Grief and Vengeance: A close-reading of 'Silver and Opals'
I'm pleased to have this opportunity to pinch-hit for Chapter 12, "Silver and Opals," in part because, here, as also was the case in the chapter I summarized earlier, the important advancements of the novel's (and series') major plot occurs behind-the-scenes, while those aspects that I feel are most crucial to Harry's development are easy to overlook upon an initial reading. So, in other words, there's a lot to play with. I hope I can do it justice.
This is part one of two. Part Two will go up tomorrow, because it isn't done yet, and is a more standard "read-through." Part One is something different, though, and perhaps is not part of the HBP Read-Through at all. (Which is why it is not currently titled or tagged as such.)
It is an examination of Harry's development and trajectory as a hero and as a person. It is an exploration of Harry's limits, and his motivations. It's an explosion, for me, of the Harry I idealise and carry around in my head. It is a close reading of nine very brief paragraphs in the center of Chapter 12, a tracing/treatment of what led to Harry's brutal assault on Mundungus Fletcher, and an argument for the centrality of this attack's significance to Harry's journey.
So, Silver today, and Opals tomorrow. I have lots to say about Opals, so I hope you'll all stick around. Gratitude to siriaeve and the rest of the mods for their patience regarding my real-life essayathon. All book cites refer to the first US hardcover editions.
To be honest, the first time I read the book, I didn't realize what was happening in this chapter. I wasn't actually paying attention to Harry-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things; I had been swept up in the romance aspects of the novel (Ron loves Hermione! Hermione loves Ron! Harry asked Ginny on a date but totally fronted like he hadn't!), and then was quickly distracted by Katie's plight, so it wasn't until I reread the book that I began to understand the significance of Harry's encounter with Mundungus, which I want to examine in (perhaps excruciating) detail.
This passage troubles me deeply. I give Harry a lot of grief, and have claimed that he is a "boring" protagonist, in the sense that many main characters- Buffy Summers, both Will and Grace, Max Evans of Roswell, et alia-almost have to be in order to have a wide appeal, but I do like him. I firmly believe that Harry will never successfully cast an Unforgivable Curse, and that his greatest weapon is indeed love, and not hatred, not vengeance or retaliation, not violence or viciousness. I don't like thinking that he's capable of intense cruelty or of cold-blooded murder. But there's this chapter. And in it, we see what Harry is capable of, and it utterly terrifies me.
At the end of Order of the Phoenix, we are introduced to CAPSLOCK!Harry: he is a mess of incoherent, self-loathing, pained, and unfocused grief; "there was a terrible hollow inside him he did not want to feel or examine, a dark hole where Sirius had been, where Sirius had vanished" (OotP 821). Whatever rage he is feeling is sublimated and rendered uselessly pathetic; it is only when Dumbledore extends sympathy that he fills with "white-hot anger," that it first occurs to him that "the desire to hurt" another person could potentially be an appropriate or justifiable response to his godfather's murder (OotP 823). It is still debatable, at this point, how much of this desire to lash out at the Headmaster is coming from Harry.
The boy is beside himself as he tears through Dumbledore's office, refusing to believe that Dumbledore could possibly understand or truly empathize with him, lashing out at objects, and it is notable that this is the first time that Dumbledore calls Harry "a man." He wants, terribly, to attack his mentor, to "shatter that calm old face, shake him, hurt him, make him feel some tiny part of the horror," but does not (OotP 824). His next instinct is "to run, he wanted to keep running and never look back, he wanted to be somewhere he could not see the clear blue eyes staring at him, that hatefully calm old face" (OotP 824-5). It is only when Dumbledore offers himself up completely as a target for Harry's fury by making the shocking claim that is entirely his own fault that Sirius is dead that Harry calms enough to listen to Dumbledore's explanation, his confession. The capslocks only return (twice) when Dumbledore judges Sirius for his mistreatment of Kreacher, and in the first instance, it is part of an flailing attempt to defer some of the culpability that Dumbledore locates in Sirius to Harry's favorite target, Severus Snape.
This recap may seem a digression to some, but I feel that it is essential to examine CAPSLOCKS!Harry as presented in book five with the Harry that we find in book six. This Harry "could tell that Dumbledore understood, that he might even suspect that until his letter arrived, Harry had spent nearly all of his time at the Dursleys' lying on his bed, refusing meals, and staring at the misted window, full of the chill emptiness that he had come to associate with Dementors" (HBP 76-7). When Harry "fiercely" vows that, if he is next to be killed, he will "take as many Death Eaters with me as I can, and Voldemort too if I can manage it," the Headmaster's response is pure encouragement: "'Spoken both like your mother and father's son and Sirius' true godson!' said Dumbledore, with an approving pat on Harry's back. 'I take my hat off to you'" (HBP 77). This is Harry's declaration, in Dumbledore's ears, not of vengeance, but of determination; he wants to hear it, and does, as a life-affirming promise, which is a questionable conclusion at best. But Dumbledore does always seek out the best in people, determinedly often finding it, with little regard for whether or not it exists.
