Thoughts on how "love" is portrayed in Harry Potter

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

Not too long ago I had some major brainwaves about love, which I thought would be relevant to our discussion about Harry Potter. Rowling in her books loves (no pun intended) to portray love as this all-powerful force for good (except when it’s not). The thing is, though, she seems to have a pretty messed-up idea about what “love” really means.

Awhile back I was reading an article in a magazine that was at least partly a critique of the John Lennon song “Imagine.” Its major point was simply this: the song’s call for unity and love between all the peoples of the earth was fundamentally flawed and misguided because for “love” to mean anything at all, it has to be discriminatory. Simply put, love entails playing favorites. When two people get married, they promise to care about each other more than anyone else. Parents love their children more than anyone else’s children, and by the same token, children (in most cases) love their parents more than other people’s parents and most other adults in their lives. Love is actually a pretty selfish emotion, albeit one that tends to lead to selfless behaviors.

As I was reading the article I was reminded of a really great show called “Noein.” In “Noein” my favorite character is a villain named Kuina, who is passionately in love with a woman named Kosagi, who works for him. At one point, he openly declares that he’s willing to let his entire world be completely destroyed—except for her, because he wants them to have a happy life together and views the destruction of the world they currently inhabit as the best way to accomplish this. There’s never a doubt that he loves Kosagi, and he treats her very nicely, especially compared to most equivalent characters in lesser shows, but simply loving her does not make him a good person. A Harry Potter character might say that he was a villain and therefore incapable of the pure, selfless love a good person would have, but the heroes of “Noein” do the same thing. At another point in the story, the show’s heroine, Haruka, learns that she’s going to die young and sacrifice her life to save her world. When Karasu, the futuristic version of her boyfriend (it’s a show about time travel) tells her this, Haruka, who has been collecting information about her past and future selves the entire time, reassures him by telling Karasu that she wasn’t sacrificing herself to save the world—no, she was sacrificing herself to save HIM. In other words, we’re meant to see Haruka as more admirable for sacrificing herself for just one person she cared about, than if she were doing it for some objectively-defined greater good.

Now bring this back around to Harry Potter. We’re supposed to boo and hiss at Snape because he (it’s commonly understood) was perfectly content to serve Voldemort initially and only got cold feet when he learned that Lily, whom he loved, was under attack. The thing is, even if that’s true, that’s what love is. If he truly loved her, it stands to reason that he would care about her more than any of Voldemort’s prior victims. And, of course, it’s a testament to his own character that he’s willing to work against Voldemort after she was safely dead.

By contrast, Harry and his mother Lily, who are held up as paragons of selfless love for everyone, show little or no love or care toward any actual people. Lily, if her behavior during SWM is any indication, seemed more interested in the idea of being gracious to Snape than in doing much actual work to keep him out of trouble or provide him with emotional support. And Harry, of course, uses his own emotions and supposedly deep love of others as an excuse to fish for sympathy and avoid empathizing with or relating to other people. When he eventually sacrifices himself, it’s not because he has anyone in particular he wants to protect, but simply because he’s been told it’s what he’s meant to do. Lily, meanwhile, was ultimately at her most heroic and loving when she offered up her own life in exchange for her son’s because it required her to show love and concern for an actual person (something which, as it happens, Narcissa, Draco’s mother, was just as willing to do, though her death was not necessarily a guarantee).

If love is discriminatory, then it follows that the key to helping people on a large scale is not to “love” them per se, but to recognize that they love themselves and theirs as much as you love yourself and yours. And this is something Harry consistently fails to do. He seems to think it’s okay for him to be sad Cedric died, but not Cho, who knew him better. At the same time, he expects the world to stop turning every time someone he’s personally close to dies, whether it’s Sirius or Dumbledore or Fred. Indeed, it’s only toward the very end of the last book that Harry shows any sense of even caring about Slytherins or indeed anyone in any house but Gryffindor other than his own personal friends. Contrast Snape, who understands enough about Narcissa’s plight and grief to make an Unbreakable Vow to protect her son, even if it means going directly against Voldemort’s instructions and risking his wrath.

So in short, Harry fails at loving, and he fails at putting any feelings of love toward any real use.

Comments

The Slave of Duty

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

It’s the difference between love and compassion. Love is what you feel for people who are special to you. Compassion is what you feel for people who aren’t special to you. Offhand I can’t think of anyone in the Potterverse who is notable for compassion—not even Snape, who is the most morally evolved character in the series.

