'Clue to his vulnerability' (Coming to a conclusion )

[Jen Reese]

Neri:
> 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.
 
> 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 Big Deal by itself. The Big Deal is that he can still
> love *despite* everything that happened to him.
 
Jen: Even though I agree Dumbledore is contrasting Harry's soul with 
Voldemort's here, your comments stopped me short. Is that all 
Dumbledore is referring to? Because I don't find it unusual at 
*all*  Harry is not a murderer, most people don't murder just 
because they've endured 'suffering' as Dumbledore calls it. 

Riddle's trajectory is somewhat understandable after finding out he 
received little to nothing in the nature OR nurture department, plus 
the fact no one intervened with his cognitive distortions. Like when 
he concluded his mom couldn't have been a witch because she died--uh-
oh, look where that idea went when given free rein! Whatever 
Dumbledore hoped would happen at Hogwarts, Riddle never gave up on 
believing he could use magic to hurt people. His path to becoming a 
murderer was well-charted, I thought.

Harry's background and genetics were very different. In fact, COS 
marked the end of the 'strange likenesses' between Harry and Riddle, 
they were drawn only to explain the transfer of powers, apparently. 
The growing likenesses seem to be between Harry and Snape, maybe his 
soul would provide a better comparison?!?

No, I still think Dumbledore's 'whole soul' comment is referring to 
the siren song of dark magic, and Harry's ability to resist the road 
where so many before him, like Riddle and Snape, could not. Resist 
so far, I should say, as suddenly the lure of the 'dark magic equals 
power' equation is getting difficult to give up. 

The Choices idea is very slim indeed after HBP. Harry may only have 
the choice to walk into the arena chin-up or be dragged, but 
Voldemort had even less of a chance to appreciate a whole soul 
before he ripped his apart. I'm not sure why JKR chose to draw 
Riddle's past the way she did, whether it will play again in the end 
somehow. A more heinous villain would be one who grew up with all 
the things Harry lacked and turned his back on every one to go down 
the path to destruction and ruin. For me, anyway. I could feel 
little but compassion for Riddle, and his deprivation cast an even 
brighter light on Harry's resources.

Neri:
> The "despite" here is the important part. I find it instructive
> that Dumbledore, while explaining to Harry that "it will take
> uncommon skill and power to kill a wizard like Voldemort even
> without his Horcruxes", never actually teaches Harry any skill.
> Only during the sixth year he finally gives Harry some privet
> tutoring, and even then it's not "really advanced defensive magic
> 
 powerful countercurses
anti-jinxes" as Hermione naturally
> conjectures. It's only the biography of Voldemort. Why doesn't
> Dumbledore ever teach Harry something *useful*?
 
Jen: The biography of Riddle is definitely for the Horcrux search, 
something Dumbledore seems to think Harry is uniquely qualified for 
or he would train someone else. As for the killin' part, well HBP 
convinced me all roads lead to self-sacrifice, something Harry is 
also uniguely qualified for, capable of and requires no training 
for ;). Part of me holds out hope for something trickier, even 
though the theme is woven throughout the text, and the explanations 
for how each character will act are evident: We have Harry on one 
side with no fear of death but only average magical power, and 
Voldemort on the other side with an all-consuming obsession with 
defeating death and immense magical power. Who is more powerful in 
the end, the one with everything to lose or the one with nothing? 

The truth is, no ending seems satisfying to me now. When Talisman 
and Carolyn mention the hope of Puppetmaster!Dumbledore coming to 
light in book 7, well it would harken back to the day, wouldn't it? 
When GoF was out and the possibilities were endless? Part of me 
wouldn't mind that either, but only because I don't want this ship 
to dock yet. Talisman and Carolyn may have other reasons for it ;).

> 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.

Jen: I find Snape interesting in his omissions, like you said. He's 
interesting in comparison to Harry, and after the potions book, boy-
Snape struck me as much more like Harry and Ron than someone like 
Riddle. What changed for him? We see he started to become interested 
in dark magic via the spells in the book, but no real explanation 
for why. 

And hoo-boy, Harry sure does have a dark secret from himself--how 
very much like Snape he really is. 

Jen