Dumbledore's Plan/Deaths in DH/Catharsis

[lizzyben04]

No: HPFGUIDX 177535

> > lizzyben:
It's
> > the total opposite of an emotional catharsis. 
> 
> Pippin:
> But it's always that way for the characters of tragedy. They don't
escape.
> The consolation is that we're not them. It's too late for them, not us.
> *We* don't have to be unaware of the agony of the neglected child
> until he's grown and leaving packages with ticking metal hearts 
> under benches at the train station. 

lizzyben:

Pippin, I really like your interpretation & I wish I could believe
that that's the lesson we're supposed to take. But if that's the case,
why does Harry feel *less* awareness of the child's agony the longer
he talks to DD? Why are kids still sorted into a House that
indoctrinates them with a bad ideology? I just feel like there's no
connection made between the way children are treated & who they later
become - eg Harry is neglected & turns out OK. Snape is neglected &
becomes a Death Eater. Why? Well, maybe because Harry is simply a good
person & nothing will change that. It goes back to this sensation that
people are basically born good or bad in the Potterverse, regardless
of circumstances.


> Lizzyben:
> > How does that vision fit in with "don't pity the dead"? Shouldn't we
> > pity that damned soul? 
> 
> Pippin:
> Pitying things we can't help is all about us, not them. 
> 
> JKR wants us to pity children *before* they become so damaged
> that no one can help them. 
> 
> http://www.chlg.org/
>  
lizzyben:

My impression was that we shouldn't pity the dead because they're in a
"better place," etc. I like your interpretation better - but if JKR is
in these good causes, why wouldn't she want people to pity or care
about the fate of her Slytherin kids? Why would she imply that they're
all just irredeemable & bad? 
> 
> Pippin:
> They're not souls at all. 
> A ghost, according to Snape, is the imprint of a "departed soul." 
> That is why Nick can't tell Harry anything about death. He is
> neither here nor there, only a "pale imitation of life" that he
> chose to create before his soul departed.

lizzyben:

I always thought that ghosts were the souls of wizards who were afraid
of death & unable to "move on."

Nearly Headless Nick says "Wizards can leave an imprint of themselves
upon the earth, to walk palely where their living selves once trod ...
I was afraid of death. I chose to remain behind. I sometimes wonder
whether I oughtn't have ... Well, that is neither here nor there ...
In fact, I am neither here nor there..." (OP38)

If it's just an imprint, & their souls are happy in heaven, why the
connection to fearing death? Why does he say he chose to remain
behind? Can a ghost ever be released?


> Pippin:
> How can he have been born in that prison? What's imprisoning
> Voldemort is his choice to divide his soul with murder, and then
> to make the division irreparable by constructing horcruxes.

lizzyben:

Mrs Colefrom the orphanage: 
"He's a funny boy."
"Yes," said Dumbledore, "I thought he might be." 
"He was a funny baby, too. He hardly ever cried, you know. And then,
when he got a little older, he was... odd. He scares the other
children." (HBP)

Dumbledore:
"Marvolo, his son Morfin, and his daughter Merope, were the last of
the Gaunts,  a very ancient Wizarding Family noted for a vein of
instability and violence that flourished through the generations." 

HBP makes clear that Voldemort was born with significant mental
impairments; that he was unable to show emotion as a baby, and that he
was already psychopathic at a very young age. LV was basically born
"evil". The text also makes clear that LV's was the natural outcome of
a family of "bad blood" - not only was he evil from birth, but he was
almost *destined* to be evil because of his bad genes. DD's not
surprised that LV is evil or violent; he *expected* it because of the
Gaunt's tainted family bloodline. That's a level of predestination
that I find creepy. And it's not predestination in a religious sense.
It's almost predestination in a *genetic* sense - "bad blood will
out." Ick. I don't know how HP can imply that there are good & bad
bloodlines while also preaching against "blood prejudice", but whatever. 

Pippin:
> 
> And making horcruxes can hardly be an inborn 
> trait. If Jo meant to indicate that Voldemort was born in his prison,
> why not make him a natural killer like the basilisk, and have that
> alone enough to keep his soul from repair?

lizzyben:

The prison, as I see it, is this. JKR creates a universe in which the
only way to repair a torn/damned soul is by showing remorse. She also
creates LV as a psychopath almost since birth, and psychopaths are
*unable* to feel remorse. Logically, therefore, LV is predestined to
damnation in the universe she has created. JKR chose to write it that
way - LV didn't have a chance. 

Pippin:
> I'm not sure how you base your assumptions about Jo's beliefs.
> I am really uncomfortable with making assumptions about
> someone's beliefs based on their denomination. I am an 
> official of my synagogue, and I can tell you I've never met
> anyone who wanted to join because they've reviewed the 
> adopted resolutions of the Union for Reformed Judaism
> and want to express their agreement. 
> 
> As far as I know, we haven't even got primary source 
> information for what denomination JKR actually belongs to,
> much less what attracted her to join it. It could be she liked
> the choir <g>

lizzyben:

Well, if it's any consolation, it makes me really uncomfortable too. I
really wish JKR hadn't gone there. But when she says that her
religious beliefs guided the way the plot of the last novel unfolded,
I think that makes those beliefs relevant in interpreting the book.
And in the plot, I see a lot of predestination, a sort of Elect of
good people, and a vision of damnation. It's definitely got Christian
influences, & IMO it shows Calvinist influences as well.

