The link between love and courage (and HRH's occupations) (Was: Harry lives...)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 173000

Kit wrote:
> I didn't mean to suggest otherwise -- I only meant that, in my view,
Dobby has an innocence that the adult witches and wizards don't share.
 Dobby's death *was* heroic -- he was "a warrior by choice," as you
say. But it's my belief that his motivation was his love for Harry,
first and foremost, and love for the cause only insofar as that is
Harry's cause -- and in his eyes Harry's cause must be the right
cause. (Remember that when Dobby first appears he is trying to keep
Harry safe by preventing Harry from going to, or remaining at, school
-- even though this is not what Harry himself wants. His priority is
Harry's safety.) Dobby and his fellow elves, whether some be free or
not, have no guarantee that they will benefit if Voldemort is defeated
-- and they have every reason to believe that the average witch or
wizard isn't overly concerned with their welfare. I felt that Dobby's
decision to risk his life for Harry's was both a very brave and a very
altruistic one for that reason; he put his life on the line for the
person he loved, time and time again.

Carol responds:

Your post just turned on a lightbulb for me. Courage and love,
personal love, not Agape, are linked. Even Narcissa has the courage to
lie to the Dark Lord at the last. Snape, whom JKR still considers
spiteful, according to this morning's today interview, was
nevertheless "immensely, immensely brave" because of his love for
Lily. Kreacher may reform because Harry is kind to him and treats him
as he thinks a house-elf should be treated, but it's "Master Regulus,
champion of house-elves," the master who died for him (another act of
immense courage based on love of a house-elf!), not principle. Harry
himself would surely never have had the courage to walk to what he
thought would be his death without the love of his friends (and, I
suppose, the hallowed dead who walked beside him). So Dumbledore was
right. The most powerful weapon is the world is Love, not principle or
belief in a cause (though love gets tied in with the defeat of
Voldemort, the antithesis of Love, for all these people and creatures.
Oh, and Molly killing Bellatrix to protect her daughter from dying
like Fred.

BTW, for all the people complaining that Rowling didn't give enough
information in the epilogue, Harry and Ron become Aurors (or course)
and Hermione is high up in some MoM department (I didn't catch it, but
it's probably related to magical creatures). Didn't we all know that's
what they would do? She didn't mention poor George, though, or any
characters except HRH. I assume that a video of the interview will be
up on Leaky soon. (The links posted there now reveal how she felt
about the characters' deaths but not their occupations; there's no
transcript yet. Part 2 of the interview airs tomorrow.)

Carol, wondering how JKR could fail to realize that Snape is her
greatest creation