Voldemort/Re: Ending

[lizzyben04]

No: HPFGUIDX 176221

> 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. 


lizzyben:

And this gets into a whole other level of weirdness - so Harry's very
*blood* is moral?? Harry's blood is what allows him to make moral
choices or courageous choices? "Goodness" isn't something you achieve
over time, or learn from experience or good examples, it's something
that courses through your veins from birth - something you are either
born with or born without. And this has a parallel w/the Gaunts - whom
she implies have "bad" blood because of their focus on maintaining
Slytherin lineage. So, in a sense, Harry is the ultimate "pure blood"
- because his blood is pure & moral. And the Slytherins have "bad
blood", and "bad blood" will out eventually. (OMG, doesn't Aunt Marge
say that about her dogs??). It's creepy creepy!


Renee:
> 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.   


lizzyben:

Yeah, that's exactly it & that's probably the source of my cognitive
dissonance as well. JKR switches between symbolic & realistic so fast
that it gives you whiplash - are the Slytherins symbols of moral
failings, or are they actual children who have toys & dolls & parents
who love them? And she sometimes throws symbols together in ways that
clash & create confusion. (Harry as Christ, Harry as Avenger.)

Renee:
> 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. 

lizzyben:

The way she says "that was his choice" was a little chilling to me -
he never had a choice, really, as most people acknowledge. And yet in
the same breath she says "and, of course, he wouldn't (repent)" - if
it's a given that LV wouldn't repent, how is it a choice? You get into
this weird circular reasoning - LV had a choice, but that choice was
already predestined.

And she also says that she wanted to write about cruelty & inhumanity
because "it's about choice". "And you are shown that Voldemort." So,
the psychopath who can't choose goodness is her example of the ability
to choose goodness over cruelty? Talk about confusing! 

Renee:
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. 


lizzyben:

Yes, that is definitely another concern. JKR doesn't seem to make any
allowances for mental illness at all through the novels; instead she
seems to actually characterize it as a personal moral failing. I'm
thinking here of Merope & Snape as well - both very damaged people
that JKR condemns as immoral & unworthy. Of course, if you take the
predestination to its ultimate end, it *is* their fault that they are
damaged by their environment - because a superior person would have
gotten over it. 

Renee:
> 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.

lizzyben:

It makes no sense to me at all. It seems like a dodge so that JKR
doesn't have to feel bad about predestining LV to damnation. The
weirdest thing, to me, is that she seems to think that the ending
*shows* that LV could repent because of Harry's super-moral blood. Uh,
did *anyone* here get that impression from the finale? In the debate
on this issue, I haven't seen one person say that LV could feel
remorse because he had Harry's blood, but JKR seems to think that
message was obvious in the last chapter. It's stuff like this that
makes me think sometimes that the book she wrote is totally
different from the book fans read.