On being Lucky (was On lying and cheating)

sistermagpie belviso at attglobal.net
Fri Mar 9 18:23:00 UTC 2007


No: HPFGUIDX 165895


> > Betsy Hp:
> > But it's another unintended consequence.  So again, Harry does 
> > something stupid (lies) but luckily it turns out to give him a 
brain 
> > storm on how to get in good with Slughorn? Is that supposed to 
> > reflect well on him?

Lupinlore
> > 
> 
> Yes, I suppose it is. You talk about being Lucky as if it was a 
minor 
> or unimportant or unpraisworthy thing.  Many times it's not.  
Indeed, 
> there are plenty of human cultures who have, over time, held that 
being 
> lucky is a personal attribute every bit as important as being 
> intelligent or brave or anything else.  It is, after all, a sign 
of 
> Divine Favor.  And although many (but not all) modern religions 
don't 
> specifically equate being Lucky with being Favored of God, that is 
> still the gut reaction of most people.
> 
> On a less philosophical level, Harry quite simply IS the favored 
of 
> God -- or of JKR, who amounts to the same thing in the context of 
the 
> Potterverse.  OF COURSE he's going to have incredible runs of good 
> fortune, timely interventions of fate, and plentiful unintended 
> consequences from which he is going to reap the rewards.  That is 
what 
> being the Favored of God gets for you.  It's a fact of life in 
> literature -- and beyond literature, for that matter.
> 
> This even speaks to the conflict between Harry and Snape.  Snape, 
> bless his abusive little heart, is UNlucky, and that isn't a good 
> thing.  The Unlucky are the invisible lepers of the world, for 
deep in 
> their guts most people regard them as being Despised of God as 
much as 
> the lucky are favored.  Why are people so uncomfortable in the 
face of 
> misfortune?  Well, there are many reasons, some laudable and some 
not.  
> One of the most powerful, and least admirable, is that faced with 
an 
> unlucky person people have a deep superstitious dread that the 
disfavor 
> of God will rub off.  Faced with someone like the teenage Snape 
> who is, let's admit it, quite a loser, the automatic reaction is 
to 
> keep your distance lest the plague of unluck infect you.  So Snape 
> hates Harry because Harry has that powerful and triumphant thing 
that 
> Snape doesn't have -- luck.  And he hates Neville because Neville 
> is a mirror of himself in the luck arena -- except that Neville 
rubs 
> salt in the wounds by actually experiencing a change in his luck 
over 
> time, largely by garnering the good favor of people more lucky 
than 
> himself -- or more accurately and more viscerally, he sticks close 
> enough to God's Favored that some of the luck rubs off.
> 
> It even speaks to the position of Hermione in the saga.  Hermione 
is, 
> after all, smarter than Harry, brave (albeit in a different way), 
and 
> as a muggleborn faced with a much higher set of social barriers.  
So 
> why is Harry the Hero and Hermione the Sidekick?  And I know at 
least 
> one feminist literature professor who constantly fumes because for 
all 
> Hermione's sterling qualities, it has been made extremely clear 
that 
> she isn't the hero and never will be.  The answer is that Harry is 
the 
> favored of fortune, as the Romans might say, or the favorite of 
JKR, as 
> we would say, and Hermione, for all her estimable qualities, isn't.
> 
> So, it all comes down to this -- Harry is JKR's favorite 
character.  He 
> gets the luck, Snape doesn't.  He gets to be the hero, Hermione 
> doesn't.  He gets the girl, Neville doesn't.  He most likely gets 
to 
> live, Dumbledore doesn't.  He makes mistakes and garners rewards 
from 
> it.  He is facing a wizard who, under any rules of logic you can 
> imagine, ought to have easily killed him a dozen times by now -- 
and in 
> the end he will beat said wizard and said wizard's henchman who 
> are "nearly as terrible as he."  How does he accomplish all this?  
He 
> is the Favored of the God of the Potterverse.
> 
> So yeah, it's wise to praise and value Harry's luck.  After all, 
if you 
> were a Potterverse character, a little bit of it might just rub 
off on 
> you.

Magpie:
Very interesting post! And I basically agree...and yet I think 
there's different ways that something can reflect well on Harry. I 
believe in the original context Betsy was talking about it wouldn't 
make sense to admire Harry for his actions. What you're describing 
is, as you say, a superstitious idea that Harry is favored by the 
gods. Harry clearly is favored by the god of his universe, but 
that's a very specific thing to admire in him. Many people admire 
other characters more when they aren't favored if they think, for 
instance, that they have done something admirable. If Harry is 
lucky, that's all the more reason not to model ourselves on his 
actions--if a person not favored by the gods did it, it would get 
them into trouble. Harry gets rewarded for his mistakes, but they're 
still mistakes.

And Snape isn't actually as unlucky as he presents himself. He has a 
negative, glum outlook and seems to always by default see himself as 
put-upon, but Snape's hung around way longer than a lot of his 
contemporaries. Nobody would have doubted back in the 70s that the 
Marauders were the ones favored by the gods--handsome, cool, 
popular, talented, smart, getting away with stuff. And how did their 
lives turn out? Peter's a pathetic wreck of a slave and a murderer, 
Lupin until recently was jobless, alone and barely above the poverty 
line. Sirius lost his whole life and then died absurdly after 
further imprisonment. James, for all his early glamour, was just 
there to be sacrificed. All of them suffered pretty sad fates, 
sometimes coming right out of their own flaws.

It's Snape who turned out to be indispensible, to have power and be 
needed by Dumbledore and, perhaps, Voldemort. Snape's the one 
protecting James son, not James, until HBP. Snape's actions are on 
the whole more important to the outcome of things, at times, than 
Harry's. Harry is clearly the Chosen One, but the Chosen One isn't 
always the best one in a narrative in every way. I believe it's 
Charles who gets the girl in Tale of Two Cities, but it's Sydney 
Carton we remember best and admire most, isn't it? Marius is the 
lucky one in Les Miserables, but Jean Valjean is, I would guess, 
more often the favorite (as is Eponine as opposed to Cosette). I've 
always prefered Edmund to Peter in Narnia. In HP, Snape's survival 
could perhaps be seen as a form of luck in itself. It conceivable 
could take a good deal of luck to become both Dumbledore's and 
Voldemort's right hand man. 

In fact, I might say that sometimes the book does sort of contrast 
the two different kinds of luck. Harry and Snape both want to 
protect the Philosopher's Stone. Harry saves it through being the 
one favored by the Gods, doing the wrong thing and having it turn 
out right. Snape is the one who more figures out what's really going 
on. Harry's role is obviously held above Snape's, but Snape isn't 
wrong so much as just in a supporting role. Harry's destruction of 
Quirrel seems to be a sign of his greater gifts as a hero, but he 
also learns that he was wrong about Snape.

Ultimately I don't think it's necessarily wrong if a readers thinks 
less of--or is just less interested/impressed by--Lucky Harry than 
Unlucky, sullen DDM!Snape who brought his bad fortune on himself and 
doggedly sticks to his own ideas about honor to try to make it right 
to himself while still turning people off with his cloud of 
unluckiness. I think at least that Rowling has shown an interest in 
Snape's kind of redemption story. 

Ironically, in HBP the very question is brought up in terms of Felix 
Felicitas. Slughorn, iirc, warns against using it too much because 
it leads to reckless behavior. That kind of links back to maybe what 
others were saying about Harry in general in this case. Being 
favored by the gods can sometimes be an obstacle to personal 
development.

-m





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