If you haven't found the interesting discussions over at Sword of Gryffindor, you've really been missing out. Travis's latest pubcast is concerning whether Severus Snape can be considered a hero.
Now for Snape--please forgive the extreme length, but I'm one of those who find him to be the most enigmatic of all the characters. (A shape shifter, as Travis defines in his PubCast #34, might be the most appropriate explanation for who Snape is--ever changing, always a problem for the hero, etc.)
No, I don't want to be like him, and I certainly hope I never even meet anyone like him, nor would I have wanted him as a teacher. I am as appalled as Rowling when young girls or women talk of wanting to marry Snape--makes me shudder to think of it. He is not a nice man, no matter how you view him, and he wasn't about to change for anyone, especially since we learn that he wouldn't change (his choice of thuggish friends), even for Lily.
As an adult, Snape doesn't even seem to have friends among his colleagues. They show him respect, but friendship? Hardly. Other than his unique friendship with Dumbledore, and as we found out in Deathly Hallows, his childhood friendship with Lily, Snape led a very solilary life--and probably would have done even if he hadn't turned spy.
I expected to learn more about Snape's life with his parents, but I was absolutely OK with not getting that in this story. Rowling had given us the hints that Snape was from an abusive home, that he was bullied by his peers and that he was a loner. The piece that was missing was that he did have one friend, and apparently it was a real friendship, marred as friendships sometimes are, by the choices that he made.
A side note here--Travis at SoG, quoted from MacDonald. I don't have the quote, but it is something to the effect that, as readers we get out of a story different things, because we bring our own individual experiences to the story and the characters; we may even find something in a story or a particular character that the author did not intend. As individual readers, we sometimes get something completely different out of a story because of our own experiences. And perhaps that's the reason I feel some empathy for Snape. (No, I don't have greasy hair, a sallow skin and a hooked nose and Death Eaters for former friends.) I did, however, have a friend who was, to put it plainly, just odd. Not abused in any way, rather she probably had too many advantages, most of which she did not appreciate. But she was always like a square peg trying to fit into a smaller round hole. We were very different, but for some reason we were best friends for three or four years, and then she made a choice that ended the friendship. The situation was different for Snape, of course, as he loved Lily; whether or not Lily felt the same was never quite clear, but implied. But she at least seemed to love him as a friend. When she told him she couldn't abide his choice of friends, I knew how that felt (even though for Snape it was love, and for me it was a friendship) because I had felt that same disappointment of feeling betrayed by my friend's choice. (She stole my boyfriend, actually--not a good thing for a best friend to do. Turning Death Eater might have been easier for me to accept-- er, well, maybe not.)
My point is that I think we do find ourselves identifying more with some characters than with others. In the beginning of the books, I identified very much with Harry; (again, there was no abuse in my life, only love and a caring family) but I was adopted and didn't know anything about my birth parents. That's where that character identification stopped for me, except that my adoptive dad died when I was ten--so I did somewhat understand how Harry felt about not having parents.
However, the time that Harry spent in front of the Mirror of Erised brought tears to my eyes, as I thought of what I would see. It would be my mother, who had died in 1996, three years before I started reading Harry Potter. And then hearing later that it was Jo's favorite chapter, for much the same reason as mine, resonates incredibly with my own feelings and understanding of what it feels like to be without parents. I miss my mother still, and like Jo, would like just five more minutes with her, or a bit of time looking into the Mirror of Erised.
There are other things in all the books that are particularly poignant to me and that I seem to understand differently than some readers who are younger who have not experienced the death of parents or grand parents. Especially the thestrals--that was another moment when I felt so close to Luna and Neville and Harry, having seen someone die when I was a child. It was my grandfather. Apart from my parents, he was my favorite person in the world, and I was the one who found him when he was dying. So whenever I think of thestrals, I think of that late afternoon fifty years ago.
