Harry Potter and the Death Cult

[sweettalkeress]

So recently I was reading this (actually really excellent) Pokemon fanfic, which appears to have been an attempt to iron out a rather confusing Pokedex entry. Basically, the fanfic revolves around the idea that a certain species of Pokemon has a custom that all young male members of the community must kill their own mothers as a rite of passage.

Comments

[majorjune]

Every time I read all the things D2CLers post regarding the warped psychology of most of the characters and/or of various plot lines and backstories, I keep thinking to myself, "What does that say about the author

[sharaz_jek]

shows that she was quite promiscuous,

Is this really symptomatic of anything?

[majorjune]

I'll leave the possibility of it being symptomatic of anything of a psychological nature to the experts...

But I WILL say that it is symptomatic of someone who is at least a hypocrite, whose books present a rather puritanical world when it comes to sexuality, and who has espoused in interviews that it is the philosophy she believes in, but whose actual ACTIONS in her own life shows a completely different picture.

[oryx_leucoryx]

It is misleading to say Lily died to protect her son. Her dying ended up protecting her son, but since she realistically couldn't have foreseen this possibility (at least according to Rolwing) then saving her son wasn't the purpose of her dying, at least not in any rational sense.

Regarding Regulus, Terri proposed later that he may have committed suicide in order to destroy his Dark Mark because its existence was potentially endangering his parents who were hiding from Voldie in their protected house.

[granatapfelrot]

Her dying ended up protecting her son, but since she realistically couldn't have foreseen this possibility

And I never understood how that ended up making her Saint Lily.
It was total happenstance.
I personally don't think it all that unlikely, that the conceited, self-righteous little braggart, we got to know in DH actually believed she and her baby might get away, just by her begging nicely enough.
Lily came off to me like a girl, who got her own way through her pretty looks and her charming vivaciousness all her life. She might have started to depend on it and the first time it didn't work out, she died.

But of course you're right: That whole thing did start a creepy trend (Or James did, since he died first) And Harry seems to be downright disturbed with his glorification of everybody dead.
Naming ALL his children after dead people, as one example of many.
Even Severus, who he hated and thought responsible for every bad thing that ever happened gets the dead = awesome treatment.
How sick is that?

[oneandthetruth]

And I never understood how that ended up making her Saint Lily.
It was total happenstance.

JKR herself shrugged off Lily's death by saying any mother would do that for her child. So much for St. Lily's Great Sacrifice.

I personally don't think it all that unlikely, that the conceited, self-righteous little braggart, we got to know in DH actually believed she and her baby might get away, just by her begging nicely enough.
Lily came off to me like a girl, who got her own way through her pretty looks and her charming vivaciousness all her life. She might have started to depend on it and the first time it didn't work out, she died.

I made this same point recently in one of the footnotes to an article I posted on Snapedom. I also suggested James may not have had his wand because he'd spent his whole life being rescued from the consequences of his own actions, so subconsciously he expected that to happen in this case, too.

[granatapfelrot]

Yeah. No wands. No emergency portkeys. No nothing.
They either had delusions of grandeur, were criminally stupid or wanted to die.
I couldn't believe James in the last book, I would have thought, 'You and what army will hold off Voldemort', even if he had been armed, but what he ended up doing was insane and not heroic to me.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Throughout the series we meet literally no suicide bombers among the villains (despite the fact that the DE’s are terrorists, and terrorists in the modern world are notorious for suicide bombing).

However suicide bombing was less common among terrorists in the west before the mid-1990s or so. Suicide fighters in organized military forces were known, but the terrorists were more of the 'hit and run' type.

[oneandthetruth]

You know, it occurs to me that the reason Western terrorists are not into suicide bombing is because they aren't convinced their deaths will get them 72 virgins in heaven. The Death Cheerleaders in DH were Harry's version of 72 virgins.

[karentheunicorn]

You know, it occurs to me that the reason Western terrorists are not into suicide bombing is because they aren't convinced their deaths will get them 72 virgins in heaven. The Death Cheerleaders in DH were Harry's version of 72 virgins.

72 virgins is the lamest thing anyone could invent if you ask me. I always wondered why 72? Why not 100? or 1000? I mean if you're going to promise something, why stop at 72...but usually if you ask to many smartass dumb questions you end up on a hate list for crazy religious folks.

