Thoughts on how "love" is portrayed in Harry Potter
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.
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.