DH reread CH 12

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 186446


> Montavilla47:
> 
> If JKR is trying to subvert the genre, then she needs to 
> do a better job of letting us know that.  Otherwise, we'll
> just assume she's following it.
>

Pippin:
She's told us that she's not following it, and doesn't particularly care for it. The work bears that out, IMO.

I don't think she's subverting the genre. She's re-inventing it to serve her purposes, one of which is to show us that the genre, the consensus fantasy universe, is just wrong about some things. 

Take the idea that once you step on to the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. There is no dark path in the Potterverse -- no Force or Ring of Power that compels the person who's made one bad choice to make another. You can rejoin the light any time -- provided you have the courage to realize that you made a mistake. And there doesn't necessarily have to be a bad consequence for you to realize that you made a mistake -- in the real world, people  learn from others' mistakes as well as their own. 

The danger, in JKR's world,  is not that doing evil things will erode your conscience until you are like Voldemort. The danger is that you won't realize how much damage you can do *without* being like Voldemort.

That a character criticizes someone and then does the exact same thing herself happens all the time in canon, no doubt illustrating the concept that it's easier to spot the speck in your neighbor's eye than a two-by-four in your own. 

What McGonagall does is just as foolish and hypocritical as what Harry did, and for the same reason: people are about to die for the right to be governed by laws instead of the whims of one person. What McGonagall's action does is show us *why* that right is worth dying for: because no individual, no matter how well-intentioned and well-behaved they are normally, can be trusted with that kind of power. 

McGonagall didn't do any great harm by her actions. Amycus and his sister no doubt lived to stand trial for their deeds. But then, no great harm was done by Dumbledore's flirtation with the Dark Arts, until there was. 


Pippin