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

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 176185

> lizzyben:
> You've articulated exactly why that part was so horrifying to me. 
> Yes, Harry is brave, & yes, he's making a sacrifice. But he's not 
> doing it as an independent act, he's doing it because his Leader 
> wants him to. 

zgirnius:
This is not the reason given in the book. 

> DH, "The Forest Again":
> Dumbledore's betrayal was almost nothing.

<snip>

> And Dumbledore had known that Harry would not duck out, that he 
would keep going to the end, because he had taken the trouble to get 
to know him, hadn't he? Dumbledore knew, as Voldemort knew, that 
Harry wouldn't let anyone else die for him now that he had discovered 
it was in his power to stop it.

zgirnius:
I spent a couple of years debating the motives of one Severus Snape, 
which never struck me as odd, because we see little of him, and that 
through the eyes of a boy who despises him, and hear little of him, 
and that from other characters who like him little more. Without 
agreeing, I could see why other people might form vastly different 
ideas of him than I did. I find it odd to be discussing the 
motivations of the viewpoint character, which are explicitly stated 
in the text, in the form of accounts of his thought processes coming 
from the narrator who sees inside him.

In addition to the first line I cited (Dumbledore's *betrayal*), and 
the stated evidence for why Harry is walking to his death (the rest 
of my quote), there is additional evidence Harry is not doing it for 
Dumbledore - *he* is not among those Harry brings back with the 
Resurrection Stone. He is not one of Harry's beloved dead, anymore. 

>lizzyben:
> And Harry never even tries to consider if there might 
> be another way to do this, never even considers that his Leader 
> might be lying to him about this. (And why wouldn't he? He knows 
> now that DD did lie to him in the past.) 

zgirnius:
I suppose Voldemort's ultimatum is not a reason for Harry to act now 
rather than later?

Anyway, Harry sees/feels the truth of it - he has, after all, been 
living with that connection for quite some time. He also sees the 
logic of the plan, precisely because he *is* capable of "critical 
thinking".

> DH, "The Forest Again":
> Now he saw that his life span had been determined by how long it 
took to eliminate all the Horcruxes. Dumbledore had passed the job of 
destroying them to him, and obediently he had continued to chip away 
at the bonds tying not only Voldemort, but himself, to life! How 
neat, how elegant, not to waste any more lives, but to give the 
dangerous task to the boy who had already been marked for slaughter, 
and whose death would not be a calamity, but another blow against 
Voldemort.

zgirnius:
That's why he believes Dumbledore. Because, far from being stupid, 
dull, and easily led, Harry is a bright enough boy when he cares to 
apply himself. He sees the full elegance and parsimony of the plan 
from the point of view of Dumbledore the Puppetmaster, and it makes 
sense.

Only the later revelations (that Harry was *not* supposed to die, and 
*that* was the goal of Dumbledore's plans) cause Harry to revise his 
views. Not to resume being Dumbledore's pupil and follower (as you 
would have it, it seems) but to recognize that Dumbledore did love 
him, and want him to survive, which allows Harry to see him, again, 
as a friend.