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.
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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 Gryffindor House, an awful lot of fans, and JKR herself ... 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.
Love this. Great analysis. Defines Snape wonderfully.
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