Love in HP

[torchedsong.livejournal.com]

Since 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.

Comments

[torchedsong.livejournal.com]

Male characters are allowed the space for vulnerability (anger counts). For me, at least, there is a sense that these male characters are justified in their suffering, that it ennobles them. In contrast, the female characters are rarely allowed to indulge emotions that tend towards the romantic-tragic/Keatsian.

Well said. I remember reading an article written by a woman where she spoke of how male characters are allowed to be complicated, messy, and greatly flawed without apology, while female characters are only allowed to be "Strong". Men are written like human beings, while women are written like they're meant to be role models. This inadvertently ends up making the male characters more compelling, interesting, and/or relatable because they're not always obligated to be Strong and Good all the time to be adequate role models for men and boys.

In HP, it's mainly the men who move the story forward and are given page time to express the profound emotions that motivate them in their lives - whether it's anger, melancholy, regret, guilt, hate, love, etc. Which brings me back to my Lily Problem; she's the only female member in the Marauders' Generation, and coincidentally, the only character portrayed as perfect as possible. James isn't always shown in a good light, and we all know the suffering Snape, Sirius, Remus, and Peter go through. But Lily is only allowed to be a Good Person, a Good Wife, and a Good Mother. She has no other purpose, and JKR never tarnishes Lily's pure reputation in the text in any way, unlike with the male characters that surround her who can be "impure" in their imperfections.

And that's an interesting point about Fleur and how she was written as another symbol of strength in relation to her injured husband. Her love for Bill is admirable and sweet, but it does seem like another example of a woman who has to be Good and Strong in the face of suffering, instead of showing any palpable and profound anguish.

As for female friendships, I know the fandom really likes Luna/Ginny. Ginny does give one of her children Luna's name (Lily Luna Potter) and I think protected Luna from being bullied once. But because it's Harry's story, we don't really get the chance to see any developing female friendships. They're in the background and sort of just there.

I like Luna and Evanna Lynch's portrayal of her, but you're right that she's a simple and straightforward character. She isn't a significant influence in the long-run and appears to inject some humor and quirkiness into certain moments. I like how Harry is calmer around her sometimes, but she could be taken out of the story, replaced with someone else, and not much would change.

So we have Lily’s outburst, and then a similar one from Hermione. Both of their reactions to their supposed best friends and love interests are vastly out of proportion to the “crime”.

I think, for me, the problem is less about their reactions being out of proportion, but more so how the author frames their reactions as being undeniably right. It was "right" for Hermione to attack Ron out of jealousy to show how he hurt her. It was "right" for Lily to leave behind her friend to be bullied and have his underpants stripped in front of a crowd because he said a bad word while being humiliated. Hermione isn't characterized as abusive and violent by JKR in the text for hurting Ron. Just as Lily is not painted in a bad light for being a major hypocrite who hooks up with her former best friend's bully after claiming they're both just as bad as each other. But James was a Gryffindor who didn't use Dark magic and he quickly changed through the power of Lily's Pure Loving Presence.

[with-rainfall.livejournal.com]

Funnily enough, I don’t mind Ginny/ Luna. I think they set each other off nicely - Ginny is practical and Luna’s dreamy.

Ah, that makes sense. Yes, it’s the same issue I have with the Golden Trio: they do things because they are Inherently Good, and all the things they do are condoned by the author.

I wonder if Lily was well-liked among her classmates at Hogwarts?

It’s really a sign of poor writing, isn’t it, when you have two such different characters (Hermione and Lily) and yet they express their anger in exactly the same way?

[torchedsong.livejournal.com]

I don't mind Ginny/Luna either, but I think I like the idea of them more than what we've seen in canon. But, as always, since it's Harry's POV we're not going to see the intricacies of other friendships outside of the Golden Trio. Though I do think it sweet that Ginny gave her daughter Luna's name. I like it a tad more than James Sirius and Albus Severus. :p

I think Lily was well-liked among her peers. I'm too unmotivated to get the book to refer to it correctly, but doesn't Lily mention having friends separate from Snape when she says something along the lines of "my friends don't know why I keep hanging around you" to him? Plus, this is my own bias talking, but I get the sense that JKR wanted James/Lily to be a popular all-around beloved couple, so I don't doubt that Lily had an overall healthy social life at Hogwarts.

Speaking of the Lily and Hermione comparisons - this is purely hypothetical, but I wonder how Hermione would've reacted if Harry or Ron were bullied and called her a "mudblood" while she stood there bickering with their tormentor? I think Hermione would've been rightfully hurt, furious, and probably wouldn't have spoken to Harry or Ron for a while. But I can't imagine her leaving either of her friends behind like Lily did with Snape. I know this is pure fanon since we don't have a similar situation like this in canon, but it's an interesting scenario to think about.

[with-rainfall.livejournal.com]

I agree. I think Hermione would have come to her senses and tried to rescue Harry or Ron (or at least fetched a teacher, if she couldn’t get them down). I think she would have got quite upset, actually, and ahouted imprecations at their tormentors — and *then*, after the incident was over, she would have given Harry/Ron the cold shoulder.

Hermione is an interesting character. I get the feeling she was bullied, or at least friendless, in primary school, unlike Lily (witness her strong reaction to Ron’s teasing in PS). She has a strong sense of justice and a saviour complex when it comes to people (e.g. house elves) she perceives as downtrodden. And I believe Ron or Harry would fit the role of ‘downtrodden’ if they were being forced to strip by Crabbe and Goyle. Lily seems not to have experienced loneliness on the scale
that Hermione did in PS. She doesn’t share Hermione’s saviour complex, and therefore has little interest in maintaining a friendship with Severus during SWM. She’s more interested in sticking it to James (and impressing him, probably, with how “tough” she can be).

Having said that, the dynamic (per Jo’s logic) would be different in this instance because Crabbe and Goyle could hardly be expected to be anything other than brain-dead thugs. /s Any JKR character wouldn’t hesitate to hex them,because they’d “deserve it just for existing”.

If we substitute Cho for Lily, a couple of Claws/Puffs (perhaps Roger Davies or Zach Smith?) for the Marauders, and Harry for Snape, it might be a closer parallel. And I doubt Cho would stand there arguing with the bullies, either.

I also think the Trio’s dynamic is slightly different because we see them in five books. We don’t get as much of a sense of Snape and Lily’s friendship by SWM. I think we’re meant to read Lily’s refusal to forgive Snape as a combination of their friendship drifting apart, Snape’s DE sympathies and the influence of Lily’s friends. The Mudblood thing seems to be just an excuse.

At the same time, like Lily, Hermione is capable of the silent treatment with Harry and Ron, and swift relatiation when she becomes emotional (e.g. the birds).

Can’t remember where I read this, but someone wrote that Hermione‘s always right, except when she’s emotional, and then she’s always wrong.

Sorry for the edits midway through - my phone froze.