I know that many readers had problems with the manner in which Snape died, even those who expected that he would. Part of the problem IMO, is that some are too tied to their own theories, especially those who read or write a lot of fan fiction. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with fanfic--I've enjoyed some of it. But when it changes the way a reader understands the author's story and characters, then the fanfic has been damaging. I think that's where some of the dissatisfaction arises, with the cruel way Snape was killed, and that it needn't have happened at all. There was no glory, no heroic sort of scene, and after Harry and Snape looked into each others' eyes--a scene which I found so very powerful, Harry and Ron and Hermione rushed off, leaving this fallen hero alone, in a place that held the unpleasant memories of his childhood enemies.
While I get their point, I think they have missed the bigger point with Snape's death, as well as with the deaths of Sirius in OP, and of Remus and Tonks, and even Fred. In the middle of a war, particularly a civil war being fought on the grounds of their school (the stand-in for their homes), not every death is going to have the honor and significance of Dumbledore's or Dobby's deaths. War is ugly; it is not fair; it is not a respector of the worth of a person's life. And war does not stop and wait while we properly mourn for our beloved and fallen friends and families.
Snape had spent the rest of his life, after Lily was killed, full of remorse, and trying to atone for his unintentional betrayal of the only person he ever loved, or who ever loved him. Sirius had found his friends and his god son and should have had some happiness after twelve years of misery and two years in hiding. Remus and Tonks had finally found each other, and had a son to raise (though, looking at the alchemical imagery of the story, I knew they were toast as soon as they had Teddy). And Fred. Fred, at the moment of reconcilliation with his brother Percy, having a laugh, was killed as well.
Senseless deaths? Some think so, from what I've read on a few forums. All of those characters deserved to live and grow old, or they all deserved to have some sort of glorious death--isn't that what happens in the movies? The good guys all come out on the other side, perhaps injured or scarred, but OK, and the bad guys either die or get what's coming to them. Neat and tidy, and totally unrealisitc.
The best thing about Rowling's books is that she's not writing unbelievable stories with glorious deaths, or allowing characters to live because just because we like them; it wouldn't be at all realistic in the middle of a war if there were no deaths of nice people. And for her readers to feel what that means, if they haven't expereinced the loss of a family member or friend to the tragedy of war, Rowling had to kill off some of the characters we loved, or at the very least, that we respected or for whom we felt empathy.
Of course, I wasn't happy that Snape died--I wasn't happy that any of my favorite characters died either. Those deaths, however, make the point of the senselessness of deaths during war time, the randomness, the unfairness, the injustice of it all. The Epilogue shows us the model (young readers especially), that survivors must go on with their lives; they cannot live in a state of mourning forever. But we also must remember those who died and honor them in significant ways, meaningful ways that remind the next and future generations that honorable people died to preserve their freedoms. Harry naming his son after Albus and Severus, and his comments about Severus being the bravest man he ever knew, was better than any elaborate funeral or monument. By that one act and that one comment, Rowling filled in the missing pieces of Snape's death. Harry venerated him during his final battle with Voldemort, in front of all assembled in the Great Hall, and then he let his son (and all of us) know that he had forgiven Snape and understood just how brave he had been.
I think one of the other things that I took away from Deathly Hallows, was that not every hero has to be acting for the noble reasons we expect from heroes. Harry, who was the hero of the story, did act selflessly to save others, throughout the books. Ron and Hermione had their moments, though they were sometimes heroic because of their loyalty to their friend, rather than acting for the greater good.
Neville turned out to be very much like Harry in his actions, and I loved it. It showed that he very well could have been the "Chosen One", another pointer to our choices being more important in defining who we are.
Fred and George were heroic in their own way; Percy came through in the end. Ginny and Luna were heroes as well. Many of the adults were heroes, but some fought for noble reasons and others fought to save their families or their way of life.
Dumbledore, who had always seemed to have the most pure motives of all, turned out to not be our perfect hero, and often told Harry so. Outwardly, he seemed to be doing everything for the good of all, while in reality, it was much more personal, and so very private, for Dumbledore. He fought, not out of the purity of his heart, but because of the choices he'd made because of the darkness of his heart.
