Harry's Character... Saving Private... Wands and Wizards... Elves...

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 183730

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/183710
Saving Private Draco
Carol:
> My sense of that passage (DD at King's Cross)  is that he's afraid 
> of being seduced by the Elder Wand itself, of becoming another
> Voldemort or Grindelwald if he uses it to kill. 

Ceridwen:
I immediately thought of Biblical characters from the Old Testament 
who were not allowed to reach a fulfillment: Moses the fulfillment of 
entering the Holy Land because of his failings (anger), and David, 
who was not allowed to rule over a kingdom at peace because he was a 
war leader.  The Holy Land and a kingdom at peace was left for the 
next generation, as the ownership of the Hallows is left to Harry.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/183706
Wands and Wizards... again
Carol:
> But is Harry "static" (unchanged by the events around him) or 
> dynamic (changed in some fundamental and lasting way by those 
events)?
*(snip)*
> We see what seems to be a fundamental change at the end of SS/PS 
> when he's learned who he is: he's no longer the little nobody who 
> sleeps under the stairs but a famous Wizard.

Ceridwen:
I think the change did happened in PS/SS, and the rest of the series 
confirmed it.  I don't think there was any further change except the 
ones you'd expect for a child growing into an adult.

I think this ties in with choices revealing instead of influencing 
who a person is.  It sounds a lot like Determinism.  The series seems 
to show, as several people have pointed out, that the core of a 
person remains static no matter what happens outside of that person 
to reveal those core characteristics.  In PS/SS, Harry learns who he 
really is, which frees up aspects of his character which were hidden 
by his self-view of the boy who sleeps under the stairs.  The real 
change for Harry is in learning information, not a movement through 
learning a lesson.  For Sirius, I think we see a reaction to his not 
being able to exercise his reckless and adventuring characteristics 
when he's stuck in Grimauld Place in OotP, not a change in 
characteristics.  So, I think the story is more of an exploration of 
those aspects of character, not a growth due to outside events and 
inner rumination or realization.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/183712
Elves again...
Kemper:
> Kreacher wanted a different master other than Harry initially. 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/183719
Harry's character development...
Alla:
> As far as I am concerned, if it makes elves happy so be it. And when
> Kreacher wanted a different master, he should have gotten different
> master. At the end of the novel he does not want a different master,
> he is happy, so I really do not see a problem here.

Magpie:
> Kreacher changed, not his situation.

Ceridwen:
All of that for this:
Kreacher wanted a different master at one point.  I understand, as 
Magpie and others have pointed out, that it would have compromised 
the Order for him to be sent where he wanted to be sent, but the 
point is being made that, if an elf wants a different master, he or 
she would be able to get one if he or she was not a slave.  Kreacher 
couldn't get one on his own, he needed to be given clothes in order 
to do that, and that is the one thing the Order couldn't do.  It was 
convenient for the Order to be able to keep Kreacher under his 
objections, but he was still a slave.

If Kreacher had been given his choice when he first made it, to serve 
Bellatrix or Draco, he would not have reached the point where his 
situation changed and he was content to serve Harry.  So, for me, the 
fact remains that Kreacher only changed his mind because he was not 
free to leave his position, which to me means he was a slave.

I suppose this could go along with the whole Determinism thread in 
the series: Kreacher was meant to serve Harry, so conditions made it 
impossible for him to leave his position before he found that out.  
This rubs me the wrong way, since I'm more of a Free Will type.

Ceridwen.