Untarnished soul: WAS Re: 'Clue to his vulnerability' (Coming to a conclusion )

[bluesqueak]

> Neri wrote:
> I think Dumbledore's words "a soul that is whole and untarnished"
> should be taken in the context in which they were said. The context
> was Voldy's ripped soul. By "whole and untarnished soul" Dumbledore
> simply means that Harry didn't commit murder, despite having some 
> good personal reasons to do it.
> 

Pip!Squeak, raising her head from out of the teacup...

No, I think Dumbledore meant more than that. What does Quirrelmort 
say, way back in PS/SS?

"There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak 
to seek it ..." (Ch. 17)

Power is the one thing Harry *doesn't* seek. In the face of constant 
temptation, he never even seems to see the possibilities... The most 
famous boy in the Wizarding World and he finds it irritating. The 
best Seeker for generations and it never occurs to him to encourage 
a (very useful) fan club. In OOP he creates his own small army, darn 
it, mostly very loyal to him - and what happens in HBP? It isn't 
needed any more, so he drops it. Nor is he attracted to those with 
power; he rejects Draco, he rejects Voldy. Slughorn has power to 
mention his name to the 'right people' - but Harry really doesn't 
seem to understand that bit. He doesn't suck up, Slughorn's parties 
are more irritating than anything. Scrimgeour offers him a role as 
poster boy for the Ministry - another route to power. Harry rejects 
it.

Voldemort would have (probably did) *killed* for these advantages. 
Harry doesn't even seem to understand that they are advantages.

Neri:
> So as a whole Dumbledore doesn't say Harry is some kind of a saint.
> Canon pretty much establishes that Harry is far from that. He's 
> just a basically decent person who doesn't murder people. He can 
> love, but so can most of the other characters and most of us, so 
> this isn't A BigDeal by itself. The Big Deal is that he can still 
> love *despite* everything that happened to him.
> 

Pip!Squeak:
Again, I think we might be looking at the wrong part of love. The 
ability to love people, rather than the *ideal* of love. I'd lay 
bets that JKR might well be thinking of a part of the Christian New 
Testament which is frequently read at weddings in the UK; the letter 
of St Paul to the Corinthians, Chapter 13. Harry certainly falls 
short now and then of that description of ideal love (as do we all), 
but its description of love as: 'patient, kind, not jealous, 
conceited or proud, not ill mannered or selfish or irritable, does 
not keep a record of wrongs (OK, except with Snape {g}), not happy 
with evil, but happy with the truth, never giving up and never 
failing in faith, hope and patience,'  is a good description of 
Harry's character *as a whole*. Always excepting the adolescent 
angst of HBP {g}.[summary is my own, taken from the Good News Bible]

<Sni>
> Neri:
> Voldy's power can only be a "lure" if it's power that Harry already
> possesses, or will possess if he's ever "seduced by the Dark Arts"
> (again, Dumbledore's words, one paragraph before).
>

Voldy's power is the seeking of power. Which is a lure; nipping over 
to LOTR for a moment for an analogy - the Ring was a lure to both 
good and evil people. Evil people saw it as simply a means to power; 
good people were seduced because it offered them power to do good. 
Even Dumbledore has sought power - he may have rejected political 
power, but he rejected it in favour of the power to mold young 
minds. Both Fudge and Scrimgeour see Dumbledore as a rival 'power 
bloc'. 

Of the major characters, Harry's the only one who had power thrust 
upon him - unsought. 

> Neri:
> While I find Snape interesting enough, I really don't see why many
> readers think he's a more interesting character than Harry. Does 
> Snape ask himself if he has to do something because it's fated or 
> because it's his own choice? Does he ever wonder if he's still 
> himself? Does he search his memory for blank periods? Does he have 
> to be told by others that he had just spoke a language that he 
> didn't know even existed? Snape is interesting because he keeps 
> secrets from us. Harry tells us everything he knows, and still he 
> has dark secrets even from himself.


Pip!Squeak:
I think Snape was so interesting simply because - in the early 
books - Snape was the only well drawn (more than cartoonish 
cardboard cut-out) adult character. Probably because JKR knew that 
he was, after Harry, the most important character and so worked on 
his chararacterisation more - though whether he's True Antagonist or 
Second Protagonist (the Protagonist Voldemort knoweth not {g}) will 
only be seen in Book 7.

Why is he more interesting than Harry? Because he's the Man in the 
Middle. Harry is Good, Voldemort is Evil, and Snape is everyone who 
ever took a decision they knew to be morally dodgy because they 
thought they *had* to, or because they didn't know better, or .... 
Taken a job with a big corporation you strongly suspect is 
destroying the planet's ecosystem in the name of their greater 
profits? (I did). Congratulations, you're Snape! Been nasty to your 
kids 'for their own good'? Snape again. And so forth.

So he's more interesting to adults. Children are learning the 
difference between Good and Evil. Adults are more likely to see the 
world as a place where sometimes the choice that has to be made is 
not between Good and Evil, but between 'uh, only *slightly* evil' 
and 'is that going too far, even if it will be for the best in the 
long run?' 

If Snape turns out to be the 'moral core' of the series (quoting 
Sherry), then I'd suspect it will be because the series is really 
about 'who claims the grey people'? Do they belong to Evil? Or can 
Good redeem them? Is this series about Justice? Or Mercy?

Do you only belong to the side of Good if your heart is pure, you 
have the strength of ten and any sins are only minor ones? 

Or is Good a side that anyone can join (or rejoin)? Whatever they've 
done?

*Whatever* they've done.


Pip!Squeak
"Where do you think I would have been all these years, if I had not 
known how to act?" - Severus Snape