Back to Slytherin House - Choosing

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 176155

> lizzyben:
> 
> It sure does. People (including me) have complained that Harry 
> never faced an internal battle between good & evil, but he actually 
> did - he faced the choice between good & evil at eleven years old,
> and chose good. Everything else was just gravy.

Jen: Why is that a complaint, btw?  I predicted prior to DH that 
Harry might face a decision about Snape such as Voldemort luring 
Harry to him using Snape as the temptation, and Harry would have to 
choose at a pivotal moment: revenge on Snape vs. some higher 
calling.  So I was also a reader expecting a big good vs. evil battle 
prior to DH.  Since it turned out he had evil inside him already with 
a soul piece, that wasn't the story and instead Harry's biggest 
choice was life vs. death.  Why then is the internal battle between 
good and evil still necessary?  It wasn't the crisis of conscience 
Harry was meant to face apparently.  

lizzyben: 
> The Sorting Hat strongly considered putting Harry into Slytherin 
> House, telling him that it would bring him "greatness" - power, 
> fame, fortune. Well, after DH we know that JKR considers 
> unrestrained ambition & a lust for power to be true evils. DD & 
> Snape fall into evil because of their desire for greatness & power. 
> The "Elder Wand" symbolizes the ultimate power that various wizards 
> want & kill over, and Harry the hero gives up. He worries that 
> Hermione & Ron are still tempted by its power, etc.

Jen: I agree refusing power is virtuous in this particular story.  I 
also notice that it's not only Slytherins or even Hogwartians who are 
tempted by power.  I'm not clear what you're saying here for this 
reason.  If the logic of the elect holds up then Harry wouldn't need 
to reject the wand for Ron and Hermione, they would do it for 
themselves (one example).

This story isn't about the four houses of Hogwarts even though 
sorting and houses are important at various junctures.  One fairly 
large part of the story is about people with unique abilities of 
various backgrounds who start to wonder just how far those abilities 
will take them, i.e., can magical power bring back the dead?  Help 
someone discover the secret to immortality?  Help a person seeking 
power over others?  Harry even has some tastes of power himself, 
before realizing how much destruction that seeking power has brought 
into the lives of people whom he's both admired and hated across the 
course of seven years.  Watching Dobby die and working through his 
grief was a pivotal moment for him to choose destruction of the 
Horcruxes over seeking the Hallows, another occasion when death and 
grief was the basis for one of his choices (and all have not been 
good choices as we discussed prior to DH, like when Harry chose to 
blame Snape for Sirius' death and hated him for it).

lizzyben:
> Once you've got the Calvinism down, it's much easier to understand 
> how the Sorting Hat works.

Jen:  This is also becoming the basis for the entire story from how I 
understand your post, something that denies any other theme or motif 
or symbolism to play a role.  Sure, it's tempting to distill a story 
down to one understandable line in the narrative but doing so 
completely negates the parts of the story that can't be forced into 
this box called Calvinism and Slytherin house.