The creature under the bench (again) (was: Of Sorting and Snape)

[lizzyben04]

No: HPFGUIDX 175830

Carol:
> What I mean by looking at the canon is looking closely at what is said
> *in DH itself* about souls, soul bits, and the creature under the
> chair (not asides in interviews about Slytherin as the water House).
> Textual analysis, in other words, instead of, say, a Jungian
> interpretation (which might be more appropriate *after* we analyze
> what the text actually says). Please take a look at my arguments and
> the canon I've presented in those earlier posts. I'd like to see them
> actually answered.


lizzyben:

I have responded to your posts, and explained why I interpret this the
way I do. If you don't agree, that's totally fine, but I don't
understand the hostility here. It's like telling a bad
Snaper "I demand that you come up w/all the reasons why Snape is a
good guy! Stick to the canon!" That's not their view, so it's not what
they're going to be arguing. Likewise, I don't interpret the
LV-creature as something totally separate from Harry, so that's not
the POV I'm going to be presenting. And, it is just my own
interpretation, which might be totally wrong, but I'm sticking with
it. <g> 

Carol:
> To reiterate briefly: I see no evidence that the thing under the chair
> was ever a part of Harry. It appears to be Voldemort's own "flayed"
> soul. Harry's compassion can't save it. Only Voldemort's own remorse
> can. It is, therefore, pointless and perhaps worse than pointles to
> try. (If it were a human child or any being capable of benefiting from
> an act of mercy or compassion, DD would not dissuade Harry from
> picking it up.) 


lizzyben:

And, in contrast, I see quite a bit of evidence that the thing *is* a
part of Harry - whether the creature is the Horcrux or some
representation of LV himself. DD tells Harry that this is all
happening in his head, not in any exterior place. Yet the Voldemort
creature is there, in his head, uninvited. Just like the soul-piece of
LV has been there, in his head, uninvited, for 16 years. The books
reiterate, again & again, the deep connection between LV & Harry - a
connection, not of minds, but of souls. Harry & LV share visions,
emotions, blood & souls - they even share the same connection to life.
After GOF, LV can't die unless Harry does, & Harry can't die while LV
lives.  DD says that "part of LV lives deep inside Harry." After GOF,
LV used Harry's blood to resurrect & "doubled the bond" between them,
creating a two-fold connection, wrapping their destinies together
"more than ever two wizards were joined in history." Even Harry's wand
took some of the power of LV's wand, and both wands share the same
core. LV has been a part of Harry for almost his entire life. And
Harry's blood becomes a part of LV. Harry *is* Voldemort, and
Voldemort is Harry. It's creepy, but it's true. So after 16 years of
this deep connection, I don't think we can say that LV's soul is a
totally separate creature, & has nothing to do w/Harry. It does.

King's Cross takes place in Harry's head, and is basically a type of
dream. And like any dream, the metaphors become significant. Once
you've got Harry & this "thing" that has been a part of him for his
whole life, that's suffering & in pain, that he's told to stuff under
a chair & ignore... for me, the metaphorical implications of that
image are kind of hard to ignore. One one level, yeah it's LV, but on
another level, it's a perfect metaphor for a part of himself that
Harry is trying to hide & repress. Just like, yeah, it's just an
Invisibility Cloak, but the cloak is also a perfect metaphor for
Harry's childhood of being ignored & invisible to the Durselys. 

Carol:
> The fault, if any, with this scenario (aside from the confusion it
> creates in many readers) is not Harry's or Dumbledore's but in JKR's
> conception of a personal, self-created hell for the unredeemed and
> unrepentant. which, it appears, is repellant to many readers. But,
> surely, Voldie's crimes differ in scope and substance from everyone
> else's in the books, even Bellatrix, sadistic as she is, not coming
> even close. (Grindelwald is another matter, but he seems to have
> repented before the end.) Should Voldie, for all his crimes, have been
> redeemed, in your view? 


lizzyben:

Well, yeah, it is sort of repellent to me. JKR made quite clear in HBP
that Voldemort was born a psychopath - he shows all the signs from
childhood. Psychopaths simply *can't* feel remorse any more than a pig
can fly - they're simply incapable of it. LV didn't have much choice
in that. And in an interview, JKR said that LV was born evil because
he was conceived through evil means - meaning that since Merope did
something evil in marrying Riddle Sr., her child would be evil. God's
punishment, and all. So, we're left w/this cosmology where God made LV
incapable of remorse, then punishes him to eternal hell because he's
incapable of remorse - seems like a rigged game to me. And in fact,
the whole concept of predestination is basically a rigged game. But
IMO it's how the series has been set up. 

