Love, Hate, Joy, Despair---the Greatest is Love

[nikkalmati]

No: HPFGUIDX 190977



--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "willsonteam" <willsonkmom at ...> wrote:
>
> Not to be confused with, but inspired by a thread of a similar name---
> 
> There is love, hate and despair in this series, though I'm not sure we see much joy. All of them inspire or drive characters to do what they do--with good and bad outcomes.
> 
> There is the history of hatred between Muggles and Wizards,  hatred between Marauders and Snape, between Draco and Harry. There is Snape's despair at Lily's death, Lovegood's despair at Luna's kidnapping, the whole Wizarding World's despair at LV's reign. We see Harry's joy at discovering the WW, Remus's joy at having friends. Love, actually, is all around.
> 
> Love is a major theme of the series. It is, after all, Harry's love that saves the WW. JKR shows many types of love throughout her story--and warns about obsessive love.
> 
> What do you, kind readers, think of the different ways JKR depicts love? 
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> Is she right, in your opinion? 
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> How many examples of love do you see in the book? 
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> How does love and joy contrast with hate and despair?
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> 
> 
>Nikkalmati

I am not sure you will get many responses. lol.   This is a very dark series.  Love is emphasized by its absence.  There is lots of mother love, of course.  Lily, Molly, Narcissa, Merope, Petunia (?).  Boy-girl (we don't see much of man-woman and that doesn't look too good.  Arthur-Molly, Lupin-Tonks, Snape for Lily). Harry for his children. Friends - the Trio.  Hagred for his brother, Ron for Ginny and his siblings.     Hagred for his pets and LV for Nagini. Love knits the world together and this world is being torn apart by its absence. 

I am not sure it is Harry's love that saves the WW.  Do you mean his love for that world in general, so he is willing to die?  I see it more as his sense of duty.

I was trying to list how many simple acts of kindness I could remember from the 7 books.  Not too many - and most of them are by Harry.  Hagred gives Harry a birthday cake and an owl.  Harry frees Dobby. Harry saves Dudley. Hermione repairs Harry's glasses and makes hats for the elves.  Harry and friends save Norbert.  Harry goes to the Deathday party for NH Nick.  Harry saves Neville's Rememberall. I can't think of any others offhand.  I tried not to include acts of heroism but I did include Dudley.  

Nikkalmati