Love in HP
Feb. 6th, 2019 08:20 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslockSince Valentine's Day is close by, I thought this topic would be fitting to bring up and ramble about until I get it off my chest.
Here comes a few (potentially) silly questions I have about love as a reoccurring and major theme in the HP books: is love a redemptive and saving force? Is it a reflection of our inner nature and morals? Does it make us better or worse than we are? Is it proof we’re capable of good? Or is it simply a nice message to have in a children’s series i.e. love is more powerful than anything?
Voldemort is said to be incapable of love. He’s the product of an unhappy and coercive union; therefore, he’s doomed from the moment he’s born. Little Tom Riddle never had a chance.
Harry is said to have an amazing ability to love. His parents died trying to protect him and Lily gave him her magical protection because of her sacrifice. It doesn’t matter if Harry grew up in a terrible and neglectful household and grows up to experience a great deal of horrible things; he’s saved from the moment he’s born. He has the love of his friends and mentor figures too.
Dumbledore fell in love with the wrong man and suffered for it. He tries to rectify his mistake and… I’m not sure. Dumbledore confuses the heck out of me. He’s made critical mistakes in the name of love for Grindelwald but is still venerated despite his morally dubious self. He leads a long and admirable life and is seen as the epitome of good. I suppose he’s “saved” in a way too?
And then there’s Snape. He fell in love with the right woman but chose to follow his harmful ambitions and suffered for it. He gets Lily killed, shows remorse and strives to atone for the rest of his life. He remains slavishly devoted to Lily in exchange for nothing. He leads a miserable, isolated, and brutal life and succumbs to a miserable, isolated, and brutal death. He’s doomed from the moment he called Lily a “mudblood” (maybe even before - when he’s sorted into Slytherin). Beyond being branded a pitiful and tragic figure, I don’t think he was saved or redeemed by love at all. Although some fans disagree. I go back and forth sometimes too.
Lastly, we have the Malfoys. They’re established as a selfish and craven prejudiced family. And yet - they love each other. It’s Narcissa’s love for Draco which pushes for his protection. They walk away relatively unscathed from the war, other than their hurt pride and reputation. Love saved them, although it didn’t fully redeem them as moral figures in the story.
(There’s also love between other characters, such as the Dursleys’ love for their son, Bellatrix’s love for Voldemort, Tonks/Lupin, other romances, and so on. But I’m focusing on the big examples with the most significance to the overall plot.)
Love is important in the HP series. It’s heralded as a great power to have against evil and corruption. But does it - in a strange way - reveal how frozen the characters are? Harry is empowered by love because he’s the hero and innately good. Voldemort has no use for love because he’s the villain and innately evil. Dumbledore screws up greatly for love, but it’s all cool because he’s innately wonderful. Snape is innately a horrible person who made bad choices, but he loved Lily - so let’s be magnanimous and grant him a modicum of praise (but no proper redemption). The Malfoys are innately selfish and shady people, but they have love as a family - so let’s be magnanimous and grant them some praise too (but no proper redemption either).
My thoughts are all over the place. I’m a rambling type of thinker. I think JKR was going for the idealistic message that love is powerful and the most valuable thing in the world capable of defeating evil and revealing the humanity in unscrupulous individuals. However, it’s also connected to who you are innately as a person. But why does it have to be?
Why does Voldemort have to be “incapable of love” to be evil rather than his actions and choices as a person? Why does Harry have his parents and his ability to love praised to prove he’s capable of being a hero rather than his own actions and choices as a person? Why does love make Snape and the Malfoys worthy of recognition instead of their own actions and choices regardless of love? If it were not for their love for someone, they would be considered despicable and unworthy of mercy? And Dumbledore - well, he gets to love a big bad boy, mess up, and move on to be ultra powerful and admired because he’s untouchable (despite JKR’s attempt to give him shades of grey in DH).
And why is Lily’s love for Harry so special that it creates a unique protection spell? Have no other mothers or fathers in the history of the Wizarding World died to protect their child? Because only Harry can be the ultimate hero empowered by love?
Ah, I’m done for now. A lot of rhetorical questions. Love is weird. Or maybe I need to not take it too seriously… but I’m going to anyways.
Here comes a few (potentially) silly questions I have about love as a reoccurring and major theme in the HP books: is love a redemptive and saving force? Is it a reflection of our inner nature and morals? Does it make us better or worse than we are? Is it proof we’re capable of good? Or is it simply a nice message to have in a children’s series i.e. love is more powerful than anything?
