Redemption - who needed it? (was: DidHarry notice?)

[Mike]

No: HPFGUIDX 182881

> bboyminn:
> 
> You are certainly a welcome member of the group...

Mike:
Thank you, Steve.

> bboyminn:
> Too bad, you haven't been around here for years, 
> it would have really added to the old discussions.

Mike:
Sorry, I became a Harry Potter nut around the time of the OotP 
release. But I didn't know about these internet sites and didn't 
realize there were other *adults* likewise afflicted.


> bboyminn:
> 
> It seems there were several areas of redemption that fell short
> in the final book. One of the others being the redemption of
> Slytherin House. Yes, Slytherins did take part in the battle
> against Voldemort, but what about Slytherin students. I really
> needed and expected some redemption there.

Mike:
I'm trying to recall some of your previous posts on the Slytherin 
redemption topic. Weren't you in the camp that thought it was up to 
the Slytherins themselves to change their ways and thereby redeem 
themselves? 

In any case, that's where I stand. I admit, like you, I expected 
the Slytherins to make a move in that direction during DH. More 
specifically, I expected Draco to come to some realization regarding
his allegiances. He seemed to start down that road in HBP, but 
seemed to reach a dead end in DH and went nowhere in this book. 
Because the focus is on Harry's generation, Draco's redemption 
would have symbolized the redemption of his house, for me.

That said, I didn't *need* Slytherin to be redeemed. I *needed* 
James to be redeemed. Carol has enumerated his many dubious 
accomplishments, so I won't repeat them. I will add that James and 
the Marauders' most amazing accomplishment, the Marauders Map, was 
titled "Aids to Magical Mischief Makers" and materialized through 
that incantion with "up to no good". I love the Marauders Map, and 
think it's fine for a bunch of teenagers to have made something so 
advanced and a little mischevious. But where does that leave me if 
that's the last accomplishment of James and Co.?

I smiled, right along with Harry, when Hagrid told him, "Yeh did as 
much as yer father would've done, an' I can' give yeh no higher 
praise than that." <GoF p.719, US>. Those words ring kind of hollow 
now, don't they?


> bboyminn:
> 
> That said, I repeat that I think Harry saw and understood. He
> knew that James acted foolishly and carelessly, yet, even so,
> he was brave and heroic. I think Harry understands and forgives
> the mistake. Something that may be easier for a character to
> do than for a reader.

Mike:
But I don't think Harry internalized this scene, because of the very 
real and pressing realizations of the Grindelwald picture and his 
broken wand. Which is a good thing for Harry, but as you say, leaves 
us readers flat. The whole implication of Harry's post-SWM, Floo chat 
with Sirius line - "I'm fifteen" <OotP> - is never repealed for us 
readers. 

Further on, in "The Prince's Tale", we learn that saving Severus 
Snape from werewolf!Lupin isn't the life changing moment for James 
either. It makes me think that James becoming Head Boy was a Flint, 
an undefendable authorial decision not based on how she otherwise 
painted James's character.

So put me in your category of readers that's unable to "understand 
and forgive" as Harry has. I loved James from the start of the series 
onward. But JKR spent all her on-page time on him tearing him down, 
never giving me a morsel of redeeming quality to hold on to. She 
can't just *tell* me he's a great guy without ever *showing* me he's 
a great guy and expect me to buy into the propaganda. Would his 
actually having fought Voldemort wipe out his past deeds? No, but it 
would have put them in perspective as the hijinx pervasive amongst 
those self-congratulatory teens "of a certain caliber".




> bboyminn:
> 
> Because of the confusing nature of the line in question, I 
> think Voldemort is mentally in two places at once. He has 
> mentally returned to Bathilda's but he is also still lost in
> the memory of what happened to him. I think the confusion of
> two places at once, and the rushing realization that Harry 
> Potter has thwarted him again cause sufficient distraction 
> that Voldie loses the significants of that thought - '...and 
> yet he was the boy...'. 
> 
> If he had been paying attension and spent some time trying to
> figure out what it meant, he might have succeeded. But that 
> anger at being bested by Harry, and the thrill of finding the
> handsome boy who robbed Gregorovitch drove it from his mind.
> 
> It is really kind of clever on JKR's part, assuming we are
> interpreting it right. The answer was right there in 
> Voldemort's mind, but he let it slip away. 

Mike:
As Catlady would say, this is an illegal I agree post.

I don't know what Voldemort could have done with the information, or 
if he would have done anything. He already made his six Horcruxes 
plus his seventh soul piece inside himself. He can't change that.



> bboyminn:
> 
> <snip>  The connection between Harry and Voldemort's
> minds has been a big on-going theme. It seems odd that such
> a unique shift in the working of the connection, would be 
> revealed in such an incredibly subtle and indirect way. 
> 
> Previously, Voldemort could inject thoughts and ideas into
> Harry mind, but we don't know that he had the same type or
> extent of connection that Harry has with him. Note the only
> time Voldemort substantially inhabits Harry's mind is when
> Voldemort possesses Harry at the Ministry of Magic. He seems
> to have access to Harry's thoughts in that moment, but it
> is a very unique and special case. 

Mike:
I'll go you one further in this on-going theme. I not only think that 
Voldemort can't visit Harry's mind, I don't think he can implant 
thoughts or scenes into it either. I think LV is (or was) aware when 
Harry was visiting his mind and could then conjure up images or 
scenes for Harry's consumption, but they were images or scenes 
playing within his own mind. Like in the scene we are talking about, 
Voldemort is visualizing what happened years ago and Harry sees that 
visualization. I think Voldemort visualized himself torturing Sirius 
in the Hall of Prophecies and Harry saw that, in OotP.

Curiously, in DH, Voldemort doesn't seem to be aware that Harry is 
visiting his mind any more. That or he doesn't care, which I find 
hard to believe. Why did he stop the Occlumency that DD said he was 
employing throughout HBP?

Mike, who could have used a little more clarity on this whole mind 
link thingee, but sees that with Harry not fully understanding it, we 
were never going to get that better explanation