Wands and Wizards...Again (Was: Epilogue ...)

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 183591

Montavilla47 wrote:

<snip most of a lovely post that I agree with>

> I don't believe it's cruel for a child to vicarious feel Harry's
regret.  That's one thing stories are for--so that the reader (child
or adult) can understand the outcomes of actions without having to
experience it directly. <snip lovely example from "Little Women,"
which ought to be required reading for children of both sexes>

Carol responds:

Again, I agree. Most children, BTW, can deal with cruelty in
children's books, whether that cruelty comes from an abusive uncle or
a Dark Wizard. Surely, it's less cruel to expose them to a young hero
making a mistake and regretting it than to expose them to Harry's
suffering from the Cruciatus Curse and the whole ordeal of the
graveyard ritual in GoF. And how are children supposed to learn to
regret their own wrongdoing if their heroes can act wrongly with
impunity? How can they learn forgiveness if their heroes seek
vengeance and suffer no pangs of conscience for so doing?

Montavilla47: 
> It's not cruel for a child to read that passage.  It's moving and 
intensely emotional.  It both shows the reader the dangers of holding
anger against another person and power of love and forgiveness. <snip>

Carol responds:

Exactly. And I can think of no comparable passage in the HP books.
Harry's forgiveness of Ron for deserting him and Hermione comes close
in terms of poignance, but it involves Ron's saving Harry's life.
Harry himself has done nothing wrong (aside from the sheer stupidity
of not taking off the Horcrux before diving in), so he learns no lesson.

Earlier, when Harry quarrels with Ron in GoF and forgives him, there's
no indication that Harry was partly at fault. The same thing occurs
with Seamus in OoP. Harry does the forgiving. There's no indication
that his flying off the handle and calling Seamus's mother a liar
rather than trying to understand her Prophet-generated suspicions and
attempt to explain why she's wrong might have contributed to the
misunderstanding. What is Seamus supposed to think, given Harry's
behavior, except that his mum was right?

Never once does Harry learn a lesson like the one Jo learns. Even when
he briefly regrets his actions, for example, his use of an unknown
spell labeled "for enemies" on Draco, the regret is short-lived and he
learns no lasting lesson. Instead, he resents Snape (who has every
right and every reason to punish him) for making him miss the
Quidditch match and adds Sectumsempra to his arsenal.

He does seem to regret endangering his friends by sending them to the
MoM, but he only feels that regret and that sense of responsibility
when they're again in danger. Or he tries to exclude the friends who
have fought with him against the DEs from his Horcrux hunt, thinking
that he has to face danger alone with delegating responsibility.

Severus Snape regrets his mistakes and spends his adult lifetime
atoning for them. I don't see Harry learning any comparable lessons.
(His forgiveness of Snape, and of Dumbledore, costs him nothing. Both
of them are dead.)

I do see him, near the end, setting aside vengeance and choosing to
sacrifice himself, but I'm not sure that he's learned any moral
lesson. It's more that he does what he knows he has to do to destroy
Voldemort.

At any rate, I agree with Montavilla47: How, exactly, would it be
cruel to young readers for Harry to acknowledge his mistakes,
specifically, the impulse to give Amycus a taste of his own medicine
by stooping to his level when other spells would have been more
effective? Instead, we get the most disturbing message of all:
McGonagall, who has been held up for admiration as strict but fair
(setting aside her obvious belief in the superiority of her own
House), not only labels the Crucio as "gallant" but follows Harry's
lead by using an Unforgiveable herself, probably for the first time in
her rule-bound life.

IMO, it would have been much less cruel to young readers (who *do*
notice such things and, in my experience, are shocked by them) to have
Harry regret his actions than to force them to either reject their
hero as flawed or rationalize his behavior by finding excuses for it.

BTW, to shift gears for a moment, I agree with Alla that we should
stick to the books and not condemn other readers for their reactions.
I, too, see nothing wrong with Harry's hope that Kreacher will bring
him a sandwich, even if he actually requests one. Kreacher will be
happy to honor the request and no doubt offended if Harry sneaks into
the kitchen to make one himself (as if the other House-Elves would
allow him to do so).

As for Harry as "slave owner," how do we know that he doesn't
ultimately give Kreacher the choice of staying at Hogwarts or
returning to 12 GP, if that's where Harry chooses to live? I doubt
that he wants his freedom; I think he'd be insulted by the offer of
clothes. But I see nothing preventing Harry from solving the Kreacher
problem the same way he solved it before, by having Kreacher work at
Hogwarts instead of staying with him. Only this time it could be
worded as a request or even a choice rather than an order.

Carol, who wishes that just once Harry would make a mistake,
acknowledge that mistake, learn from the mistake, and live with the
consequences