Choice (was themes and theories)

[Amy Z]

Pippin wrote:

(quote <grin>)

>"It's not possible to live with the Dursleys and not
>hate them," said Harry. "I'd like to see you try
>it." --CoS ch 11.

Back to this in a minute.

>These words aren't quoted nearly as often as
>Dumbledore's speech about choices in the same book,
>and yet I think they are crucial to understanding it.
>Oppression creates hatred;  in the Potterverse there
>is no choice about that.

Hm.  I need a little more backup for that opinion. 
There's no choice whether to hate or not?  

I was nodding along with your distinction between the
emotion, hatred, and acting upon it or declining to .
. . 

> The choice that shows what the characters are is not
>whether to hate but how to deal with it.   

. . . but you seem to be saying that in fact 

>But for those whom suffering has made bitter and/or
>cruel, which is *not* presented as  a choice, 

I don't follow you here.  It's not presented as a
choice to either become bitter/cruel or not in
response to suffering?  Is that what you mean?

>it is no longer  easy to turn away from revenge. 

Right.  Not easy.  But still possible.  Or are you
really saying that JKR is really saying that once one
becomes bitter and/or cruel one cannot stop the slide
into ?  How bitter and/or cruel do you mean?  Harry is
certainly bitter at times, so we must be talking about
degrees.

I don't take Harry's line in CoS very seriously.  Yes,
he hates the Dursleys, but the line doesn't carry a
lot of weight as a general statement about free will. 
It's a defensive reaction to a ridiculous assertion by
Ernie:  that because Harry hates his foster family, he
hates Muggles in general.  (Note that in his first
conversation about Muggles, with Ron on the train in
PS/SS, he specifically distinguishes between the
Dursleys and most Muggles.)

Dumbledore's line about Kreacher being what wizards
have made him is more serious.  It is an extreme
statement to say a sentient being and presumed moral
agent was "made" into the person he is.  But again,
before we take it too literally, we need to look at
the character (the one who does harp on choices,
overquoted though that CS Dumbledore passage may be),
and the context.  What, primarily, is he trying to
say?:  not that Kreacher literally bears no
responsibility, but that wizards bear much.  OP is
very interested in the relationship between witches
and wizards and other magical species; the pathology
of this relationship, which received incidental
mention in the first four books (centaurs in 1,
house-elves in 2, etc.), now becomes a focal point,
literally so in the MoM.  It is this, rather than
Kreacher's moral culpability, that drives Dumbledore's
rhetoric.

Amy Z
who will post an introduction shortly
and who is feeling extremely warm and fuzzy to be here


---------------------------------------------------
"This is the weirdest thing we've ever done," Harry
said fervently.      --PA

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