JKR said that Snape is "more culpable" than LV because he was loved, &
I tend to agree. Snape & Bellatrix & the Malfoys knew exactly what
they were doing when they joined the Death Eaters - they weren't
sociopaths, they knew what love was, and they understood the effects
their actions might have. They're also capable of remorse & repentance
in a way LV was not. So if anything, under JKR's own view, the Death
Eaters are in some ways "more culpable" for their crimes. LV never had
any chance to be redeemed - he was damned since birth. 

Carol:
Why should Snape or any other character bother
> to repent, then, if sins are so easily expiated or rather require no
> expiation and the unrepentant have the same afterlife as the repentant
> and there is no penalty for unnaturally dividing the soul from the
> body through the murder of another to prevent your own death? 

lizzyben:

Because they can? Because they can feel sincere remorse for their
actions & try to make it better out of repentance - not out of a wish
to get the loophole to heaven? 

Carol:
I think
> the difference between Voldemort's mangled soul and the soul of an
> ordinary repentant sinner like Snape, who can receive redemption
> through remorse and atonement if the flawed Dumbledore can, is crucial
> to our understanding of this last book, and to think of the flayed
> baby as the soul bit we *know* to have been destroyed and as part of
> Harry is to completely miss the point of this symbolic rendering of
> Voldie's remaining "main" soul.

lizzyben:

Now, does the flawed DD ever really express remorse for his crimes?
Not really. He *was* a manipulative puppet-master, just like I'd
always argued. DD has been responsible for many murders, while usually
maintaining enough distance to avoid getting his hands dirty. He's
indirectly responsible for the death of his sister, Harry's parents,
various Order members, Harry himself, and Grindewald's victims during
the time he avoided fighting him. Yet, here comes DD w/his perfect
healed soul, all sin washed off him, to explain things to Harry in his
self-involved way. DD is just as responsible as Snape for the Potters'
deaths, yet he never expresses remorse for that - perhaps because
Snape conveniently absorbed all the guilt & sin for that. And Harry
quickly forgives DD for it all, telling DD "you never killed people...
if you could avoid it." LOL. And DD takes comfort from the fact that,
whatever his crimes, at least he was better than Voldemort. Because
Gryffindors can always take comfort from being better than Slytherins. 

This scene seemed to show DD as a member of the Elect, whose sins will
wash off him in the afterlife. While LV is a member of the damned, who
has been condemned from birth. It's predestination in action. Did the
flawed DD receive redemption through remorse & atonement, or because
he was part of the Divine Elect? Since we don't really see DD
expressing real remorse, I'm inclined toward the second
interpretation, especially since that seems to fit w/the overall
deterministic quality of this universe. DD was sorted Gryffindor,
sorted among the saved, regardless of his actions. Can Snape receive
redemption through atonement? IMO, that's an open question. As a
Slytherin, he's got a tough road to how. And the novel never actually
shows Snape's soul finding redemption or getting a ticket to heaven.
Do we ever actually see anyone but Gryffindors in heaven? Nope. Not
even Hufflepuff Tonks seems to make the cut. 

IMO, if we interpret the "baby" solely as LV, it seems pretty clear he
never had a hope of redemption, because he was predestined to be among
the damned. This is a very Calvinist message, but IMO that seems to be
the ultimate message, rather than a more Catholic message about the
importance of penance, faith & good works. LV never had a chance; his
fate was predestined since birth, just as (perhaps) DD was saved since
birth. And the contrast between the cleansed DD soul and the flayed,
suffering LV soul really brings this home.

Carol:
> That the King's Cross scene is happening in Harry's head only means,
> IMO, that his now-healed mind/soul (DD tells Snape that with LV and
> Harry, mind and soul can't be distinguished) is having an out-of-body,
> near-death experience (which LV seems to be having, too, but learning
> nothing from). See my earlier posts for more details on this aspect of
> the argument.

lizzyben:

I'll give you this, the baby is probably meant to be a representation
of LV himself rather than the Horcrux alone. But in many ways it's a
distinction w/o a difference. Both the Horcrux & LV have been sharing
Harry's head for 16 years - as Harry has been sharing in LV's head. LV
has become so much a part of Harry that they have connected souls,
connected emotions & thoughts, connected blood, connected lives &
deaths. When Harry has a "near-death" experience in his own head, LV's
soul is there too. DD tells Harry that "King's Cross" is *Harry's*
party, but LV is crashing it. If LV truly had no connection to Harry
anymore, why wouldn't he be going to his own "near-death" vision
instead of showing up in Harry's? The two remain linked together in
profound ways - as they have been linked together for 16 years. In
some way, they do share the same mind/soul/body. LV *is* a part of
Harry, and has been so almost his entire life. So when DD tells Harry
to reject & ignore & stuff that part of himself out of sight, it sets
up some rather odd symbolic resonances, IMO.


lizzyben