And now, after nearly 800 words, I return to the subject at hand: a scene in the twelfth chapter of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry's assult on Mundungus Fletcher, which, as it was significant enough to merit such a lengthy introduction, deserves to be reproduced here in full:"Thank you!" said Mundungus, snatching the goblet out of Ron's hand and stuffing it back into the case. "Well, I'll see you all-OUCH!"
Harry had pinned Mundungus against the wall of the pub by the throat. Holding him fast with one hand, he pulled out his wand.
It is very prevalent in the Wizarding World for witches and wizards, in the heat of high emotion, to resort to physical violence. We have seen Ron, Hermione, Harry, Neville, Fred and George (and Ginny? in Order?) Weasley all "forget" that they are witches and wizards and physically assault others throughout the course of the novels, often when their wands are readily available. Harry does not forget this. After restraining Mundungus (by the throat!! with one hand!! a fully-grown man!!), Harry's first move is for his wand."Harry!" squeaked Hermione.
You took that from Sirius' house," said Harry, who was almost nose to nose with Mundungus and was breathing in an unpleasant smell of old tobacco and spirits. "That had the Black family crest on it."
"I-no-what-?" spluttered Mundungus, who was slowly turning purple.
"What did you do, go back the night he died and strip the place?" snarled Harry.
"I-no-"
"Give it to me!"
"Harry, you mustn't" shrieked Hermione, as Mundungus started to turn blue.
This is the heart of the passage for me, and the kernel of my doubt for Harry's future. This is not the Harry I know. This is certainly not even CAPSLOCKS!Harry. This is a person who can raise up a short, squat man to his eye level, slammed flat against the side of a building, and casually choke the life out of him; a person causing and watching this suffering, and feeling entirely justified and righteous in inflicting it. This is a scary new Harry that I don't like at all. It's the same Harry that we see pursuing Snape and Draco at the end of the book. In fact, Snape is the only other person that we have ever seen inspire such a pure, focused hatred in Harry before. And if we are ever going to see true darkness manifest itself in Harry's nature (which I hope we don't!), his relationship to Severus Snape will be the context in which it manifests, not in his struggle against Tom Riddle. If Harry needs to tap into these darker emotinal states, to draw on a patently un-"righteous anger," Snape will be the key.
So I open up the floor: what is Harry's potential for vengeance? Will he be able to sublimate his aggression into a useful tool, or will (as I still contend) he have to overcome his anger in orde to successfully approach and defeat Voldemort, with and as a "whole soul"? Will he discover the sublime difference between revenge and justice? If love is his greatest weapon, is his hatred his greatest weakness?
This is part one of two. Part Two will go up tomorrow, because it isn't done yet, and is a more standard "read-through." Part One is something different, though, and perhaps is not part of the HBP Read-Through at all. (Which is why it is not currently titled or tagged as such.)
It is an examination of Harry's development and trajectory as a hero and as a person. It is an exploration of Harry's limits, and his motivations. It's an explosion, for me, of the Harry I idealise and carry around in my head. It is a close reading of nine very brief paragraphs in the center of Chapter 12, a tracing/treatment of what led to Harry's brutal assault on Mundungus Fletcher, and an argument for the centrality of this attack's significance to Harry's journey.
So, Silver today, and Opals tomorrow. I have lots to say about Opals, so I hope you'll all stick around. Gratitude to siriaeve and the rest of the mods for their patience regarding my real-life essayathon. All book cites refer to the first US hardcover editions.
To be honest, the first time I read the book, I didn't realize what was happening in this chapter. I wasn't actually paying attention to Harry-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things; I had been swept up in the romance aspects of the novel (Ron loves Hermione! Hermione loves Ron! Harry asked Ginny on a date but totally fronted like he hadn't!), and then was quickly distracted by Katie's plight, so it wasn't until I reread the book that I began to understand the significance of Harry's encounter with Mundungus, which I want to examine in (perhaps excruciating) detail.
This passage troubles me deeply. I give Harry a lot of grief, and have claimed that he is a "boring" protagonist, in the sense that many main characters- Buffy Summers, both Will and Grace, Max Evans of Roswell, et alia-almost have to be in order to have a wide appeal, but I do like him. I firmly believe that Harry will never successfully cast an Unforgivable Curse, and that his greatest weapon is indeed love, and not hatred, not vengeance or retaliation, not violence or viciousness. I don't like thinking that he's capable of intense cruelty or of cold-blooded murder. But there's this chapter. And in it, we see what Harry is capable of, and it utterly terrifies me.