That leads us full circle back to Severus Snape. Snape did many heroic things in fighting against the Death Eaters and Voldemort. In some ways, his sacrifices and deeds far surpassed those of any of the other heroes. He fought his battle without ever receiving the recognition that was his due, except from Dumbledore, and posthumously from Harry.
I wish I could remember who said that heroes are ordinary men who do extraordinary things. It's not the obviously brave and strong who are the real heroes, but those who aren't, those who are flawed human beings, who do something in their life that earns them the distinction of being called a hero. And that's how I see Severus Snape--a loner, a man in need of redemption (as we all are), but a man who in the end, made the right choices to fight against evil. Did he do it for the noble reasons that we saw with Harry or with Neville? No. Severus Snape felt the pain of his own guilt, felt true remorse, and he sought forgiveness from the one person he had loved--Lily. He literally gave his life because he loved Lily, and in doing so he found his redemption. The more I think of it, his death was very much like that of Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities. Carton, a character who reminded me of Snape even before I read Half-Blood Prince, acted to save someone he didn't care only because he loved Lucy. And no one knew what he had done at the time of his death. All his imaginings were just that. He could only envision that his name and heroism would be known later. As readers we were left hoping and believing that Carton got the honor and recognition he deserved for his sacrificial death; in Deathly Hallows" we learned that Snape was honored as a hero, in the best possible way.
Let's all raise our glasses to all the heroes of Deathly Hallows, as well as those of the first six Harry Potter books, be they noble and pure of heart like Harry, or the flawed and remorseful heroes--those who are much more like most of us, if we are to be entirely honest.
Pat
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Albus Dumbledore--not who we thought he was
Until the end of Order of the Phoenix, and until we learn of his family history, I thought it was fairly easy to see Dumbledore as a Christ figure/God figure, or at least something similar, even if he was meant instead to be a metaphorical one.
In the few comments I've read since Deathly Hallows, I think some people are stuggling with the less than perfect, somewhat manipulative image that we now have of our beloved Headmaster of Hogwarts, the one who was so mourned after his death in Half-Blood Prince that people refused to believe he was really dead until J.K. Rowling said that he definitely was, and he was not going to do a
Gandalf.
I don't have the same problem with Dumbledore that many seem to have though. And I've been trying to figure out why I don't. Ordinarily, I don't like people who manipulate or use others for their own purpose, and that does seem to be what Dumbledore did with Harry and with Severus. Dumbledore told Harry that he had a "grand plan" when he told him about the prophecy in Order of the Phoenix, though he didn't tell Harry just what that grand plan was. Of course, Harry being the least curious bloke we've ever read didn't ask Dumbledore to spell out the details of that plan. One would think that since the plan seemed to involve Harry pretty heavily that it would have been a reasonable question for him to ask, but no, he didn't.
So in Order of the Phoenix, we see a side of Dumbledore that shows Harry and the reader that this is a very flawed and human man. He admits he has made mistakes, and rather large ones, and he has regrets, and for the first time, Harry realizes that Dumbledore seems old and tired. We just don't know what those regrets are. Then in Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore seems to be back to his former self--all-knowing, wise, mannerly, humorous. Even with his withered black hand, that is mentioned frequently througout so we don't forget it's there, Dumbledore seems stronger again, stronger than after the battle with Voldemort at the Ministry of Magic. But then he drinks that nasty green potion in the Cave, and nearly dies then. We see him barely able to return to Hogsmeade without Harry's help, and only revived because his beloved school so obviously needs him. Certainly nothing in any of those actions to tarnish our hero. We don't know what he relived when he drank the poison, but most of us went down the path that it had something to do with wanting to protect the students, etc--a view that put his suffering on a very altruistic plane, rather than any particular personal failing of Dumbledore's. Instead he is reliving his part in the deaths of his family, a horrible thing for anyone to have to live with.