Voldemort is said to be incapable of love. He’s the product of an unhappy and coercive union; therefore, he’s doomed from the moment he’s born. Little Tom Riddle never had a chance.
Harry is said to have an amazing ability to love. His parents died trying to protect him and Lily gave him her magical protection because of her sacrifice. It doesn’t matter if Harry grew up in a terrible and neglectful household and grows up to experience a great deal of horrible things; he’s saved from the moment he’s born. He has the love of his friends and mentor figures too.
Dumbledore fell in love with the wrong man and suffered for it. He tries to rectify his mistake and… I’m not sure. Dumbledore confuses the heck out of me. He’s made critical mistakes in the name of love for Grindelwald but is still venerated despite his morally dubious self. He leads a long and admirable life and is seen as the epitome of good. I suppose he’s “saved” in a way too?
And then there’s Snape. He fell in love with the right woman but chose to follow his harmful ambitions and suffered for it. He gets Lily killed, shows remorse and strives to atone for the rest of his life. He remains slavishly devoted to Lily in exchange for nothing. He leads a miserable, isolated, and brutal life and succumbs to a miserable, isolated, and brutal death. He’s doomed from the moment he called Lily a “mudblood” (maybe even before - when he’s sorted into Slytherin). Beyond being branded a pitiful and tragic figure, I don’t think he was saved or redeemed by love at all. Although some fans disagree. I go back and forth sometimes too.
Lastly, we have the Malfoys. They’re established as a selfish and craven prejudiced family. And yet - they love each other. It’s Narcissa’s love for Draco which pushes for his protection. They walk away relatively unscathed from the war, other than their hurt pride and reputation. Love saved them, although it didn’t fully redeem them as moral figures in the story.
(There’s also love between other characters, such as the Dursleys’ love for their son, Bellatrix’s love for Voldemort, Tonks/Lupin, other romances, and so on. But I’m focusing on the big examples with the most significance to the overall plot.)
Love is important in the HP series. It’s heralded as a great power to have against evil and corruption. But does it - in a strange way - reveal how frozen the characters are? Harry is empowered by love because he’s the hero and innately good. Voldemort has no use for love because he’s the villain and innately evil. Dumbledore screws up greatly for love, but it’s all cool because he’s innately wonderful. Snape is innately a horrible person who made bad choices, but he loved Lily - so let’s be magnanimous and grant him a modicum of praise (but no proper redemption). The Malfoys are innately selfish and shady people, but they have love as a family - so let’s be magnanimous and grant them some praise too (but no proper redemption either).
My thoughts are all over the place. I’m a rambling type of thinker. I think JKR was going for the idealistic message that love is powerful and the most valuable thing in the world capable of defeating evil and revealing the humanity in unscrupulous individuals. However, it’s also connected to who you are innately as a person. But why does it have to be?
Why does Voldemort have to be “incapable of love” to be evil rather than his actions and choices as a person? Why does Harry have his parents and his ability to love praised to prove he’s capable of being a hero rather than his own actions and choices as a person? Why does love make Snape and the Malfoys worthy of recognition instead of their own actions and choices regardless of love? If it were not for their love for someone, they would be considered despicable and unworthy of mercy? And Dumbledore - well, he gets to love a big bad boy, mess up, and move on to be ultra powerful and admired because he’s untouchable (despite JKR’s attempt to give him shades of grey in DH).
And why is Lily’s love for Harry so special that it creates a unique protection spell? Have no other mothers or fathers in the history of the Wizarding World died to protect their child? Because only Harry can be the ultimate hero empowered by love?
Ah, I’m done for now. A lot of rhetorical questions. Love is weird. Or maybe I need to not take it too seriously… but I’m going to anyways.
