Easier / Insecure!Ron + Hermione / The sword in the pond

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 186419

Magpie wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/186357>:

<< The idea of somebody saying "Well, I just cut off my own hand because it was easier" just sounds hilarious. >>

And Pippin replied in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/186358>:

<< Not if you finish the sentence "easier than getting killed." >>

I find the rest of Pippin's post to be insightful, but I don't agree with this one sentence. My thought is not about good and evil and whether to obey a terrifying monster's command, but about a news report I once heard about a man who cut off his own arm with a pocket knife because it was trapped under a boulder and he would die of dehydration and exposure if he didn't get out of that isolated canyon ... 

Googling 'man cuts off arm to survive' is apparently a common enough search that Google filled it in at 'man cuts' (who'd have thought it?) and got 1,790,000 hits, and the first hit <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5956900/> seems to be the event of which I was thinking, and the second hit <http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/21973683/> is a completely different example.

And these are examples in which it is MUCH EASIER to die. Physically painful and mentally both scary and distasteful, but the person can scream, or cry, or pray to be found acceptable to go to Heaven, or close their eyes and grit their teeth and try to be spartan, but in any of those cases, they WILL die without making any choice or doing any act to bring on death (other than having gotten into the situation in the first place, but I mean once they are in the situation). Something that happens without any action or choice at all on one's part is EASIER than taking an action, any action, let alone this action.

Carol wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/186369>:

<< he has the confidence to let *Hermione* destroy the cup Horcrux after he has had the resourcefulness to get them into the Chamber of Secrets in the first place. >>

I kind of had the idea that Ron *made* (rather than *let*) Hermione destroy the cup Horcrux, and that a leading part of his motive was for Hermione to undergo that experience of being wrung out, so she would be less arrogant. 

If he were still insecure!Ron, he would not have wanted her to watch him destroy a Horcrux because he would not want her to see him confronting his inmost hopes and fears. So I kind of hope he gave Hermione some privacy to destroy the cup, because if he watched her confront her inmost hopes and fears while she had not watched his, he would be kind of one-up on her.

Carol wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/186372>:

<< hates the abstraction of sociological terms and simply does not think in that way >>

Just a note: I personally find the terms 'internal validation' and 'external validation' to describe what I was already experiencing, rather than to be abstract sociological terms.

Carol wrote in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/186381>:

<< He must, that is, make retrieving the sword as difficult and
dangerous as possible so that Harry must demonstrate "valor" in order to retrieve it. >>

Not 'as difficult as possible' (Snape could have added some cold-loving aquatic biting monsters to the pool), just 'difficult enough'. I wouldn't have bothered posting this little nitpick except that I wanted to make another comment on this post:

<< wondering whether Snape would have proven himself "a true Gryffindor" by jumping in and saving Harry had Ron not shown up >>

Considering Snape's abilities, he might be able to rescue Harry with just 'Accio Harry'. Or conjuring up a special rope with a grabber at the end to grab Harry to pull him out (I don't know if Muggles have such a rope, but we *could*, by putting a wire in the rope and an actuator in the grabber so that the operator presses a button a his/her end to open and close the grabber). Or, if he had to jump in and grab Harry, he could surround himself, not just his head, with a bubble that would not only keeping him breathing, and dry, but also warm.