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

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 174034

Carol earlier:
> > Hermione (who seems finally to have grasped the psychology of
house-elves) tells Harry that Kreacher is loyal to people who are kind
to him 
> 
> Magpie:
> Again, not exactly a sophisticated examination of compassion at all. 
> It's a perfectly good development in the story, but no, I don't read 
> this section and think it's a great lesson in compassion. Kreacher's 
> psychology sounds a bit more canine than the average human to me.

Carol again:
I think maybe you don't like the whole idea of house-elves wanting to
serve human beings. You probably hated that line about wanting to ask
Kreacher for a sandwich at the end! I was a bit surprised by it, but
what I meant by Hermione understanding the psychology of house-elves
is that (as I read it) something in their natures makes them want to
serve wizards. Not that they're inferior in loyalty or courage or
intelligence or magical ability, just that it's their nature. With the
rare and perhaps unique exception of Dobby, they don't want to be
free. They just want to be treated with respect and kindness and use
their magic to do what they do exceptionally well. (So where did
Kreacher get the ingredients for French onion soup and treacle tart
when all the kids could find to eat was moldy bread? Is House-elf
magic that superior to wizards' magic?)

Also, Harry has to understand not only to be kind to Kreacher (which
is not enough initself to transfer his allegiance) but to respect and
honor Kreacher's devotion to Master Regulus. Giving him the locket
acknowledges that it's okay for Kreacher to love and honor the
Slytherin turned Death Eater who turned against Voldemort and died to
avenge Kreacher by subverting Voldemort. That's a huge turnaround from
regarding Kreacher as beneath contempt for what he did to Regulus's
brother Sirius. (It was actually Harry himself who was being set up to
be kidnapped, used to get down the Prophecy orb, and then killed, but
Harry doesn't see that clearly.)

At any rate, it may not be the attitude that you want Harry to adopt
toward house-elves, but surely giving a dog a clean kennel and
treating it with kindness is better than letting it live in filth and
treating it with contempt? (Or treating Kreacher as the Malfoys once
trated Dobby?) I'm not sure what you think would be better than
letting the house-elves serve happily with kind and fair treatment.
Giving the house-elves wands, letting them go to Hogwarts, and letting
them choose their own profession? Wouldn't that just be conforming
them to the norms of wizard society instead of letting them happily
serve as domestics? I'll bet that the surviving house-elves
immediately returned to the Hogwarts kitchen and resumed their normal
lives the moment the battle was over. And no doubt they served equally
good meals for Headmaster Snape as for Headmaster Dumbledore.
> 
Carol earlier:
> > If Harry is a Christ figure (and I do think he is), it's not 
because he shows compassion to everyone or to his "inferiors" <snip>
Harry's own suffering makes his compassion, or his empathy, or
whatever it is, possible. ,snip>
> 
> Magpie:
> I don't think Harry shows much empathy or compassion *at all* is my 
> point. It's not something I'd use to describe the character any more 
> than I'd say that Harry as a character is particularly nervous or 
> gluttonous or inventive. He doesn't have to exemplify every positive 
> trait to be a hero. Not that he doesn't show compassion at all ever, 
> but if I'm looking for a Christ figure in the compassion department, 
> Harry doesn't cut it. There are ordinary people walking around who 
> are by nature far more compassionate than Harry even at the end of 
> the series. I'm happy to give Harry props for all the virtues he has 
> in abundance. Compassion and empathy are not among them. He's not 
> completely without them, but he's no model for them, imo. Certainly 
> not the point where he's approaching a Christ-like level!

Carol:
Sorry about that. My own complex sentence structure, wanting to bring
in the people to whom I think he's shown compassion or empathy,
tripped me up. What I meant to say is that I don't think ist's his
compassion per se that makes him a Christ fiugre if he is one. It's
his willingness to sacrifice himself for the WW. And I don't think
that would have happened if he hadn't gotten past his hatred of Snape,
replacing it with empathy and understanding and, IMO, compassion, just
as he's learned empathy and compassion for the formerly scorned Luna
and Neville. The compassion, or the empathy with the others who have
suffered at Voldemort's hands, first glimpsed in GoF:

"It was Voldemort, Harry thought, staring up at the canopy of his bed
in the darkness, it all came back to Voldemort. He was the one who had
torn these families apart, who had ruined all these lives" (GoF Am.
ed. 607).

And by DH, Harry can add Severus Snape and Regulus Black to the list
of ruined lives and Andromeda Black Tonks' family to the list of those
torn apart.

I could quote passages where Harry shows compassion for Neville and
Luna and perhaps others because I think it's important to his
preparation for sacrificing himself after he receives Snape's last
message. But I didn't mean that compassion is his defining trait or
that it alone is what makes him a Christ figure (or interpretable as
one by those so inclined). 

Of course, his defining trait is courage, as, oddly enough, is
Snape's. (Much more so than Dumbledore's, BTW.) But to the extent that
the HP series is a Bildungsroman, a journey from Innocence through
Experience to Wisdom, I think we're meant to see the development of
compassion and of perception (seeing the good in others who are unlike
himself) as the chief fruits of his experience, making the man at the
end of the books (no Dumbledore, thank heaven!) much wiser and
open-minded than the boy we see throughout the series, including the
bulk of DH itself, before he encounters that other "abandoned boy" in
the Pensieve.

Carol, who must stop letting parenthetical asides strangle her
sentences like the locket Horcrux strangling Harry