Harry's choice to save the world WAS:Re: Snape as Harry's protector

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 184715

 
> Alla:

> And yes, I feel that Dumbledore wanted to push him to do it, 
> otherwise I think he should have revealed it much much earlier AND 
> tell Harry that it is his choice and nobody else AND tell Harry that
 he may have a good chance of surviving.
> 
> In fact in HBP Dumbledore says that Voldemort no longer employs 
> legilimency against Harry, yes? So what kind of excuse Dumbledore
has  for not bringing this information to Harry before besides
storyline  needs?

Pippin:
Um, it seems like an awful stretch to claim that Dumbledore was
indoctrinating Harry by *not* telling him what to do. To judge by the
election ads that are bombarding my house, that's not the way the
experts go about it. <g>

Hasn't it been a common observation that Harry always was the sort of
person who would sacrifice himself to save others?  Harry said in
PS/SS that if he got expelled for trying to save the stone it would
only mean dying a little later than he would have if he failed to save
it from Voldemort, because he was never going over to the Dark Side.
He didn't believe, even then, that Voldemort was going to leave him
alone if he went and hid out some where.

 
At that point Harry hadn't had more than a paragraph or two of
interaction with Dumbledore. He'd been given the cloak, but Dumbledore
thinks of the cloak as something that enables you to hide from danger,
not an invitation to go out looking for it. 

If anyone deserves the blame for Harry's hero complex, it's the
producers of Dudley's cartoon shows, because AFAIK, Mega Man is the
only positive role model ever mentioned at Privet Drive. But I think
as far as Dumbledore was concerned that was a totally unintended
consequence of the blood protection. After all, he could hardly
predict one year old Dudley's taste in popular entertainment.

I think Dumbledore didn't tell Harry about the soul bit because he was
afraid that Harry would sacrifice himself too soon, not that he
wouldn't do it at all. What Harry gained by waiting was not the will
to sacrifice himself for others, but the breadth of spirit to see that
he could and should protect more than just the people he could relate to. 

BTW, I think Lupin might have known about the soul bit. He drops a
hint in OOP about there being dangers that none of them, including
Sirius, have any idea of. He'd be a logical person to tell. At least
he wouldn't be shocked silly at the idea of someone having an interior
link to the Dark Side.

 
> Montavilla47:
> I think what you are missing, for me, is that, while it's selfish to
 want your kids or loved ones to live when it's better for the world
that  they sacrifice their lives, it's still the parents' role to be
that  selfish. Parents are supposed to want their kids to be alive
and, if possible, happy.
> 
> Even if that's bad for the world.
> <SNIP>

Pippin:
The thing is, we are all someone's child, and if our parents all teach
us that we deserve to be safe and happy at other people's expense
forever, then no would try to save a baby, if its parents could not. 
And that would not, IMO, be a child-friendly world. 

Molly tries to keep her underage children out of the fight, and thinks
that the Twins should finish school. But in DH she's  not saying that
the Trio should leave the fight to the Order and hole up somewhere
(though in the event the Trio do that a lot in DH.) She's saying they
should go back to school as if nothing had happened. That's not
concern. That's denial.  

She certainly doesn't try to keep Bill and Charley from risking their
lives, and yet she obviously cares about them deeply. 

Alla:
> Yes, I do believe that Harry could have been happy if he left that 
> world, had there been no Voldemort's piece in him and no, I do not 
> believe he would have been horrible person if he indeed run. 

Pippin:

Of course.

But the soul bit is the reason for the whole thing. Otherwise  Harry
would never have had the powers of the one who could vanquish
Voldemort, and I doubt DD would have done more for Harry than he would
for any other orphaned  Hogwarts student. He wouldn't have seen any
need for the blood protection, and he certainly wouldn't have chosen
Harry to destroy the horcruxes, which he wouldn't have even known
about if Harry hadn't been a parselmouth.

The manipulative part was that Harry thought that destroying the
horcruxes would enable him to achieve victory. But that was true in
the end, it just wasn't as simple as Harry thought it was. It's a bit
like the ruse Harry himself used, tricking Ron with Felix potion. He
could have just told Ron that all he needed was confidence, but Ron
wouldn't have believed him, and wouldn't have gotten any confidence
from it in any case. 

I think Dumbledore had more to apologize for in leading Harry such a
dance about the Hallows. He feared, he said, that Harry would be
tempted as he was, and that, I think, showed a lack of faith in Harry
as well as a lack of moral courage on Dumbledore's part. 


Pippin