At the end of Order of the Phoenix, we are introduced to CAPSLOCK!Harry: he is a mess of incoherent, self-loathing, pained, and unfocused grief; "there was a terrible hollow inside him he did not want to feel or examine, a dark hole where Sirius had been, where Sirius had vanished" (OotP 821). Whatever rage he is feeling is sublimated and rendered uselessly pathetic; it is only when Dumbledore extends sympathy that he fills with "white-hot anger," that it first occurs to him that "the desire to hurt" another person could potentially be an appropriate or justifiable response to his godfather's murder (OotP 823). It is still debatable, at this point, how much of this desire to lash out at the Headmaster is coming from Harry.
The boy is beside himself as he tears through Dumbledore's office, refusing to believe that Dumbledore could possibly understand or truly empathize with him, lashing out at objects, and it is notable that this is the first time that Dumbledore calls Harry "a man." He wants, terribly, to attack his mentor, to "shatter that calm old face, shake him, hurt him, make him feel some tiny part of the horror," but does not (OotP 824). His next instinct is "to run, he wanted to keep running and never look back, he wanted to be somewhere he could not see the clear blue eyes staring at him, that hatefully calm old face" (OotP 824-5). It is only when Dumbledore offers himself up completely as a target for Harry's fury by making the shocking claim that is entirely his own fault that Sirius is dead that Harry calms enough to listen to Dumbledore's explanation, his confession. The capslocks only return (twice) when Dumbledore judges Sirius for his mistreatment of Kreacher, and in the first instance, it is part of an flailing attempt to defer some of the culpability that Dumbledore locates in Sirius to Harry's favorite target, Severus Snape.
This recap may seem a digression to some, but I feel that it is essential to examine CAPSLOCKS!Harry as presented in book five with the Harry that we find in book six. This Harry "could tell that Dumbledore understood, that he might even suspect that until his letter arrived, Harry had spent nearly all of his time at the Dursleys' lying on his bed, refusing meals, and staring at the misted window, full of the chill emptiness that he had come to associate with Dementors" (HBP 76-7). When Harry "fiercely" vows that, if he is next to be killed, he will "take as many Death Eaters with me as I can, and Voldemort too if I can manage it," the Headmaster's response is pure encouragement: "'Spoken both like your mother and father's son and Sirius' true godson!' said Dumbledore, with an approving pat on Harry's back. 'I take my hat off to you'" (HBP 77). This is Harry's declaration, in Dumbledore's ears, not of vengeance, but of determination; he wants to hear it, and does, as a life-affirming promise, which is a questionable conclusion at best. But Dumbledore does always seek out the best in people, determinedly often finding it, with little regard for whether or not it exists.
And now, after nearly 800 words, I return to the subject at hand: a scene in the twelfth chapter of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Harry's assult on Mundungus Fletcher, which, as it was significant enough to merit such a lengthy introduction, deserves to be reproduced here in full:"Thank you!" said Mundungus, snatching the goblet out of Ron's hand and stuffing it back into the case. "Well, I'll see you all-OUCH!"
Harry had pinned Mundungus against the wall of the pub by the throat. Holding him fast with one hand, he pulled out his wand.
It is very prevalent in the Wizarding World for witches and wizards, in the heat of high emotion, to resort to physical violence. We have seen Ron, Hermione, Harry, Neville, Fred and George (and Ginny? in Order?) Weasley all "forget" that they are witches and wizards and physically assault others throughout the course of the novels, often when their wands are readily available. Harry does not forget this. After restraining Mundungus (by the throat!! with one hand!! a fully-grown man!!), Harry's first move is for his wand."Harry!" squeaked Hermione.
You took that from Sirius' house," said Harry, who was almost nose to nose with Mundungus and was breathing in an unpleasant smell of old tobacco and spirits. "That had the Black family crest on it."
"I-no-what-?" spluttered Mundungus, who was slowly turning purple.
"What did you do, go back the night he died and strip the place?" snarled Harry.
"I-no-"
"Give it to me!"
"Harry, you mustn't" shrieked Hermione, as Mundungus started to turn blue.
This is the heart of the passage for me, and the kernel of my doubt for Harry's future. This is not the Harry I know. This is certainly not even CAPSLOCKS!Harry. This is a person who can raise up a short, squat man to his eye level, slammed flat against the side of a building, and casually choke the life out of him; a person causing and watching this suffering, and feeling entirely justified and righteous in inflicting it. This is a scary new Harry that I don't like at all. It's the same Harry that we see pursuing Snape and Draco at the end of the book. In fact, Snape is the only other person that we have ever seen inspire such a pure, focused hatred in Harry before. And if we are ever going to see true darkness manifest itself in Harry's nature (which I hope we don't!), his relationship to Severus Snape will be the context in which it manifests, not in his struggle against Tom Riddle. If Harry needs to tap into these darker emotinal states, to draw on a patently un-"righteous anger," Snape will be the key.
So I open up the floor: what is Harry's potential for vengeance? Will he be able to sublimate his aggression into a useful tool, or will (as I still contend) he have to overcome his anger in orde to successfully approach and defeat Voldemort, with and as a "whole soul"? Will he discover the sublime difference between revenge and justice? If love is his greatest weapon, is his hatred his greatest weakness?