The Fundamental Message.../ Heroes...

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 176314

> Betsy Hp:
> "Lying with his face pressed into the dusty carpet of the office 
> where he had once thought he was learning the secrets of victory, 
> Harry understood at last that he was not supposed to survive." [DH 
> scholastic p.691]
> 
> "He had never questioned his own assumption that Dumbledore wanted 
> him alive. [ibid p.692]
> 
> "And Dumbledore had known that Harry would not duck out, that he 
> would going to the end, even though it was *his* end..." [ibid 
p.693]
> 
> Harry never once questions Dumbledore's plan.  His thoughts are all 
> about how Dumbledore is right, and isn't this sad, but I'm a brave 
> boy so here I go.  It is, IMO, the very definition of *not 
thinking*. <SNIP>

Alla:

How do those quotes show Harry not thinking about the plan, when this 
is what he is doing? Thinking about it? No, seriously, his thoughts 
are about the plan, are they not?

There is no Headmaster to force him, Headmaster is dead.  How is it 
non-thinking if Harry comes to the same conclusion as Dumbledore? If 
I agree with some argument that somebody else advances, does it mean 
that I am not *thinking* about it, or does it mean that I just came 
to the same conclusion?

And of course especially when it is mentioned that Harry realizes 
that Dumbledore betrayed him. Can't he appreciate Dumbledore's plans 
on his own?

By the way, what **are** the arguments against it that you see? 
Assuming of course that you are in Harry's skin and you do not want 
any more people to die for him. Harry certainly does not want to die 
and he mentions it several times in chapter 34, but he does it anyway 
to save lives IMO.

I mean, can't Harry evaluate Dumbledore's plan and realize that it 
was a **good** plan in a sense that it will save people without being 
Dumbledore's follower, but his own man?

And with apologies to Zara for just reciting her canon:

> 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.


Alla:

I do think that it shows Harry thinking about the plan. The fact that 
Harry comes to the same conclusion as Dumbledore does not IMO equal 
him not thinking about it.


Betsy Hp: 
> I would have much preferred that Harry come to the "I must die" 
> conclusion *on his own* rather than hearing it from his dead 
> headmaster.  I'd have also preferred he face arguments *against* it 
> than all of his dead loved ones coming round to cheer him on. 
> 
> There are a series of articles on DH by Daniel Hemmens that do an 
> excellent job pointing out exactly what I had problems with, and in 
> one of them he says this:
> 
> "Having seen in the pensieve that Dumbledore intended for him to be 
> killed by Voldemort, he [Harry] immediately decides to lay down and 
> die. Rowling, apparently, views this as the height of courage. The 
> act of a True Gryffindor. I view it as utterly craven."
> http://www.ferretbrain.com/articles/article-149.html
> 
> I completely agree.  Rather than making decisions on his own, Harry 
> follows instructions.  Which, IMO, means he never really becomes a 
> man.  Certainly not his own man, anyway.

Alla:

IMO during whole chapter 34 it had been shown that Harry does not 
just immediately decides to lay down and die.  To me it had been 
clearly shown that Harry does it, against all his instincts to fight 
for live – for others and for himself.



Oh well, I will just recite my canon as well.

"The suffocating feeling extinguished the end of the sentence, he
could not go on" - p.696

"Ripples of cold undulated over Harry's skin. he wanted to shout out
in the night, he wanted Ginny to know that he was there, he wanted her
to know where he was going. he wanted to be stopped, to be dragged
back, to be sent back home..." - p.697

"Nobody spoke. They seemed as scared as Harry, whose heart was now
throwing himself against his ribs as though determined to escape the
body he was about to cast aside. His hands were sweating as he pulled
off the Invisibiluty Cloak and stuffed beneath his robes, with his
wand. He did not want to be tempted to fight.
"I was. It seems... mistaken," said Voldemort.
"You weren't.

Harry said it as loudly as he could, with all the force he could
master. He did not want to sound afraid." - p.703.

"all those
times he'd thought that it was about to happen and escaped, he had
never really thought of the thing itself..."