Harry's Angst Re: A Simpler Scenario
annemehr
annemehr at annemehr.yahoo.invalid
Wed Sep 7 20:14:53 UTC 2005
--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> wrote:
> --- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "annemehr" <annemehr at y...>
> wrote:
> > I can come up with a reasonable explanation for Harry's feelings and
> > how he got from one to the other, but I had expected that part of
> > Harry's story would be *how* he came to terms with it. Instead, I
> > find his change of heart was a fait accompli that took place outside
> > our view.
> >
>
> Pippin:
> But it did take place in our view, in chapter 23, when Dumbledore told
> Harry he was setting too much store by the prophecy. As you say,
> the prophecy didn't say he must, but Harry interpreted it that way,
> "his life must include, or end in, murder..." OOP 38. Harry didn't
> have to struggle to abandon that view of things, because he'd
> never been happy with it in the first place, in fact he found it hard
> to believe, unlike Voldemort. He, unlike Voldemort, is much happier
> to see his life as a series of choices rather than a 'destiny.'
>
> Dumbledore, as usual, gave Harry the opportunity to try and figure
> it out on his own before setting him straight
>
> It's another case of Harry's first intuitive reaction being the wrong
> one. The solution, I think, is not that he becomes so wise in the
> future that his first reactions will be right, it's that he will
> become wise enough in the future not to trust his first reaction.
>
>
> Pippin
Yes, what you say is true...
Let me try to come at my dissatisfaction another way.
Since GoF, Harry knew LV would never stop trying to kill him. But,
though we never see him thinking about it, he probably assumed the WW
battle would go on until *somebody* killed LV without ever really
thinking it was very likely to be he himself.
In OoP, Harry heard the prophecy. Not only did he find out why LV
wanted to kill him, he also found out that (supposedly) Harry was the
*only* one who *could* kill LV. So, things went from "somebody's got
to stop him" to "I've got to stop him."
So in HBP, DD explains that the prophecy did not have to come true;
that the reason it does seem to be coming true is that LV believes it
and acts accordingly; that Harry has free choice in the matter. DD
asks Harry what his choice is, and Harry replies he'd like to kill LV.
My problem? I thought that in OoP it wasn't the idea of "destiny" that
bothered Harry so much, it was the idea that he would either kill or
be killed. Then in HBP, DD takes away the idea of destiny. But where
did the angst about killing go? Was it ever there, or did I read OoP
wrong? It's the process of Harry reconciling himself to killing that
we never see.
Anne
More information about the the_old_crowd
archive