[HPforGrownups] Was Death an easy choice for Harry to make WAS: Re:Back to Slytherin House

[Janette]

No: HPFGUIDX 176180

On 8/24/07, Sali Morris <salilouisa at googlemail.com> wrote:

> Marion:
> Harry Potter is just as courageous as a terrorist bomber. You have to
> admit,
> suicide bombers are pretty courageous. They willingly lay down their lives
> for an ideal, to fight what they think is Evil.
> Yup, suicide bombers are pretty courageous.
> I just don't think them very admirable, that's all.
>
> Sali:
> I didn't really want to get involved in this but I have to say that Harry
> strikes me as a very strange sort of terrorist/suicide bomber, laying down
> his life in such a manner that the only person who gets hurt (aside from
> himself) is the one person trying to kill him and in a situation which
> calls
> for no fight, no explosion, no possibility where anyone else can get
> accidentally caught in the crossfire. A situation where the only weapon
> (lets say weapon for the sake on analogy) fired was not fired (or caused
> to
> be fired) by him. In fact, a situation that his opponent had been trying
> to
> draw him into, as opposed to a sneak attack on innocents and
> non-combatants.
> This was also something that was happening at the height of a war, that
> both
> sides had been engaged in for some time. It did not happen out of the blue
> in the middle of peace, or a long distance from where any actual fighting
> was going on.


montims:
I would agree with this.  If anything, Harry's "suicide" is more along the
line's of Buddhist priests' self-immolation.  I'm at work, so can't look up
too much, but: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-immolation discusses it a
bit.
However, I would have put it, in fictional terms, as more like king vs king,
or "High Noon" for the American readers - where the goodie and baddie fight
it out once and for all, in the hopes that normal citizens will be able to
sleep soundly in their beds afterwards...  As Sali said, nobody else was
harmed, neither in the forest nor in the Great Hall, when LV and Harry
battled...


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