Looking Back Question...

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 182043

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Jim Ferer" <jferer at ...> wrote:

Jim Ferer:
> I think your forgiveness theme is part of a larger one: love in all
> its forms. Harry practices universal love and particularly love for
> his friends. No matter what, he acts as love would dictate. Like
> another character in another tale, Aslan, Harry gave himself to death
> to protect others. He practically always acts as compassion would have
> him act. The fact he isn't a plaster saint and struggles sometimes to
> do the best thing only makes him greater to me: if it was easy, he'd
> just be a flat goody two-shoes.

Geoff:
Although I agree with you in much of what you say, I would not 
compare Harry with Aslan. C.S.Lewis intended Aslan represent Christ 
 in a children's tale designed to introduce them to the truth of 
Christianity, so he is a Christ figure.

Harry is not.

He could, like many of us, be described as a Christ-like figure in that 
he seeks the good of others and goes out of his way to try to achieve 
this. No real Christian is a flat goody two-shoes; we all struggle to do 
the best thing. Harry epitomises that in the books which is why I 
identify so much with him.

My other point is that although Harry was prepared for, and expected, 
death in the tremendously powerful chapter 34 of DH, he didn't die; 
that is borne out in canon.

Although, let me add the proviso that some of the above is entirely my 
personal interpretation with which you may or may not choose to agree,