I actually really liked what we learned about Dumbledore in Deathly Hallows. Let me explain--it's not his actions I liked, but that Rowling has created a very real person, rather than the perfect hero. Here we have a man, brilliant and talented, but a very flawed man, who learned early in life what it meant to make the easy choices rather than the right choices, a man who lost his family because he made poor choices, and who lived the rest of his life with the regret that he couldn't go back and make any of it better. Because of the two months he spent with Grindelwald, planning their take-over of the wizarding world, Albus learned what his greatest weakness was--the desire for power.
When he defeated Grindelwald and ended up with the Elder Wand, Albus didn't ever use it to attain the kind of power that he had so desired in his youth. McGonagall alludes to that in the very first book, when she says that Dumbledore is too noble to use the kind of magic that Voldemort used. In reality, it's not because he is noble, rather, it's because he understood that he would have been lured by that kind of power.
At one point Dumbledore had the Elder Wand and the Invisibility Cloak (after James's death), and could have kept both--all he needed was the Resurrection Ring to complete the Deathly Hallows. He gave the cloak to Harry, who had rightfully inherited it from his father, and only told him "Use it well". Dumbledore tells Harry at the end of the first book, Philosopher's Stone, that there are very few wizards who could look in the Mirror of Erised to get the Stone from it; it was because Harry only wanted to keep it from Voldemort, not because he had any desire to use it. It's then that we first see that Harry is "pure of heart", something which Dumbledore repeats, throughout. But it's not until the end of Deathly Hallows that we realize that Dumbledore would have seen something quite different at that point.
When Dumbledore and Harry talk at King's Cross, Dumbledore admits that he was tempted by power all his life. It was a failing that he never conquered. When he found the Ring Horcrux in the Gaunt house ruins, Dumbledore, unlike Marvolo or Tom Riddle, realized that it was the Resurrection Stone, the one Hallow he had long sought. He destroyed the Horcrux, but having that third one of the Deathly Hallows in his hand was a temptation that led to his blackened and withered hand that we saw all through his last year.
In Deathly Hallows, in one of the memories that Snape gave Harry, we find out part of the "thrilling tale" that Dumbledore never was able to tell Harry:
It's at that point that we learn the sudden change in Dumbledore's strategy, which up to that point was to let Harry get on with the business of resisting Voldemort in whatever way he could, with Dumbledore giving him bits and pieces of information as he felt Harry needed them. Snape tells Dumbledore that he likely only has about a year before the spell spreads and kills him, that if Dumbledore had called him earlier, he might have been able to buy him more time.
Even then, Dumbledore doesn't explain to Severus Snape, the only man he seemed to confide in at all, what really had led him to put on the ring. It's when he is talking to Harry at King's Cross that we see the full and complete picture of who Dumbledore was and why he acted as he did:
So once again, we have the reason that Dumbledore told Harry on several occasions that Harry was the better man, that his blood was more valuable, that it was Harry who had to defeat Voldemort, and not Dumbledore who was a much more powerful and talented wizard.
What we learn about Dumbledore is that he wasn't perfect and he was tempted by power until the end of his life. Everything that he did, every decision he made, was colored by that knowledge of his own flaws, his own very real guilt. Because he himself couldn't be trusted with power (hence, the reason he never agreed to be the Minister for Magic), he couldn't be sure that anyone else wouldn't fall into the same trap. He didn't confide fully in Harry or in Snape, knowing that each had his own flaws with which to cope. Snape had been lured by the Dark Arts, so how could Dumbledore trust him with a teaching position that might tempt him to return to his Death Eater life, when Dumbledore knew that he himself couldn't be trusted with the thing that tempted him most? Harry had a blind spot where Snape and Draco were concerned, always letting his anger and hatred get in the way of what he knew he should be doing.
What Dumbledore never understood about either of them was that they were very different than he was; Snape's remorse about Lily's death would never have let him return to his Death Eater ways, no matter how much he hated James's memory, and Harry never wanted the power or fame that Dumbledore had sought as a youth. We see Harry trusting his friends, sharing the information he has learned or has figured out on his own, something that Dumbledore was never able to do.
