Wands and Wizards...Again

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 183653

  
> 
> Magpie:
> And Harry learned other stuff. Harry's mind filling with anger and 
> fear and making him kill whether he wants to or not and basically 
> becoming Voldemort is not really a danger. 

Pippin:
Harry didn't become enough like Voldemort to want to take over the WW,
bwahaha! But he did become enough like Bella to cruciate Amycus.
JKR leaves it to the audience to notice that, which is to her credit,
IMO. 

Magpie:
> 
> HP and SW have very opposing views on anger and vengeance, after all. 
> They also lead to the opposite ending--Luke can feel the good in 
> Vader, calls to him as his father and saves Anakin. Riddle's a 
> psychopath and all the taunting to feel some remorse isn't going to 
> make him feel it.

Pippin:
That's your interpretation. Mine is that Riddle's not a psychopath
once he takes his little dunk in Harry-juice. He's an ex-psychopath
who still thinks like one, out of habit  and unwillingness to risk
change. 

What's the first thing he says when he emerges from the cauldron?
Before he tortures Wormtail some more, or goes for his wand, or even
before he examines his reconstituted body? "Robe me." Hah! He's eaten
from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil all right, he just
doesn't realize. 

He can't manage to  kill Harry outright the way he offed Cedric a
moment before, the way he killed James without even letting him go for
his wand.  Voldie's suddenly got this urge to make it a duel. Is he
just taunting Harry, or is there something in him making him feel that
it won't really count unless Harry has some chance?  

> 
> Magpie:
> How does Snape calling Lily a slur that he calls all other 
> Muggleborns teach Harry that he himself is in danger of being filled 
> with anger or fear or he'll become evil?

Pippin:
It makes him/us understand that he was able to do the cruciatus curse,
say the unforgivable word, because he was filled with fury and
humiliation. If he had  truly been acting out of need and chivalry, he
wouldn't have been able to do it. 

Harry might never have become a DE. But in torturing Amycus, was he
not, for that moment, just as ruthless and cruel as Amycus? He doesn't
*stay* that way -- he doesn't let ruthless and cruel behavior become a
habit the way Crouch Sr did. But that's not to say he couldn't. He
didn't, because he saw the danger of it in the pensieve. Snape
couldn't have one set of people that he tried to treat fairly, and
another set that he could treat however he pleased. It didn't work. 
It didn't work for Dumbledore either.

But, unfortunately, that doesn't stop people from trying.  


> 
> Magpie:
> If Luke had used the Force to torture Yoda would have stopped him
and  said "NO" and taken it very seriously since it's laid out as a
huge  danger. 

Pippin:
Yoda wasn't there when Luke used the Force to choke the pig guard on
his way into Jabba's Palace. Dumbledore wasn't there when the
Marauders were abusing Snape. Lupin was there, but he didn't have the
guts to speak up about it.   Sometimes there's no one there to say
"No" -- that's why we have to learn to say it for ourselves, and  what
might happen if we don't, including the fact that the consequences may
not be immediately obvious. 

> Magpie:
> I thought you were saying that JKR was making a statement against 
> slavery with the elves. 

Pippin:

Would Harry have been satisfied to wear ugly clothes, live in his
cupboard and do chores for Petunia all his life if only she had
treated him with kindness and respect? The question makes no sense,
since respect for Harry entails respect for his needs and wishes. 

Respect for the House-elves entails respect for their needs and
wishes, which have to be determined individually since not all Elves
need or want the same thing.  That is a statement against slavery or
any other institution which denies people their individuality and
exploits them against their will.

The books have been out for a while. They've been read by untold
thousands of  educators, librarians, child psychologists and parents.
If the children of the world were being seduced into slavery by HP,
I'd think the experts would have noticed by now. <g> 

There are people  warning against HP  who are so terrified of
witchcraft that they don't want their children to even imagine having
that kind of power. Okay. But most of us think that the  books teach
about how to use power responsibly.


> Magpie:
> He saves Dudley at the beginning of OotP after he's just been 
> fighting with him.

Pippin:
True. But he had to drive the dementors off anyway, to save himself. I
give Harry full marks for helping Dudley to get home. But he wasn't
putting himself in any more danger by doing it.

Harry doesn't set out to become a hero and become something else in
the course of his journey. But he has to grow in order to become a
hero who can save the WW from Voldemort. If anyone had told him, at
the age of eleven, what he was going to have to go through to save the
WW, he'd probably have stayed in the cupboard. I would.


Pippin