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

[montavilla47]

No: HPFGUIDX 189038

> > Nikkalmati
> > 
> > JKR goes out of her way to show each of the good guys doing something wrong.  It can't be just a coincidence.  

<snip> 

>Now even Harry and McGonnagal cast Unforgivables.  I must assume she wants us to see >that making bad choices and doing wrong things are part of human nature - no one is >immune.


> Pippin:
> I think she also wants us to see that  the conventional fantasy universe, where "one step down the dark path and it will forever dominate your destiny" is a distortion of reality. There isn't really a progression between the selfish, cruel, greedy, power-hungry indifference of ordinary evil and the conscienceless behavior of a psychopath. No matter how many bad choices Crouch Sr. and Peter Pettigrew make they don't become like Voldemort, forever incapable of remorse.
>

Montavilla47:

I haven't read as much fantasy as probably most readers have, but I don't get
"one step" forever dominates anyone's destiny.  It's very much the opposite, I think,
in fantasy, where people seem to take bad choices a lot, but always have the 
potential to turn it around.

Even Gollum can find a certain redemption.

As far as Crouch, Sr. goes, I don't think he's ever presented as someone 
evil.  He's simply a tragic figure who sacrifices his family (through neglect)
in order to protect his community.  According to Sirius (who suffers from
his policies), he went too far.  But there's not even the slightest hint that
he's on Voldemort's side.

Actually, the "moral" of Crouch, Sr. *appears* to be that a warning against
extremism in pursuit of the greater good.  Right?  Doesn't Sirius's story
tell us that you can become the enemy by giving up your principles in 
trying to destroy your enemy?

That's what I took from his story.  

Pippin:
>  Tolkien and Lewis revived the heroic fantasy genre because they thought that the novel was inadequate to deal with the problem of evil in the modern world. How could individual character flaws account for an entire civilized nation going bad? So they re-introduced the idea of cosmic evil as  a force in human affairs and this idea has become embedded in the genre. I think it's this idea that JKR subverts.  
>

Montavilla47:
Interesting.  I thought that Lewis was much more on a human level of good/bad,
though.  I suppose the Witch is cosmically evil, but the real battle isn't over the
world, but the soul of one person at a time.

Pippin:
> The hero of a conventional fantasy must realize that he is on the verge of becoming totally evil and make a choice that saves him (or, like Frodo Baggins, find that a past choice has made it possible for him to be saved.)  
> 

Montavilla47:

Again, in the case of Lewis, Edmund doesn't really make a choice that saves 
him.  He *is* saved, and thereafter makes good choices.  Same with Eustace.
I think it's pretty much the same with Jill.  She makes really bad choices for a 
long time, and then she's saved twice by others.  Once by a dream, and a once
by waking up out of a dream.

But I think that distinguishes the Potterverse characters from the Narnia 
characters is that the Narnia kids always seem to develop a bit of self-
awareness.  Edmund realizes that his selfishness nearly lost the war (even
if he's never told how much it cost) and his recognition of that informs
the rest of his life (as we're told in the final chapter of LWW).  Eustace
continues to struggle with being good even after he's saved, but he keeps
trying even in the bleakest of school settings.  Lucy only ever has one 
small slip-up, but she immediately realizes that she was wrong about it.
And even Susan, who is condemned for her distraction with boys and 
make-up, isn't lost forever.  She's just forgotten what's important.  There's
hope that someday she'll come back to an awareness of Narnia.

Pippin:
> For years we speculated about how this little drama would play out in the Potterverse. But, IMO, JKR always intended to show up the convention for what it was: a fiction that led us to sacrifice truth for clarity.

Montavilla47:
So, if I understand you, you're saying that we were expecting Harry to 
have to make a choice about becoming totally evil or not?  I can't say
that I was ever expecting that to be an issue.  I never, never imagined
that Harry would be tempted to become evil.

Which is why the whole use of Unforgivables by Harry confuses me.  I 
mean, if there was going to be that kind of a story arc, I think it would
be just as conventional to have it played out by a more ambiguous 
character.  Like, say, Draco.

Which appeared to be happening in HBP.  And, come to think of it,
Draco *does* the same thing Harry does in DH.  He uses Imperious 
because it proves to be rather useful.  He uses Crucio because he's
angry.  And he's expected to Avada Kadavra Dumbledore, but he 
doesn't.  Quite a parallel with Harry.  In Harry's case, the AK isn't
needed because Harry lucks out.  In Draco's case, it isn't needed
because Snape is there to cover everyone's behinds.

The main difference between Draco's story and Harry's (beyond
the obvious difference of which side they are initially on), is that
Draco comes to regret his use of Unforgivables (at least with Crucio),
while there is no indication that Harry would change a thing about
his actions were he to do it over again.

Pippin:
> It took bad choices, but also the ability to make bad choices, to make  Voldemort what he was. Harry can choose not to restrain his hatred, but he can't easily quench his ability to love. And that makes a difference between him and Voldemort. 
>
> I think it's why he fails at the cruciatus curse he aims at Bella. Though his wish to  avenge Sirius propels him to chase Bella down, he only tries to cruciate her when she mocks his love. He's angry, he hates her, but it's not the same as a desire for revenge.
> 
>  Harry does want revenge on Amycus. But he didn't use the cruciatus curse  because he was on the verge of becoming eeevil, he just lost his temper. And McGonagall is on the verge of panic when she Imperio's the Carrows, as Harry and Hermione were when they were in Gringotts.
> 
>  We don't know whether Dumbledore was panicking or  enraged when he used deadly force in the altercation with Grindelwald and his brother, but it's clear he lost control. What Dumbledore did was very wrong, but it didn't destroy his conscience, far from it. 
> 
> Carol said that Harry had crossed a line. But Harry crosses lines all the time. People in canon are always drawing lines and trying to make other people feel bad about crossing them. But no one is ever sorry because they crossed a line, only that the consequences aren't what they intended. And that's what's key.
> 
> Voldemort, Umbridge, Crouch Jr, Bella, Fenrir, Lockhart --  the really bad people in the Potterverse never feel sorry for  anything they've done, and no amount of pain or loss can make them do so. 

Montavilla47:
So, the reason that Hermione, say, never feels sorry for what she does to
Marietta or Umbridge is because there were no bad consequences to her 
actions (for Hermione).

And the reason Bella never feels sorry for torturing Hermione or the 
Longbottoms is that she's really bad. Because Bella did get sent to 
Azkaban for torturing the Longbottoms, so she did have some bad
consequences for her actions--and it didn't make her reflect.  It just
made her insane.

Actually, the really bad people in Potterverse do seem to be insane.
Clinically insane.  

What I think JKR does that is subversive--not necessarily to fantasy, but
to storytelling in general--is to erase the lines between good and evil.

I mean, in GoF, she does seem to be giving us a cautionary tale about 
adopting your enemy's tactics with the story of Crouch, Sr.  (Although
there's not a clear line between Crouch's tactics and his son going bad.
Crouch, Jr. seems to just be bad for his own reasons.)  

But in DH, there's no spell or tactic used by the bad guys that are off-
limits to the good guys.  So, we're left with the impression that the main
difference between the good guys and the bad guys is that the bad 
guys will go out of their way to hurt you, while the good guys won't 
bother unless you piss them off.

Which may not be a convention common to children's literature, but
it's very conventional to action-adventure and revenge fantasies.