We all have flaws, things in our past or in our personalities that prevent us from being the wonderful beings God intends us to be. Dumbledore showed his remorse and tried to atone for his failings by teaching and guiding young people, by being an exemplary role model for them as Headmaster of Hogwarts. He gave people second chances because he, himself, had been in need of a second chance. He insisted on showing respect for others, no matter what their birth status or whether they were non-human creatures.
Whether he was right or wrong to pursue his "grand plan", we can't really say. Dumbledore did what all of us must do; he recognized his weakness, he felt remorse for his failings, and he tried to atone for his sins and live his life in a way that helped others. That his understanding of what was best for others might not be the same as anyone else's is what we all have to face.
We can't know how best to guide others so that they make the right decisions, without at times, seeming manipulative and controlling. If we have information that will influence another in a direction they take or in their actions, some might see that as being manipulative. The alternative is that we stand back and hope they can figure it out for themselves. Hands off, all round. In Dumbledore's case, he had more information than anyone else about how Voldemort might be defeated. It seems to me that it would have been wrong if he had just stood back and let Harry wander through his years at Hogwarts, hoping that he'd stumble on the secrets by himself.
When we see a child about to do something that we know is dangerous, we don't hesitate to stop them. Is that manipulative? When we see a child who is talented, and we encourage him to pursue that talent, is that being manipulative? Perhaps, but maybe it's just using the wisdom that we've gained through our own experiences and just by living. What Dumbledore did with Harry isn't so very much different than the parent or the teacher who has some knowledge about a child's talent or his limitations and tries to guide him in a direction that will afford him the greatest chance of success.
The stakes for Harry figuring out how to defeat Dumbledore were a bit higher than whether or not our musically talented child continues with those violin lessons, much higher, and in Dumbledore's view, the outcome wasn't something that he could just leave to chance. He had lived all his life with the regret that he hadn't done the proper things for his family and it had ended in a disaster which he could not ever rectify; and here he was, faced with knowledge that no one else had about why Voldemort had chosen Harry and how Voldemort might be defeated once and for all. Should he have told Harry what the grand plan was? Maybe, but what eleven, twelve or thirteen year old--or even a sixteen year old, for that matter-- would have been able to handle that overwhelming information and responsibility?
Instead of Dumbledore as an allegory for God or Christ, we have Dumbledore as a flawed human being, one who lived his life, with regrets and triumphs, just as we all do; a person who, because of his regrets sometimes failed to trust that others, who were not as gifted intellectually as he, would fall victim to the same temptations that had haunted him most of his life--the desire for power. Rather than being disappointed in who Dumbledore turned out to be, I found it encouraging. Here is a hero who is not so different than any of us--one who has made choices, one choice which was devastating, but which set his feet and heart on a life-long path of redemption, as he tried to live the rest of his life as he now knew he should have done. The past could not be undone, as Dumbledore learned when he was once again tempted to try to use the Resurrection Stone, but except for that one last stumble, his choices for the future showed that he had learned from his mistakes, had taken responsibility for them, as he spent his life teaching students, being an example of mercy to all, and in the end, tried to help Severus and Harry accomplish what he, the greatest wizard of all, could not do--defeat the evil that terrorized the world in the form of Lord Voldemort. So even though Albus turned out not to be the perfect person many of us built him up to be, I think what Rowling gave us in Albus Dumbledore was much better.
Pat
In the few comments I've read since Deathly Hallows, I think some people are stuggling with the less than perfect, somewhat manipulative image that we now have of our beloved Headmaster of Hogwarts, the one who was so mourned after his death in Half-Blood Prince that people refused to believe he was really dead until J.K. Rowling said that he definitely was, and he was not going to do a
Gandalf.