I remember seeing some comedian on television wondering why any dude would want 72 virgins anyway, he said something like he'd rather have 72 women that knew what they were doing. And I think I remember seeing Robin Williams on TV saying it was a mistake and it meant 72 Virginia's; which is cheesy but it made me giggle.

[sunnyskywalker]

Supposedly if you totally ignore context and various other technical things you could also translate it as 72 white raisins or something silly like that. All the holy books offer scope for ridiculous translations. Fun times!

[karentheunicorn]

It's a romantic notion, the idea of dieing for someone else. For a mother/parent I'd think it would be more of an instinct

[sharaz_jek]

It just seems nice that JKR can pick her deaths in the series and suggest certain ones mean more than others....but it just seems sad that certain deaths are given more importance (Lily's/Harry's).

And don't forget that German woman who pushed her kids behind her just as Voldemort sent an AK at them. Apparently German mothers love their children less than British mothers. Maybe adrenalin affects the brain sufficiently to impair judgement just enough to negate any sort of implicit "my life for theirs contract", which would explain James' protective love and the love of all who died in battle doing bugger-all, but then we're back to the problem of Snape.

[sharaz_jek]

Oh, and I forgot Merope. A nasty little rapist who nonetheless loved her child enough to drag her dying body through an unfamiliar city in the dead of winter to an orphanage, and held on just long enough to give birth, name the kid and explain where the names came from - but in this case dying is a sign of weakness, just like Lord Voldemort always said it was. What the hell?

[condwiramurs]

I agree with your overall sentiment, but in fairness to Merope we have only Dumbledore's assumption that she raped Riddle. Because she wasn't pretty enough, 'obviously,' to have actually held his interest. Nevermind the time-honored tradition of the lords of the manor expecting to have their way with anyone on their domain without consequence. That she's not attractive might have made her seem the perfect target - he could rape her, or even pretend to her that he really loves her, and then split when she got pregnant/he got bored and nobody would be inclined to believe her tale. Because 'obviously' who would want to sleep with her

[danajsparks]

What you are calling suicide, others would call martyrdom. Sacrificing oneself for a cause is currently rather out of fashion in the West, but that is a pretty recent development, I think. Historically, martyring oneself was often considered an acceptable, honorable, way to die, and many people still believe this today.

I think that the attitudes about martyrdom in the HP books are probably mostly a reflection of Rowling's religious beliefs and the influence of older literary traditions. I find them much less disturbing than some other aspects of the books.

[sunnyskywalker]

Dying for a cause when there's no other option and you really think it will help further a goal that's really that important, like saving lots of lives, is one thing (which we still have in a lot of stories - think of all the gruff military leaders in the movies who tell the men to go on, he'll cover for them...). But I think you're right, the HP books do seem to have a slightly different, older style of martyrdom where it's noble to die even if it won't particularly do any good as far as you know (Regulus being the prime example here

[sweettalkeress]

I don't doubt that there are ways in which accepting death can be noble, either to save someone else or to hold onto a core belief that you'd otherwise have to give up. But Harry Potter takes it way too far- everyone who commits suicide for any reason is presented as heroic (if they're good) or irredeemable (if they're evil) and almost nobody tries to find a way to solve problems that doesn't involve someone's death.

[sunnyskywalker]

Which is especially absurd when you consider how many options they often seem to have, yet don't take. I know a lot of people wondered if Harry could stick his forehead through the Veil or involve a Dementor to get rid of his Voldybit, and supposedly the Dementors were all over the place (not that we ever ran into any in DH, for some reason... why wasn't one gliding along by the diner they escaped to after the wedding, or wandering around Grimmauld Place?). And we have no reason to think that Lily couldn't have grabbed Harry and jumped out the window while Apparating away and floating down like when she was a kid other than "they were in so much danger that they needed a complex and rare (since Flitwick has to explain it to a crowd of mostly-competent adults in PoA) spell to hide them, but never bothered to make detailed escape plans and she panicked." No, they have to die dramatically. That isn't noble, it's careless! No escape plans? All those months of camping and they never wondered whether a Dementor or the Veil could destroy a