Harry and Snape's Salvation (Re: No progress for Slytherin?)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 173828


> > Magpie:
> > Sometimes the compassion
> > might scald a person, yes, but usually it's based on true empathy
> > and more importantly *humility* which is something Harry never 
ever
> > has to learn, because he's superior.
> 
> 
> montims:
> you see, I don't believe Harry is "superior" - he has been 
selected by the
> prophecy, and has to react to many different challenges because of 
it.  But
> as he continually tries to explain, and Ron finally gets, most of 
it comes
> about by luck, the help of friends, and DD's guidance.  He is a 
good person
> because he has suffered as a child and consequently has empathy 
for others
> who suffer.  But he's not superior, and I think at the end would 
never claim
> to be superior.  To what/whom?  Slytherins?  Muggles?  House elfs?
> Goblins?  LV? - well, maybe.  But he sees too often how his initial
> judgements are incorrect, and that people are not black and white 
as they
> might first appear.  If he is superior, who is his inferior?

Magpie:
I think taking it out of context changes the meaning a little bit. 

I was responding to Lupinlore's thoughts about Harry's forgiving 
Snape because he's a Christ figure, not whether Harry himself would 
claim to be superior. (Though I think the text presents him as 
superior to lots of people, and that although he's been wrong in the 
past, it's usually a case of not having information that changes the 
person he is judging.)

Lupinlore was describing Harry as compassionate by saying:

"It seems clear to me that what JKR is getting at with her comments 
is that Harry, as appropriate for a Christ-like figure, has 
transcended much of what went before -- particularly he has 
transcended and become superior to certain personalities. He has 
moved beyond both Snape and Dumbledore. Dumbledore says that he has 
long known that Harry is a better man than he. Harry is becoming the 
true figure of forgiveness and light and compassion that Dumbledore 
appeared to be but never really was. If Harry were to be confronted 
with a living Snape, he would probably view him with pity and 
compassion."

In other words, the kind of compassion that would lead Harry to 
forgive Snape and view him with compassion is removed from normal 
human feeling. Harry does it because he is now a superior being 
(which is where that term came from--not my saying that Harry has 
named himself such), he is Christ-like, and that's what Christs do. 
It's like a super power, not something that is just right for him to 
do and would be wrong not to do--though real humans forgive people 
for less than Harry has to forgive Snape for and with less reason. 

I don't think Harry approaches anything anything like a Christ 
figure in that sense, and don't think you'd need to be to forgive 
Snape. It's like, I don't know, saying Snape acheives the level of 
Buddha when he actually chooses to stop being a DE and stop 
murdering people.

So I was just saying that it was not part of Harry's development to 
be humbled and see a real connection between himself and the uglier 
parts of his enemies, which I consider a bare minimum of a character 
who's a model of compassion. Sure there's times when he shows 
compassion, but never in ways that I imagine any reader of the book 
wouldn't easily show as well. There's times, actually, where Harry-
and maybe not just Harry--seem to be singled out as impressive for 
doing stuff that seems pretty ordinary to me--by which I don't mean 
the reader has necessarily been in the same situation, but if they 
were put in that situation, they probably would. In many ways I'd 
actually consider Harry the opposite of a role model for this 
particular virtue. I don't mean that as a total slam on Harry in 
general, he just doesn't really seem to be about that particular 
virtue. 

It's not that Harry is walking around saying he's better than 
others, it's that I think Lupinlore might be somewhat right about 
how Harry's presented that way. And this kind of plugs into my 
general disappointment with the end of the book, why it felt like it 
fell short of possibilities and seemed a bit artificially stagnant 
about its own story--which maybe translates into my having personal 
expectations that just weren't the same as what the author was 
interested in. That's what I think it really was, actually. It's not 
a mistake on her part. It just makes for a story that, you know, 
isn't a favorite for me. 

-m