Voldemort/Re: Ending

[Renee]

No: HPFGUIDX 176178

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "lizzyben04" <lizzyben04 at ...> wrote:
>
> Renee:
> > And now, I hope someone can answer a rather burning question for me.
> > JKR has said somewhere that she was trying to depict Voldemort as a
> > psychopath. Now I always thought psychopathy was a condition that is
> > both incurable and untreatable. Psychopaths lack empathy and are
> > incapable of feeling remorse, among other things. Why, then, does JKR
> > have Harry suggest that Voldemort try for some remorse? Is this as
> > nonsensical as I think it is? Has she failed to take a serious look at
> > what psychopathy actually is. Or do I have the wrong ideas about it? 
>> 
> lizzyben:
> 
> And I can now provide the answer! JKR does see LV as a psychopath, and
> does recognize that he is therefore incapable of remorse. But, because
> he has Harry's blood, this means he has the blood of pure *love* in
> his veins, which meant that he could repent, if he had enough
> *courage*, which he didn't. So, he's a psychopath w/Harry's blood, and
> this would somehow maybe make him capable of remorse, even though
> there's no sign that this affected how he thinks or feels at all. Wrap
> your head around that one. 
> 
> "Meredith Vieira: Why was it important to you, Jo, to write about the
> cruelty and inhumanity?
> J.K. Rowling: I'm not sure why. (LAUGHTER) But it was what I wanted to
> write about most.  And it's about choice.  And you are shown that
> Voldemort. I mean, it– I suppose we're going to call him a psychopath.
>  But he's so, in many ways, he is what he is and he's beyond
> redemption. Although this being Harry Potter and because I can take
> liberties because I have magic in my world, it is shown at the very
> end of the book that he did have a chance for redemption because he
> had taken into his body this drop of hope or love–
> Meredith Vieira: Harry's blood.
> J.K. Rowling: Right.  So that meant that if he could have mastered the
> courage to repent, he would have been okay.  But, of course, he
> wouldn't.  And that's his choice. "

Renee:
Lizzyben, thank you so much for providing that quote - I'd forgotten
all about it, and it explains a great deal, helping me to pinpoint
what is my main problem with the HP series.
  
At first, JKR's explanation looked like complete gibberish to me. So
Voldemort is written as a psychopath, as having a RL condition that
makes a person incapable of remorse and of making choices based on
love and empathy (I'm not saying psychopaths can't be helped, as it
seems to be possible to condition them into making the right decisions
if you start early enough, but according to canon this never happened
to Voldemort.) So in a way, he's not culpable. Yet the infusion with a
drop of love-saturated blood apparently renders him capable of making
a - courageous - choice. So in a different way, he *is* culpable. 

Attempting to wrap my mind about this, I see a peculiar mixture of
realism and symbolism, in that the literal level of storytelling seems
to say one thing, and the symbolic level seems to say something
diametrically opposed. The result, for me, is a kind of cognitive
dissonance. The HP books aim for realism (also as per JKR herself),
yet at one of the most crucial points of the whole series it takes an
injection with pure symbolism to make the story work. Many people on
this list don't seem to have a problem with this, but I do.   

In RL and in realistic stories, psychopaths can't be helped with a
transfusion of morally sound blood, as there is no such thing as
morally sound blood. But in a symbolical tale, a psychopath who
apparently was already beyond help at age eleven is not the most lucky
of characters to represent a *choice* between good and evil, between
redemption and perdition. This only creates confusion. And the fact
that a mental illness is discussed in moral terms doesn't help either.
To me, terms like psychopathy and redemption are phenomena of a
different order and should not be lumped together the way JKR does in
the interview. 

The confusion created by JKR's comments is often deplorable. Not for
the first time, I wish she'd keep her mouth shut whenever an
interviewer steers her towards interpreting her own story for us. The
books never call Voldemort a psychopath  Yet in his case, her use of
the term in an interview wasn't really needed to illustrate the
problem. A boy who is genetically and environmentally doomed to become
mentally ill but made morally accountable through a purely symbolical
act - to me, that's a narrative monster.

Don't misunderstand me: I still like the Harry Potter books. They have
a great deal to offer when it comes to dealing with the lure of power
and ambition, coping with death, showing the power of love and the
value of courage. I still think they're highly entertaining and
engrossing reads. But on some counts, and notably when it comes to
handling the character of the Evil Overlord, they fail dismally
because of an unsuccesful blend of realism and symbolism. From now on,
I think I'll stick to a symbolical reading only, for instance Debbie's
wonderful interpretation of the Epilogue.  

*sigh of relief* I've managed to label it. Now I can finally stop
fretting! Maybe someone else who agrees with me, can tackle this
problem with regard to the the role of Slytherin House, another
notorious stumbling block.

Renee