Thoughts on how "love" is portrayed in Harry Potter

[sweettalkeress]

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.

Comments

The Slave of Duty

[jana_ch]

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.)

Re: The Slave of Duty

[madderbrad]

Offhand I can’t think of anyone in the Potterverse who is notable for compassion -

One Hermone J. Granger springs to mind.

She's desperate about the plight of house elves. She's driven to tears by Kreacher's plight and situation. She's the one of the trio who most often tries to see others' points of view - like Cho's mixed up feelings following Cedric's death.

Now, there are folk here who'll immediately jump up and scream BUT THE SCARRING OF MARIETTA OMG!!! So whether Hermione is overly, or generally, a compassionate person might be up for debate. :-) Or whether she has other traits that 'override' her compassion. But I think she has notable instances of compassion, if not being noted for compassion throughout.

The discussion we had a while ago about Xeno Lovegood's non-'torture' reminded me that the Trio were also quite compassionate about his situation following their escape from his attempted betrayal.

What Snape feels is a sense of duty. He doesn’t like people or feel empathy for them, and this confuses Harry, most of

Re: The Slave of Duty

[nx74defiant]

Snape protects the students no matter how much he detests them

A sense of duty Dumbledore does not have. Dumbledore dislikes young Tom, so he washes his hands of any responsibility to guide Tom. Or if Tom is unredeemable to protect his classmates. After all Tom's house mates are just Slythrins.

[madderbrad]

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

Not particularly a Slytherin defender, just trying to explain my views on two points you raised. :P

[guardians_song]

I'm not a Snape fan, but I will defend his not asking to save Harry on account of him asking VOLDEMORT this. I do not think the Dark Lord would be inclined to save a boy whom he believes to be a prophesied threat to him simply because a good-and-faithful servant asks. Indeed, such would show potential disloyalty to the Dark Lord and likely have severe negative effects on said servant's life expectancy. Furthermore, Voldemort would probably get paranoid about any requests bundled in with such a request, and so "spare Lily Potter" would likely be dropped entirely - or he might take especial care to kill her, on the grounds that possibly-disloyal Severus wanted her spared... and what did Severus know that he didn't know

Re: Not particularly a Slytherin defender, just trying to explain my views on two points you raised.

[madderbrad]

I will defend his not asking to save Harry on account of him asking VOLDEMORT this. I do not think the Dark Lord would be inclined to save a boy whom he believes to be a prophesied threat to him simply because a good-and-faithful servant asks. ...

... Again, I do not think Harry would be allowed to live at all.

You're right; Snape would not have asked VOLDEMORT to spare Harry; since the whole objective of the dark lord was to kill the child of prophecy.

But he could have asked for James to be spared ... but did not. (And yes, I don't think any of that went through Snape's mind either.)

But the quality of Snape's 'love' for Lily is measured *twice*; firstly, in what he asked of Voldemort.

But then again, in what he asks of *Dumbledore*:

“You disgust me,” said Dumbledore, and Harry had never heard so much contempt in his voice. Snape seemed to shrink a little, “You do not care, then, about the deaths of her husband and child? They can die, as long as you have what you want

Re: Not particularly a Slytherin defender, just trying to explain my views on two points you raised.

[hwyla]

I tend to disagree about Snape being able to ask Voldy to spare James

Addendum: Lily

[jana_ch]

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.

Re: Addendum: Lily

[nx74defiant]

The thing that bothers me about Lily's sacrifice being so special that Harry is the only one to survive the killing curse.

What no other parent ever threw themselves in front of their child?

Re: Addendum: Lily

[vermouth1991]

blah blah blah No other mother were asked by their killer to step aside blah blah blah The power of choices blah blah blah >:-/

I mean, I've read fanfics that are better in executing that: when a mother dives in the way of the spell she gets zapped, but all the magic in her life comes out and swarms the attacker and disintegrates him à la Red Skull at the end of Captain America: The First Avenger.