Missing from 'Harry Potter' ? a real moral struggle

[Lee Kaiwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 173508

Feng Zengkun blessed us with this gem On 28/07/2007 23:32:

> Harry has no inner struggle - the
> choices he has to make are easy

Eggplant wrote:

>  It's easy to march into the Forbidden Forest to
>  be murdered by a maniac?

Perhaps the issue here is the word "easy". For myself, the issue is not 
really whether Harry's decisions are easy -- clearly they are very 
difficult -- but simply that, given Harry's nature, the final decision 
is never really in doubt.

I'm reminded of the Garden of Gethsemene. Though Christ wrestles 
mightily with the necessity of the Cross -- to the point of sweating 
blood -- there's never any real question of what decision he will make.

This is what, for me, makes Harry a less compelling character than 
Snape. That lack of doubt robs him of drama. Frodo, in LOTR, was in some 
ways, the exact opposite. Good in the beginning, he was eventually worn 
down by the struggle against evil and in the end succumbed. It was not 
merely his struggle -- Harry had that, as well -- but the fact that we 
can see him slowly succumbing -- which makes Frodo by far the more 
dramatic character.

CJ, Taiwan