[the_old_crowd] Re: Genre WAS: That Bloody Man Again

[Mike Gray]

Interesting stuff going on in this discussion! I just
want to pick up on a couple things Susan said:

First,

> This particular bit was written in response to
> someone thinking Harry will triumph by loving his
> enemies.  I'm not prepared to go quite that far,
> but....

I'd like to see him do exactly that.

You know, we've touched on the centrality of love to
the series - particularly, discussing love as the
secret power behind the door in OotP. One objection
that came up was that the sort of love HP has shown so
far just doesn't seem all that special, notable or
powerful - leading to the suspicion that JKR is
feeding us bromides.

Before Accio (and while writing my paper) I got to
thinking about this - and I noticed that, if you think
in terms of classical Christian ethics, you have three
levels of love:

1. Do onto others as you would have others do unto
you.
2. Love your neighbor as yourself.
3. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute
you. 

Up till now, Harry has shown some amount of (1) and
(2) - certainly more than Voldie, and (arguably) more
than was to be expected for someone with his
childhood. 

However, I realized that if I wanted to claim that the
power behind the locked door was something along the
lines of Christian love, there was simply no way the
story could ignore to stage three - and stage three is
something Harry really hasn't shown yet.

However, like you mention, it seems like Jo has begun
to hint at it more and more over the last two books -
and Susan mentions two ways:

About Voldemort:

> Or was
> DD correct, that Harry had been "caught" feeling
> sympathy -- or even
> empathy -- for a baby who lost his mother? EVEN a
> baby whom Harry
> KNEW to be Tom Riddle/Voldemort, a baby who grew up
> to be his own
> parents' murderer and his own sworn enemy? An
> interesting
> possibility, in my book.

About Merope: 
 
> Is this just curiosity? Perhaps. But Harry seems to
> be able to set
> aside the kind of spiteful/vengeful/hate-filled
> responses one might
> *expect* from him when viewing memories of Tom
> Riddle & his family,
> and shows, instead, an inkling of compassion and
> concern.

Essentially, Harry is moving into a transitional stage
between (2) to (3) - the kind of thing you get in the
story of the good Samaritan. Granting that "neighbor"
is our word for "my kind of people; ie. the good
guys": he is beginning to the emotional realization
that his enemy (Voldemort, Snape, Malfoy) is not so
very different from his "neighbor" and that his
"neighbor" is not always all that different from
enemies (James being cruel to Snape). 

(Something related came out of Andrea Schutz's
presentation on Lupin: learning to love/recognize my
neighbor in the skin of my enemy. This is certainly a
transitional area that is *very* important to JKR.)

Recently, I've made some pretty strong assertions that
Snape is going to turn out to be a good guy. That's
basically because of my theological reading of the
plot. While I didn't (and don't) think Harry could
ever find any kind of reconciliation with Voldermort -
Voldie is too far gone for that, and Dumbledore
clearly believes that he must be killed - my
theological reading demanded that Harry find
reconciliation with his enemies - and now he has two
prime candidates in Snape and Malfoy. 

Anything less would be theologically stunted
understanding of love. And of course, understanding
that Snape isn't his enemy at all would make this
reconciliation plausible.

In retrospect, while I stand behind the theological
reading, I'm having some doubts about Snape. Not about
the reconciliation part, but about the good guy part.
Maybe Snape will turn out to have been bad all the way
through. Theologically speaking, so what? Harry will
still have to learn what it means to love - ie. care
about, empathize with, forgive, reach out to - him
anyway. And perhaps he *does* have the tools to do it.


And here's a new one, guys: What if Dumbledore trusted
Snape not because of Snape but because of Harry? What
if he knew that Harry has what it takes to get through
to Snape and trusted that before all is said and done,
Harry will succeed.

Just an idea.

Baaaaa,

Mike