Red Herrings and Reconciliation

[Bex]

No: HPFGUIDX 173636

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Annemehr" <annemehr at ...> wrote:
>
> 
> Estelle:
> >    It seems that what has left me unsatisfied is lack of 
> > reconciliation in many areas of the book.
> <snip>
> >  will Lily forgive Snape in the afterlife, is there reconciliation 
> between them? Is 
> > there reconciliation and forgiveness between he and the mauraders?
> <snip> 
> 
> Annemehr:
> Yes, and there are other great rifts: Dumbledore/Grindelwald (which 
> seems to parallel Godric/Salazar), Lily/Petunia, Wormtail/Marauders, 
> Crouch Jr./Sr. (even though they lived together for years), Wizarding 
> World/Muggle World ("That rift is permanent," according to JKR), and 
> Tom Riddle/everyone else.  All together, they seem like quite a lot, 
> even considering the length of the series.
> 
> There are comparitively fewer instances of reconciliation that I can 
> bring to mind: Ron/Harry and Hermione (well, the boy's got a hot 
> head, but a good heart!), Harry/Cho, Percy/Weasley family, 
> Harry/Dudley (a biggie!). (I don't think I'll count Sirius/Remus, as 
> they didn't reconcile differences, they got new information.)
>
<snip>
> 
> I have the feeling that JKR has a sense that once a certain line is 
> crossed, reconciliation becomes all but impossible.  And though each 
> instance of a permanent break seems to have a definite "good" 
> and "bad" side, those for which we are given details become much less 
> black-and-white.

Bex now:
I think that Annemehr is on the right track here - for Tommy Riddle,
you can only go so far and still be able to go back.

IMO, I think JK is telling us, especially with Lily/Snape, and
MMWP/Snape, W/MMP, and Lily/Petunia, that the saddest part of a war 
is that someitmes, you don't get that chance for reconciliation.
Surely Petunia feels awful for not making up with Lily before she
died, once she realized what had happened at GH. And poor, poor
Severus never did get the chance to show Lily that he had finally made
the right choice. I think JKR is getting at the fact that when people
die, there ARE threads left loose in the tapestry - not everything
gets tied up all neat and tidy. (Or she could have left me with that
impression unintentionally - though I think my opinion is a little
closer to the mark than most of my theories have been as of late.)

~Bex