Disarming spell/ Character's choices

[Annemehr]

No: HPFGUIDX 185486

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "sistermagpie" 
<sistermagpie at ...> wrote:
>
> > > Mapgie:
> > > I don't have a big problem with it--I get why it works. I'm 
just 
> > > saying that as the solution to the problem of "how do we have 
the
> > bad  guy killed but still make a point about how our hero is 
> morally 
> > > superior for showing mercy" it works because it lets you have it
> > both  ways. You make one choice but there's no real suspense that 
we
> > won't  get the consequence of the other. 
> > > 
> > 
> > Pippin:
> > As Bilbo Baggins once said, it's not a bad ending because it's 
been
> > used before.
> 
> Magpie:
> I didn't say it was good or bad. I said it's been used before 
because 
> it's a neat way to have it both ways. I didn't deny the 
> destructiveness of malice implied in it. I just pointed out the 
> neatness of it. In contrast, for instance, to the earlier scene in 
> PoA where Harry decides against killing by actually protecting 
Peter 
> and then lives with some serious consequences from that decision. 
> 

Annemehr:

For my part, since the graveyard scene of GoF, I expected Harry to 
defeat Voldemort by having and AK cast at him by LV.  I spent a lot 
of time trying to guess how that would play out, and *why,* because 
that moment was going to encapsulate the raison d'etre for the entire 
series.

And, though I didn't know whether Harry would die or not, I certainly 
hoped he wouldn't.  So, I fully agree with everyone that it doesn't 
bother me that the "plot device" was used, per se.

What leaves me very unsatisfied is the clumsy way JKR got the plot 
there in the end, and the confused bundle of messages she left in her 
wake.  

What she actually did was to mirror *both* of the Godric's Hollow 
AKs, which I didn't expect, and I think that in itself is rather 
neat. In the Forest we have the image of Lily's death and creation of 
the extra soul-bit, in the sacrifice and "death" of Harry, where that 
soul-bit was destroyed.  Shortly afterward, we have the AK in the 
Great Hall which is the echo of LV's attempt to kill Harry as an 
infant, and which likewise rebounded on its caster.

Of the two, the Forest one grew more organically from the rest of the 
story, depending as it did on the soul-bit and the drop of Harry's 
blood.  But it wasted the opportunity to examine what it might *mean* 
to have carried a bit of LV's soul (i.e., "evil") inside of one.  
Apparently, Harry was completely untouched, except for a handy extra-
sensory ability in LV's direction.

Mechanically, the Great Hall AK is unsatisfying because it depends on 
what to me is a deus-ex-machina of that Elder Wand business.  And 
with that comes the fact that Harry already knew about the Elder Wand 
and so knew he was not facing a potent AK.  Even though Harry's 
Expelliarmus there was meant to recall the graveyard scene, it lacked 
the teeth of real risk, and the depth of emotion, of GoF, for that 
reason.

And, what exactly *is* the "good" of Harry and the "evil" of LV?  She 
crafted a Tom Riddle with no capacity for empathy. Recall especially 
DD's interview with Mrs. Cole in HBP - the baby who never cried; the 
young child who killed animals and tortured children - not to mention 
the times DD described LV as someone who doesn't *know* love, at 
all.  And then JKR sent LV to eternal punishment for being who he was 
created to be.  So, in the AK of the Great Hall, we get 
the "unrepentant" (as if he could) LV succumbing to his own nature.  

[I know - it's the old debate again: many readers see LV making a 
choice there in the Great Hall, but I just can't.]

What Harry's goodness is supposed to consist in, is by contrast very 
muddy in the final books.  DD says his soul is "pure," but it seems 
to me "pure" is a word like "unique" - it's all or nothing.  So what 
is Harry's soul pure *of?*  His behavior is very mixed.  He is 
resolved to actively kill LV in HBP, so it's not as though his 
decisions in PoA not to kill Sirius or to let Peter be killed, have 
turned him against killing absolutely.

Well, okay.  So, Harry seems to be a completely normal person of 
goodwill, and was willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, just as 
many others in the story did.  The only thing that made his 
sacrifices more potent was mere circumstance: being an accidental 
Horcrux and the master of the Elder Wand.  Neither of which were 
choices of his, or even foreseen by the people whose actions caused 
them.

LV's fate and Harry's victory alike were the result of circumstances 
beyond their control.

Which is a perfectly legitimate message in itself.  I myself can't 
see that our so-called choices *make* us who we are, but rather that 
they *show* who we are. But the presumed eternal misery of Tom Riddle 
does paint a picture of a Cosmos that is capricious and cruel.

So, I got what I wished for: the defeat of LV through the echo, or 
mirror of Godric's Hollow.  Only, I hated the way my wish was granted.

Annemehr,
cursing the monkey's paw