What Snape feels is a sense of duty. He doesn’t like people or feel empathy for them, and this confuses Harry, most of Gryffindor House, an awful lot of fans, and JKR herself, who have not gotten past the stage of caring only about people they like. Snape protects the students no matter how much he detests them. Duty is before all, and at any cost, he will do his duty. Actually caring about the brats is not necessary.

(Who spots the quotation? Dress rehearsal for ‘The Pirates of Penzance’ is next weekend at the Seattle Rep Playhouse.)

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

I think you've jumped around a bit and made some assumptions about what love is supposed to be in HP in your enthusiasm to slam Rowling. (No need for that when there's so much evidence already. :-))

Rowling in her books loves (no pun intended) to portray love as this all-powerful force for good -

It's one of her most horrible fuzzy wave-the-hands-and-don't-give-any-concrete-details crutches, isn't it? The Lily mummy magic thing doesn't stand up; Harry's duplication, ditto; James's failure to produce daddy magic protection is offensive (exacerbated by Rowling's ludicrous attempt to handwave this); Harry's 'power the dark lord knows not' being 'love' is essentially abandoned as a failed device in book 6 and never eventuates; and so forth.

for “love” to mean anything at all, it has to be discriminatory.

As a base axiom I'd disagree with that outright. Yes, one can 'love' one person more than another, but love itself isn't zero-sum.

I've always thought one definition of 'love' as being that condition wherein a person is willing to sacrifice his own desires and wishes for the happiness of the other. There's nothing discriminatory in that definition (save discriminating against oneself).

I'm not religious myself but Christian faith states that Christ so loved the *world* that he died for our sins, right? That's an example of 'love' right there that's all-encompassing.

There are no doubt other individuals who have 'loved' everyone in their world. Mother Theresa for example. :-)

So -

Simply put, love entails playing favorites.

I don't agree.

Snape ... learned that Lily, whom he loved, ...

I'm in a minority of folk here, I guess, who don't believe that Snape truly 'loved' Lily. He didn't hold her happiness about his own; otherwise he would have wanted her husband and child saved.

Harry and his mother Lily, who are held up as paragons of selfless love for everyone -

Huh?

Rowling's association of Harry and 'love' is all over the place, but where is it shown that Lily 'selflessly loved everyone'?

And Harry, of course, uses his own emotions and supposedly deep love of others as an excuse to fish for sympathy -

Can you cite examples of this too?

Harry's somewhat self-centred, maybe - I never thought he was overly that way - he constantly fights the good fight, even if passively and badly - but where does he fish for sympathy using his 'love' as an excuse?

When he eventually sacrifices himself, it’s not because he has anyone in particular he wants to protect -

That's not true:

Dumbledore knew, as Voldemort knew, that Harry would not let anyone else die for him now that he had discovered it was in his power to stop it.

I wholeheartedly agree with you on this point, though:

- simply because he’s been told it’s what he’s meant to do.

Yeah; Harry's brainwashing by Dumbledore into calmly accepting that it was his 'job' to be a sacrificial lamb was horrible.

Narcissa, Draco’s mother, was just as willing to do, though her death was not necessarily a guarantee

Where does it show that Narcissa was prepared to sacrifice her own life for Draco's?

(Mind you, I've never understood her choice, that little scene, at all; it just doesn't make sense to me. If Harry wasn't dead, then say so; kill him properly this time; and you still get to advance into Hogwarts and rejoin your DE son.)

If love is discriminatory -

I don't think it is.

he expects the world to stop turning every time someone he’s personally close to dies -

Don't we all feel that way? Not seriously expecting the world to stop turning, but honest emotion at the death of a loved one would be a common characteristic of 'love'.

Harry fails at loving, and he fails at putting any feelings of love toward any real use.

He sacrificed his life to save others, as per the quote above. That's love. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends".

Addendum: Lily

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

P.S. In biological terms, Lily’s sacrifice for Harry was not unselfish. Your children are your immortality; that’s how mortal beings perpetuate themselves, by passing their genes on to the next generation. A parent sacrificing to save its offspring is the past dying for the sake of the future, and is a commonplace of nature. It’s admirable, but it isn’t pure disinterested compassion.