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Date: 2019-03-15 03:37 am (UTC)Dumbledore, if our choices make us who we are, why is Tom painted as a lost cause? There is no moral lesson in this (“So-and-so had XYZ faults just like you, but he reformed and you can too, if you put your mind to it.”) The point of the lessons is to make clear that Harry is Not Like The Dark Lord, Not At All, because of his mother’s undying love for him. Since Tom’s mother didn’t love him enough to sacrifice her life for him in pitched battle, he and Harry are of course chalk and cheese.
d) hiring teachers like Lockhart (incompetent) or Quirrell (possessed)
Harry capslocks spectacularly at Sirius in PoA, when he thinks Sirius is guilty, but after Sirius proclaims his innocence and is vetted by Dumbledore, Harry doesn’t even mention his kidnapping of Ron, who is Harry’s best friend of three years, as a reason to distrust Sirius. At the end of PoA Harry is ready to pack up and live with Sirius at a moment’s notice. Never mind that Sirius is probably lying. Never mind that he’s in no fit mental or physical condition to care for himself, let alone Harry, who also has some serious issues. Because Bumbledore has okayed Sirius, he’s suddenly alright in Harry’s book. The one thing Dd does “right” is not allowing Harry to live with Sirius at Grimmauld Place. And I suspect that is only so he can control Harry better.
Harry is quite justifiably upset at Pettigrew, but for all his righteous anger at his parents’ death, he never thinks to find out why the Potters couldn’t have been SKs themselves, or why they switched SKs in the first place (Sirius’ justification is, frankly, bullshit).
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Date: 2019-03-15 06:08 pm (UTC)The thing is that this also may be due to Genre Whiplash. For example, Sauron is the main villain of "Lord of the Rings." But Gollum and the Ring evoke more personal emotion with Frodo and Sam because they're right there with them and because Gollum is a reminder of what Frodo could be if he succumbs to the temptation of the Ring. There is no attempt to evoke any similarities between Sauron and Frodo. They aren't given similar backstories or personalities. They don't even get to really meet face to face or talk. In fact, the notable thing about the whole conflict between them is how different they are. Frodo's a small, humble hobbit from a quiet village who has no interest in ruling anything. The whole point about Frodo being the hero is that he's someone that Sauron underestimates because he's nothing like what Sauron would expect.
Voldemort is the main villain of HP and he's outfitted with a lot of common Dark Lord traits: has followers, dresses in black, wishes to conquer the wizarding world, etc. But then we meet him as a child and a teenager, and we see the similarities between him and Harry. But then, once we think that this is going somewhere, it doesn't. Voldemort is still the typical Dark Lord, none of what Harry sees makes any real difference except to offer clues about what he's up to (Horcruxes).
/Dumbledore, if our choices make us who we are, why is Tom painted as a lost cause?/
Because JKR wanted to make sure that the reader knew that Tom was a bad apple from the start. He was a 'funny baby', he killed animals, he had a hungry look on his face when Dumbledore tells him that he can do magic (not unlike the look of greed that Snape is described as having when he sees Lily and Petunia?), and he drove other children at the orphanage insane and stole their belongings. And that's all before he arrived at Hogwarts.
/The point of the lessons is to make clear that Harry is Not Like The Dark Lord/
It's basically like an argument that you'd find in fan forums. "So what if Tom grew up in an orphanage? Harry grew up with the Dursleys and you don't see him killing people." Even Harry's decision to say "Not Slytherin" when being Sorted is treated like this moral triumph in COS when, in reality, the only reason why he said no was because Hagrid told him that all bad wizards came from Slytherin (which was proven to be a lie). So, he made this grand moral decision based on a lie. And yet somehow that makes him morally superior to Tom, who presumably knew nothing about Slytherin House.
/because of his mother’s undying love for him. Since Tom’s mother didn’t love him enough to sacrifice her life for him in pitched battle/
The argument put forward by Harry seems to be that if Merope had worried more about keeping herself and her son alive than being upset that her husband left her, then she wouldn't have lost her magic. Or she should've tried harder to keep her magic instead of giving into her depression. Even though we've only seen two instances of this: Merope and Tonks. Neville never loses his magic whenever he's upset.
But, yes, Merope would've been able to use her magic and thus save herself if she'd been stronger. Meanwhile, magical prodigy Lily, who was fully healthy by the time that Voldemort came calling, was so much stronger and braver than Merope that she barricaded the door with boxes and when that didn't work, pleaded with Voldemort to spare Harry and then threw herself in front of him when that didn't work. Because this awesome mother somehow forgot that she was a witch and could do magic. Yep, Merope's weak for letting her magic drain out of her because she's sad, but Lily is amazing for forgetting that she has magic at all.
/Because Bumbledore has okayed Sirius, he’s suddenly alright in Harry’s book/
Actually, Harry was all set to move in with Sirius before that. He tells Sirius that he'd be willing to live with him while they're all walking Peter towards the castle, before Lupin transforms.