That's not to say that the Harry Potter novels actually reflect
Calvinist beliefs accurately, or that Calvinism embraces or believes
any of the themes in the novel, because I don't think that's true.
(Especially with some of the immoral actions taken by the good guys.)
It's more like "Rowlingism", which reflects JKR's personal worldview &
influences from many different areas. 


> Pippin:
> They could feel compassion. That's why Harry wants to help, why
> Dumbledore sorrows for Severus and for his sister and for Harry. 
> But no compassion can help Voldemort. 
> 
> They are in a place where there are no more lies, no deceits, 
> at least that's what I think all the whiteness and light symbolizes.  
> Harry is satisfied with what Dumbledore tells him, and  for
> the first time in his life, he isn't tempted to lie to DD himself. He's
> not submitting to corrupt authority. He's submitting to the
> truth, either the truth as the more advanced soul of Dumbledore
> sees it, or the truth as perceived by what Harry projects
> as the best and wisest part of himself. 
> 
> If deceit is impossible, then they can't win Voldemort's 
> confidence by pretending to sympathize with him. He hurts 
> at the expression of  honest love. That his skin is gone suggests that
> he has rejected even the comfort of touch. What comfort there
> is for him seems to lie in being forgotten. 

lizzyben:

Being forgotten is a comfort? I dunno, if there was ever a time that
LV'd be willing to listen, that would seem to be the moment. But it's
less about what DD & Harry's actions say about LV, and more about what
they say about DD & Harry. Nothing good, I'm afraid. Even if it's
useless, IMO they should've tried. I think the Harry of POA would've
tried. But in DH, Harry ignores the baby w/o even being told who or
what it is - simply because DD told him to.

Pippin:
> You see the flayed child as something Voldemort becomes after
> he dies. If so that would be a good reason to fear death. But I 
> see it as what Voldemort already was, if we could have perceived 
> his true self. If he returned to the living world and continued to live
> as he had been, he would only be putting himself into a worse
> state.  

lizzyben:

I see it that way. Harry sees it that way. And JKR sees it that way,
too. That's LV's soul, & that's what he'll become after death. Harry
says "try for a little remorse, I've seen what you'll become". LV has
very good reason to fear death. Even if you see that as the present
condition of his soul, that condition is certainly not going to
improve after death.

Pippin:
> When the characters say dying is easy, surely they're referring
> to the moment of transition between life and death, and not
> to  the agony that might be involved in getting a healthy person
> to the point of death. Harry already knows that if Voldemort
> decides to kill him slowly, it's going to hurt. He's been through
> that.  That's not what he's asking Sirius, who fell through the veil
> and died almost instantly. 
> 
> Pippin

lizzyben:

OK, I'll buy that. It still felt like a false platitude to me,
especially because the real Sirius wouldn't be so eager to speed Harry
along on to martyrdom on Dumbledore's say-so. I understand accepting
death, but that scene seemed to almost glorify death in a way I was
uncomfortable with. But that's just a personal reaction.

Mus:
When he was orphaned (because unlike
the saintly Lily, Merope, far from loving him enough to die for him,
couldn't bring herself to stay alive for him)...

Mus, whose heart breaks for Merope.

lizzyben:

Going back through HBP, I am kicking myself anew for believing the
propaganda. In the Pensieve scene, DD wisely informs us that "Merope
refused to raise her wand, even to save her own life... She chose
death, in spite of a son who needed her... she never had your mother's
courage." But in the actual memory, Mrs. Cole says that Merope
staggered into the orphanage on a bitter cold New Year's Eve, had her
child & then died one hour later. She died in childbirth! How was that
her fault or her choice? Jeeez. (Presumably the same way LV's
inability to feel remorse was his "choice".) In the other memory, the
shopowner says that Merope came to his shop "just before Christmas",
"covered in rags & pretty far along." "She said she needed the gold
badly... Going to have a baby, see." DD says that Merope arrived alone
in London & in desperate need of gold, desperate enough to sell her
only valuable posession for ten Galleons. 

So, Merope, unskilled & uneducated, is abandoned by her husband &
dumped on the streets of London. She is near the end of her pregnancy,
homeless, wearing only rags, and living on the streets in the middle
of winter. Near Christmas, she is happy to get even 10 galleons that
allow her to find something to eat. She was presumably still living on
the streets two weeks later, when she staggers into the orphanage on
Near Year's Eve to give birth. She's giving birth after being weakened
by months of malnutrition, no medical care, and living outside in the
harsh winter. She dies an hour after childbirth (as a result of
exhaustion, dehydration, infection, isn't clear), but makes
sure to give her son his father's name, hope that he looks like his
papa, and ensure that the baby is born in a place where it will be
raised, sheltered & protected. 

And we're told to judge her & feel contempt for her because she
"chose" to die & wasn't "strong enough" to stay alive for her child.
She just wasn't as courageous as Lily, who... uh, chose to die. Where
is it that Merope "chose" to die in childbirth? Would we say that most
mothers who die an hour after giving birth "chose" to die, because
they were so morally "weak"? That's so twisted. I also really dislike
JKR's implication that LV was born evil because he was the result of a
"loveless union". So this is Merope's punishment? God forbid that a
woman should be a divorced single mother in this fantasy world where
everyone else is happily married by 21. Merope is one of my favorite
characters, & I didn't even notice the way that her story was twisted
& scorned until now. 


lizzyben, about to pull a Ginny & just toss these books already.