Coming of Age in the Potterverse was Re: Dumbledore as shameless

pippin_999 foxmoth at qnet.com
Fri Mar 5 16:38:15 UTC 2010


No: HPFGUIDX 189016


> Carol responds:
> The inconsistency is that she seems to be regarding Harry's reaction in this instance as righteous anger (justifiable anger at a wicked person for insulting a "very good" person) whereas bellatrix said in OoP, "righteous anger won't hurt me for long." Moreover, enjoyment of torturing someone (which she said was necessary for sustaining the curse and which Harry indeed feels in DH) is inconsistent with righteous anger.

Pippin:
Harry himself is inconsistent.  

I think Harry's inconsistency, the inconsistency of the good guys in general, is what's subversive about the books.  Voldemort is consistently bad, but there's no character who is infallibly good, much as we might have hoped our favorites would qualify by the end. 

Righteous anger is what a saint would feel, and a saint wouldn't have hurt Amycus for long. Harry has his saintlier moments. But this isn't one of them.   He's let his anger (and his magic) run away with him. That definitely doesn't make him a saint. But it doesn't make him a monster either. 

 The monster, the basilisk or the werewolf, has no choice but to obey its instincts. But Harry does.  Harry's sin is not in feeling angry but in failing to control his anger, and he does realize, a few moments later, that he's been out of control. "Somehow, her panic steadied him." 

JKR is not dismissive of the interviewer's shock and disappointment. The reader is set up  to be shocked, IMO, as shocked as Harry feels whenever one of his idols crumbles into human clay, though if he were wiser he'd have known it all along.  What's being dismissed is the WW's idea that only a monster who ought to be locked up in Azkaban for life could be capable of such things. 

Harry needs to understand what he's capable of so that he can understand what Dumbledore and Snape were capable of and still see them as human and forgivable. 

I agree that JKR sees more to regret in Harry's foolishness and impulsivity than she does in Amycus suffering a bit more cruelly than he should have, and that's where the emphasis is in the books. Harry acknowledges those at the time.  But Dumbledore's and Snape's stories have yet to teach Harry how dangerous such foolishness and impulsivity can be.  Once anger is in control, it doesn't care whether its victims deserve what they get or what the consequences could be. 

This issue of control is central to the theme of DH, IMO. Harry loses control in all sorts of ways -- even his phoenix feather wand acts of its own accord. His coming of age is not so much about achieving independence but in gaining control of himself. 

And that brings me back to Alla's question about why Harry needs to consult with Dumbledore. The soul who takes selflessness as its ideal has a problem: well-illustrated whenever Dumbledore tries to establish how selfless he is. He sounds self-serving, as anyone would.

The soul simply cannot achieve selflessness on its own; it has to say, "not my will, but thine, be done." Harry will always need someone to tell him what is selfless. But he doesn't need Dumbledore to tell him what is *right*. 

Kings Cross Dumbledore says that Harry is worthy of all three Hallows. Yet Harry abandons the Stone (and with it, the ability to summon up Dumbledore whenever he likes) and returns the wand to its resting place. Portrait Dumbledore approves -- he's now following Harry's lead rather than the reverse.

Pippin






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