
> And, in fact, the goblin
> property laws are *wrong* (see Neville's feat), so Harry did the 
right
> thing after all. Don't you worry kids, Our Side is always Right.

zgirnius:
A technical point, but both the sword and the Hat are magical 
artifacts that were once property of the mythical wizard, Godric 
Gryffindor. The sword comes out of the Hat not because God, or 
Justice, or some other force of Good makes it do so, but because 
that's what the artifacts in question were bespelled to do by their 
former owner. In my opinion, naturally. Griphook would say Godric was 
wrong to cast such a spell, and I would not take sides on the matter.

> Nita:
> Of course, sometimes fairy tale heroes get rude, lie and cheat 
without
> reproach as well. But from an author who believes she's 
written "moral
> books", I expect something else.

zgirnius:
I agree within-book reproaches do not abound in the series. I guess I 
don't have a problem with that. I can find them tedious, myself, in 
other words which strive to guide me more in how I should think.

My 4 year old loves Starukha Shapoklyak from the Cheburashka 
cartoons. After hearing the crocodile and his pals lecture her, I can 
see his point. <g> Apologies to those not familiar with Soviet Era 
animated cartoons. She's a (rather silly) 'villain' in a show for 
young kids, that is in my view didactic about virtues like 
friendliness, cooperation, and community service in ways I find heavy-
handed.

I can figure out whose actions I approve of, and whose not, on my 
own. The thing is, there are things Harry does of which I do not 
approve (like the Crucio on Carrow, for example). I just don't feel 
that the author would tell me I am wrong. The author does not tell me 
one way or the other how *I* should feel about it, she just tells me 
Harry did it, and how he felt about it. Which is enough information 
for me to condemn that action.