I don't have the same problem with Dumbledore that many seem to have though. And I've been trying to figure out why I don't. Ordinarily, I don't like people who manipulate or use others for their own purpose, and that does seem to be what Dumbledore did with Harry and with Severus. Dumbledore told Harry that he had a "grand plan" when he told him about the prophecy in Order of the Phoenix, though he didn't tell Harry just what that grand plan was. Of course, Harry being the least curious bloke we've ever read didn't ask Dumbledore to spell out the details of that plan. One would think that since the plan seemed to involve Harry pretty heavily that it would have been a reasonable question for him to ask, but no, he didn't.
So in Order of the Phoenix, we see a side of Dumbledore that shows Harry and the reader that this is a very flawed and human man. He admits he has made mistakes, and rather large ones, and he has regrets, and for the first time, Harry realizes that Dumbledore seems old and tired. We just don't know what those regrets are. Then in Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore seems to be back to his former self--all-knowing, wise, mannerly, humorous. Even with his withered black hand, that is mentioned frequently througout so we don't forget it's there, Dumbledore seems stronger again, stronger than after the battle with Voldemort at the Ministry of Magic. But then he drinks that nasty green potion in the Cave, and nearly dies then. We see him barely able to return to Hogsmeade without Harry's help, and only revived because his beloved school so obviously needs him. Certainly nothing in any of those actions to tarnish our hero. We don't know what he relived when he drank the poison, but most of us went down the path that it had something to do with wanting to protect the students, etc--a view that put his suffering on a very altruistic plane, rather than any particular personal failing of Dumbledore's. Instead he is reliving his part in the deaths of his family, a horrible thing for anyone to have to live with.
I actually really liked what we learned about Dumbledore in Deathly Hallows. Let me explain--it's not his actions I liked, but that Rowling has created a very real person, rather than the perfect hero. Here we have a man, brilliant and talented, but a very flawed man, who learned early in life what it meant to make the easy choices rather than the right choices, a man who lost his family because he made poor choices, and who lived the rest of his life with the regret that he couldn't go back and make any of it better. Because of the two months he spent with Grindelwald, planning their take-over of the wizarding world, Albus learned what his greatest weakness was--the desire for power.
When he defeated Grindelwald and ended up with the Elder Wand, Albus didn't ever use it to attain the kind of power that he had so desired in his youth. McGonagall alludes to that in the very first book, when she says that Dumbledore is too noble to use the kind of magic that Voldemort used. In reality, it's not because he is noble, rather, it's because he understood that he would have been lured by that kind of power.
At one point Dumbledore had the Elder Wand and the Invisibility Cloak (after James's death), and could have kept both--all he needed was the Resurrection Ring to complete the Deathly Hallows. He gave the cloak to Harry, who had rightfully inherited it from his father, and only told him "Use it well". Dumbledore tells Harry at the end of the first book, Philosopher's Stone, that there are very few wizards who could look in the Mirror of Erised to get the Stone from it; it was because Harry only wanted to keep it from Voldemort, not because he had any desire to use it. It's then that we first see that Harry is "pure of heart", something which Dumbledore repeats, throughout. But it's not until the end of Deathly Hallows that we realize that Dumbledore would have seen something quite different at that point.
When Dumbledore and Harry talk at King's Cross, Dumbledore admits that he was tempted by power all his life. It was a failing that he never conquered. When he found the Ring Horcrux in the Gaunt house ruins, Dumbledore, unlike Marvolo or Tom Riddle, realized that it was the Resurrection Stone, the one Hallow he had long sought. He destroyed the Horcrux, but having that third one of the Deathly Hallows in his hand was a temptation that led to his blackened and withered hand that we saw all through his last year.
In Deathly Hallows, in one of the memories that Snape gave Harry, we find out part of the "thrilling tale" that Dumbledore never was able to tell Harry:
It was nighttime, and Dumbledore sagged sideways in the thronelike chair behind the desk, apparently semiconscious. His right hand dangled over the side, blackened and burned. Snape was muttering incantations, pointing his wand at the wrist of the hand, while with his left hand he tipped a goblet full of thick golden potion down Dumbledore's throat. After a moment or two, Dumbledore's eyelids fluttered and opened.
