Dumbledore's Plan/Deaths in DH/Catharsis

[lizzyben04]

No: HPFGUIDX 177520

> Carol responds:
> 
> I can't argue with your emotional response to DH, nor am I trying 
to
> change it, which would be futile. But I do think you're taking 
certain
> assumptions for granted--Dumbledore as "God," for example without 
giving any supporting evidence or considering the
> evidence to the contrary. I agree that Harry is a Christ figure, 
but
> that does not make him Christ (as I've explained in other posts). 

lizzyben:

Regarding DD as God-figure: JKR has called him God-like. I don't 
think he's God. But he serves as a metaphor for God. In DH, Harry 
loses his faith in God, wanders in the wilderness without guidance, 
and feels that the signs his God has left him are useless. He 
wonders if God ever loved him at all. After Harry's crisis of faith, 
he eventually chooses to submit to God's will & show obedience to 
God's plan, sacrificing his life for the good of the world. As a 
reward, he receives God's love & approval; and returns to earth as a 
Christ-figure. In that sense, it works well as a Christian allegory. 

In fact, that's the only way it works. Because if DD is just a 
manipulative, ruthless old man, it is sheer lunacy for Harry to 
obediently trot off to death on his say-so. It's creepy for his 
family to cheer him on to his martydom. It was wrong for Harry & 
Snape to have trusted him. If DD is just a flawed person that uses 
his followers, he starts to seem more like a cult leader telling 
Harry to drink the Kool-Aid; or a terrorist leader telling the young 
recruit to martyr himself for his political cause. In that case, 
Harry's willing, unthinking submission to authority is not an 
inspiring tale of faith, but a disturbing example of his unthinking 
obedience to a brainwashing leader. Either DD is God, or it's a 
tragedy. Either this book is "Pilgrim's Progress", or it's "1984". I 
think it's a little of both.

Carol:
> Regarding the Invisibility Cloak, I think you may be confusing the
> properties attributed to the cloak in the fairytale of the Three
> Brothers with the properties of the Invisibility Cloak created by
> Harry's ancestor Ignotus Peverell. 

lizzyben:

I'm not confusing the properties of the cloak. JKR creates a fable 
in which the third brother makes the "right" choice, a cloak that 
allows him to hide from death. At the end, Harry again makes 
the "right" choice, giving up power & choosing invisibility. That 
JKR says that "hiding from death" is a good thing, while also saying 
that "fearing death" is a bad thing, is another example of the 
metaphorical confusion of the novel.

Carol:
> Harry, of course, does not wear the cloak all the time, and even 
if he
> did, it alone would not make him Master of Death. The Master of 
Death
> is the rightful owner of all three Hallows, 

lizzyben:

And can anyone tell me what being the "master of death" actually 
means? What's the title get you? 

Carol:
Once Voldemort's Horcruxes are destroyed,
> Voldemort becomes mortal, killed by his own deflected Killing 
Curse,
> which relates to the Elder Wand (as far as I can determine), not to
> the Invisibility Cloak or to the (deliberately relinquished)
> Resurrection Stone. And once LV is dead, the blood protection that
> Lily gave Harry, which operated against Voldemort (including, I 
think,
> Voldemort's henchmen acting on his orders) but not against death in
> other forms ceases to exist.

lizzyben:

Yes, the "Power the Dark Lord knows not" came down to a super-
powerful Wand. Harry gained the allegiance of an amoral power, and 
that power, gained by force, allowed him to take out LV. The 
whole "love" speculation was just silliness. Harry never entered the 
locked room. He never had to learn how to love someone to beat LV. 
He didn't have to show compassion to beat LV. He just needed force. 

The philosophy of the Elder Wand is: "There is no good & evil, there 
is only power & those to weak to seek it." And that's the power that 
gave Harry victory in the end. The Elder Wand was the only Hallow 
that really mattered - while the "good" Hallows were
useless. So the "bad" Hallow, the one he shouldn't use, was the one 
that helped Harry to achieve victory. Mixed messages much.