On being Lucky (was On lying and cheating)

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 165903

Lupinlore:
> > 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.

magpie:
> 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.

Ceridwen:
The people in Real Life who have the apparent favor of the gods die 
young.  They die spectacularly in a blaze of glory.  It seems that 
the luckier a person is at one time, rather than having that luck 
spread out over a lifetime, the sooner they die.  I'm talking about 
amazing prodigies like Mozart and Poe, who both had their luck, their 
talents, early, then shuffled off this mortal coil.  I'm also 
thinking about the ones who 'live fast, love hard, die young' and 
those elevated people who are a cross between the two.

The Marauders are a good example of this.  Peter was never the sort 
of lucky, gods-blessed person like James and Sirius.  He's still 
alive, though he's a creepy little man who is not the sort of guy 
you'd like to hang around with.  Lupin never had the same spark as 
James and Sirius, he was more easy-going.  We saw a moment of failure 
for him in Snape's Worst Memory, and it wasn't anything like the 
aggressive actions taken by James and Sirius.  His failing was no 
action when it was warranted.  Lupin is still alive.  The ones who 
blazed in the brightest light of the gods' favor, James and Sirius, 
are dead.

Luck runs out.  There are warnings in some religions about taking the 
hero's path to glory.  It's a viable path; it's a short but amazing 
journey.  But you can't seem to have it both ways.  The hero fights, 
the hero wins, women adore him, men wish they could be him (turn it 
around for a heroine, I'm too lazy to him/her this!).  Meteoric - 
streaking across the heavens for a split second, then dying in a 
burst of flame.  The smiling god is no longer smiling.  The hero is 
taken to Valhalla.

So, I'm not so sure the favor of the gods is a good thing in life 
overall.  It's like the gods in this case are parents of a terminally 
ill child who is being pampered early in life because a dire fate 
awaits.

Ceridwen.