"Why," said Snape, without preamble, "why did you put on that ring? It carries a curse, surely you realized that. Why even touch it?"
Marvolo Gaunt's ring lay on the desk before Dumbledore. It was cracked; the sword of Gryffindor lay beside it.
Dumbledore grimaced.
"I. . . was a fool. Sorely tempted. . ."
"Tempted by what?"
Dumbledore did not answer.
"It is a miracle you managed to return here!" Snape sounded furious. "That ring carried a curse of extraordinary power, to contain it is all we can hope for; I have trapped the curse in one hand for the time being--" (DH, US version, p. 680-1)
It's at that point that we learn the sudden change in Dumbledore's strategy, which up to that point was to let Harry get on with the business of resisting Voldemort in whatever way he could, with Dumbledore giving him bits and pieces of information as he felt Harry needed them. Snape tells Dumbledore that he likely only has about a year before the spell spreads and kills him, that if Dumbledore had called him earlier, he might have been able to buy him more time.
He looked down at the broken ring and the sword. "Did you think that breaking the ring would break the curse?"
"Something like that. . . I was delirious, no doubt. . ." said Dumbledore. (DH, US p. 681)
Even then, Dumbledore doesn't explain to Severus Snape, the only man he seemed to confide in at all, what really had led him to put on the ring. It's when he is talking to Harry at King's Cross that we see the full and complete picture of who Dumbledore was and why he acted as he did:
After another short pause Harry said, "You tried to use the Resurrection Stone."
Dumbledore nodded.
"When I discovered it, after all those years, buried in the abandoned home of the Gaunts--the Hallow I had craved most of all, though in my youth I had wanted it for very different reasons--I lost my head, Harry. I quite forgot that it was now a Horcrux, that the ring was sure to carry a curse. I picked it up, and I put it on, and for a second I imagined that I was about to see Ariana, and my mother and my father, and to tell them how very, very sorry I was. . .
"I was such a fool, Harry. After all those years I had learned nothing. I was unworthy to unite the Deathly Hallows, I had proved it time and again, and here was final proof."
"Why?" said Harry. "It was natural! You wanted to see them again. What's wrong with that?"
"Maybe a man in a million could unite the Hallows, Harry. I was fit only to possess the meanest of them, the least extraordinary. I was fit to own the Elder Wand, and not to boast of it, and not to kill with it. I was permitted to tame and to use it, because I took it, not for gain, but to save others from it.
"But the Cloak, I took out of vain curiosity, and so it could never have worked for me as it works for you, its true owner. The stone I would have used in an attempt to drag back those who are at peace, rather than to enable my self-sacrifice, as you did. You are the worthy possessor of the Hallows." (DH, US p. 719-20)
So once again, we have the reason that Dumbledore told Harry on several occasions that Harry was the better man, that his blood was more valuable, that it was Harry who had to defeat Voldemort, and not Dumbledore who was a much more powerful and talented wizard.
What we learn about Dumbledore is that he wasn't perfect and he was tempted by power until the end of his life. Everything that he did, every decision he made, was colored by that knowledge of his own flaws, his own very real guilt. Because he himself couldn't be trusted with power (hence, the reason he never agreed to be the Minister for Magic), he couldn't be sure that anyone else wouldn't fall into the same trap. He didn't confide fully in Harry or in Snape, knowing that each had his own flaws with which to cope. Snape had been lured by the Dark Arts, so how could Dumbledore trust him with a teaching position that might tempt him to return to his Death Eater life, when Dumbledore knew that he himself couldn't be trusted with the thing that tempted him most? Harry had a blind spot where Snape and Draco were concerned, always letting his anger and hatred get in the way of what he knew he should be doing.
