Dark Magic

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 176594

lizzyben wrote:

<snip>
> > So when we hate these people, take revenge against these people,
use violence against these people, we don't have to feel bad about it
- we can actually feel very good & self-righteous about it. Normally,
you would feel bad about hurting someone, but when that person is a
"Dark Wizard", you can feel like it's actually justified as part of a
larger battle between good vs. evil... and you are now on the side of
good. <snip>

Carol responds:

Forgive me, but I think you're missing a major point that I've made
several times.  From the time he hears the Prophecy until the time he
receives Snape's message indicating that he has to sacrifice himself,
Harry believes that he will have to kill Voldemort or be killed by
him. In OoP, he goes so far as to say that he will have to murder or
be murdered. The only reason for committing such a murder would, of
course, be vengeance against Voldemort for killing his parents and all
the other atrocities he's committed or caused to be committed since
that time. (I'm surprised, BTW, that so few posts are actually
examining conditions in the WW during DH, the result of the Voldie
regime even though he's off on a quest of his own.) What actually
happens, thanks to Snape's message, is very different. Harry
sacrifices himself as an act of love, expecting to die, not raising a
wand to defend himself. Vengeance has nothing to do with it. And even
after he returns from King's Cross, he still casts only Expelliarmus,
the spell Snape taught him that has come to symbolize both a symbolic
shift in a wand's allegiance without an act of violence and an act of
mercy in itself (see Harry's reasons for not casting it against Stan
Shunpike). Even though Voldemort killed Harry's parents, the final
confrontation (Acts I and II) has nothing to do with vengeance and
everything to do with enlightening Voldie with regard to everything
from wands to Snape's allegiance to his one chance to escape a dark
and terrible fate.

Similarly, Harry has hated Snape for seven books. At the end of OoP
and beginning of HBP, he unfairly blames him for Sirius Black's death.
("He would never forgive Snape. Never!") By the end of HBP, he has new
and seemingly more valid reasons for hating him--the eavesdropping
incident and the "murder" of Dumbledore. Twice (once in HBP and once
in DH) he expresses the desire to meet Snape again, apparently under
the delusion that he could win a duel against a Legilimens/Occlumens
who's also an expert in nonverbal spells and parrying curses.
Forgiveness has no more place than common sense in his thinking; all
he wants is revenge against Severus Snape. He watches Snape's death
with shock and horror despite still hating the man he sees as DD's
murderer and betrayer, and the Pensieve memories enable him to
understand and forgive the man who killed DD on DD's orders, who
protected him all these years without understanding or gratitude, who
loved Harry's mother and redeemed himself at terrible personal cost
for his role in her death.

Thanks primarily to Snape, Harry's desire for vengeance is gone,
replaced by understanding of and empathy with Snape and the painful
realization that he can't go into battle with Voldemort armed with a
desire for revenge or even with righteous indignation. He must, like a
martyr in early Christian times, walk into the (figurative) arena
unarmed and give himself up as a sacrifice. Rather than an act of
vengeance, he must perform the supreme act of love, not, as his mother
had done, for a single loved one, but for the whole WW, from his
friends Ron and Hermione to the now pathetic Draco Malfoy, from
powerful wizards like Kingsley Shacklebolt and the now-dead Snape to
the lowliest house-elf. 

In DH, Harry goes from the desire for vengeance against two enemies,
one real and one perceived, to pity and compassion for almost
everyone, even concern for the future state of Voldemort's soul (which
he tries to prevent by offering him a chance at remorse). Except with
regard to Snape and LV, we see signs of changes in him early on. He
has already learned to accept and value the oddballs Neville and Luna;
he appreciates Mrs. Weasley's sacrifices and fears (the incident with
Fabian Prewett's watch); he develops an appreciation for Regulus
Black's sacrifice and understanding and respect for Kreacher; he
mourns Dobby's death and tries to deal honorably with a goblin, whom
he saves from the wrath of Bellatrix. I'm sure there are other
examples that I'm forgetting, but except for his brief temptation to
seek the Hallows rather than the Horcruxes and that accursed Crucio,
Harry in DH is for the most part a more mature, more understanding,
less self-absorbed and self-righteous protagonist than we've seen in
any of the other HP books. When he forgives Snape, the last remaining
temptation toward vengeance disappears.

Granted, there's still a battle, and in any battle, personal grudges
will motivate the participants. Mrs. Weasley's wrath is fueled by
mother love and righteous anger, Percy's and Ron's by grief and anger
over Fred's death. But Harry himself has no such motivation. All he
wants, in the end, is for fewer families to suffer and the WW to be
healed.

Carol, who sees Harry's character arc not as the triumph *of*
vengeance but as the triumph *over* vengeance