CHAPDISC: DH35, KING'S CROSS

[cubfanbudwoman]

No: HPFGUIDX 185158

Alla:
> > 6.	List discussed the injured baby under the table extensively 
> „« in the past, but if you want to please discuss some more here.
 
Susan replied in:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/185135
> 
> 
> Uncomfortable... distressing... squirmy... horrified... these are 
> all words which could describe how I felt reading this section.  
> Ugh! I'm pretty much avoiding the entire question because I still 
> have not adequately assessed my own response, nor the reasons for 
> it.  (I've got some personal wrestling to do, I guess.)  I must 
> say, though, that I think Montavilla nailed a part of it for me in
> the fact that I'm not at all sure how I feel about the concept of 
> eternal  punishment, other than that I'm fairly disinclined to 
> believe in it.  
> „« Perhaps that is at the root of a lot of my discomfort.
 
Potioncat:
> (Hey SSSusan! Good to see you!)

SSSusan:
And always good to see you, too. :)


Potioncat:
> The flayed baby hasn't been punished by some WW deity; this is what 
> Tom Riddle did to himself. This is the condition his soul is in 
> when he arrives. The first time I read this chapter, I thought it 
> was the soul bit from Harry!Horcrux. It's in the next chapter that 
> I realized this is what's left of Riddle's soul. Not much there, 
> and not in good shape. This is the soul that is/was LV on earth. 
> Every time he's murdered, he's ripped it--and of course he chose to 
> tear off 7 pieces of his soul. 

SSSusan:
That's a good point to make -- that this is what Voldy did TO 
HIMSELF, that this is what is left of his soul because of his own 
choices, not that this is what some God or Hell has done *to* his 
soul.  

Maybe it was JKR's decision to utilize a *baby* to symbolize the soul 
that had me so uncomfortable?  I mean, I'm not really very into 
vengeance or punishment anyway, so I wouldn't have enjoyed a 
groveling adult Voldy, but if the soul in this scene had been the 
adult Voldemort we'd become accustomed to seeing, the way Harry was 
recognizably Harry in King's Cross, maybe I wouldn't have been so 
uncomfortable.  The image of a baby whimpering, though.... It 
inserts, for me, the issue of innocence.  If one pulls that imagery 
OUT of the scene and remind me that this is Voldy's soul as *he* 
ruined it himself, then I'm okay; but why did JKR use a *baby* to 
represent it?


Potioncat:
> We don't get a lot of WW theology, and what we get is in broad 
> stripes. Not that I'm asking for any, you understand. But in the 
> RW, there are those who don't so much believe in a Hell, but rather 
> being cut off from God, or forever living with our sins/choices.  
> After seeing Riddle's soul, I can understand why Snape had become 
> concerned about the condition of his.

SSSusan:
Indeed!  I never blamed Snape at all for asking that question of DD!  
I tried to take out of it that DD truly believed that killing another 
person at his request, out of mercy or the good of the cause, would 
not constitute murder or tearing of the soul.  But that's not really 
here nor there, I suppose.  

More to the point you're raising is that, yes, I'm one of those 
people who tends to not believe in a "place" called Hell and, in 
fact, has trouble even with the concept of "bad people" being forever 
cut off from God and goodness.  (Like I said, I have some wrestling 
of my own to do with these issues in general. ;))


Potioncat:
> DD says there's nothing they can do about the baby, and he's 
> probably right. (nothing 'they' can do) Harry is feeling compassion 
> for this ugly baby, contrasting to the revulsion he felt for the 
> same ugly baby in life. It seems Harry has grown. In the next 
> chapter, Harry makes one last effort to help Tom Riddle mend his 
> soul. It was Riddle's choice to ignore the help.

SSSusan:
Yes, I agree, there wasn't anything DD or Harry could do about the 
baby.  Like you said, it was Voldy's own choices that caused his soul 
to be in that condition.  Still, JKR inserted that bit into the story 
and there has to be a *reason* for her doing so and for the imagery 
she chose.  Again, why show the mangled Voldy soul as a *baby*?  Why 
show the suffering and misery of it?  What message is being shared in 
that?  Or was the message more in the fact that, in spite of DD's 
saying there wasn't anything they could do, Harry *did* still try one 
more time when he went back?  Is JKR trying to tell us that it's 
always worth trying one more time to show someone the right path?

I obviously have a lot of questions here. :)

Siriusly Snapey Susan