What Dumbledore never understood about either of them was that they were very different than he was; Snape's remorse about Lily's death would never have let him return to his Death Eater ways, no matter how much he hated James's memory, and Harry never wanted the power or fame that Dumbledore had sought as a youth. We see Harry trusting his friends, sharing the information he has learned or has figured out on his own, something that Dumbledore was never able to do.
We all have flaws, things in our past or in our personalities that prevent us from being the wonderful beings God intends us to be. Dumbledore showed his remorse and tried to atone for his failings by teaching and guiding young people, by being an exemplary role model for them as Headmaster of Hogwarts. He gave people second chances because he, himself, had been in need of a second chance. He insisted on showing respect for others, no matter what their birth status or whether they were non-human creatures.
Whether he was right or wrong to pursue his "grand plan", we can't really say. Dumbledore did what all of us must do; he recognized his weakness, he felt remorse for his failings, and he tried to atone for his sins and live his life in a way that helped others. That his understanding of what was best for others might not be the same as anyone else's is what we all have to face.
We can't know how best to guide others so that they make the right decisions, without at times, seeming manipulative and controlling. If we have information that will influence another in a direction they take or in their actions, some might see that as being manipulative. The alternative is that we stand back and hope they can figure it out for themselves. Hands off, all round. In Dumbledore's case, he had more information than anyone else about how Voldemort might be defeated. It seems to me that it would have been wrong if he had just stood back and let Harry wander through his years at Hogwarts, hoping that he'd stumble on the secrets by himself.
When we see a child about to do something that we know is dangerous, we don't hesitate to stop them. Is that manipulative? When we see a child who is talented, and we encourage him to pursue that talent, is that being manipulative? Perhaps, but maybe it's just using the wisdom that we've gained through our own experiences and just by living. What Dumbledore did with Harry isn't so very much different than the parent or the teacher who has some knowledge about a child's talent or his limitations and tries to guide him in a direction that will afford him the greatest chance of success.
The stakes for Harry figuring out how to defeat Dumbledore were a bit higher than whether or not our musically talented child continues with those violin lessons, much higher, and in Dumbledore's view, the outcome wasn't something that he could just leave to chance. He had lived all his life with the regret that he hadn't done the proper things for his family and it had ended in a disaster which he could not ever rectify; and here he was, faced with knowledge that no one else had about why Voldemort had chosen Harry and how Voldemort might be defeated once and for all. Should he have told Harry what the grand plan was? Maybe, but what eleven, twelve or thirteen year old--or even a sixteen year old, for that matter-- would have been able to handle that overwhelming information and responsibility?
Instead of Dumbledore as an allegory for God or Christ, we have Dumbledore as a flawed human being, one who lived his life, with regrets and triumphs, just as we all do; a person who, because of his regrets sometimes failed to trust that others, who were not as gifted intellectually as he, would fall victim to the same temptations that had haunted him most of his life--the desire for power. Rather than being disappointed in who Dumbledore turned out to be, I found it encouraging. Here is a hero who is not so different than any of us--one who has made choices, one choice which was devastating, but which set his feet and heart on a life-long path of redemption, as he tried to live the rest of his life as he now knew he should have done. The past could not be undone, as Dumbledore learned when he was once again tempted to try to use the Resurrection Stone, but except for that one last stumble, his choices for the future showed that he had learned from his mistakes, had taken responsibility for them, as he spent his life teaching students, being an example of mercy to all, and in the end, tried to help Severus and Harry accomplish what he, the greatest wizard of all, could not do--defeat the evil that terrorized the world in the form of Lord Voldemort. So even though Albus turned out not to be the perfect person many of us built him up to be, I think what Rowling gave us in Albus Dumbledore was much better.
Pat
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Philosopher's Stone Echoes, a question posed by John Granger
I've been reading some things at HogPro, Sword of Gryffindor, and a few other blogs, but really haven't been jumping into the discussions.
I've now finished reading ,Deathly Hallows all the way through the second time, and liked it even better when I was wide-awake and had time to think it through. For some reason, as much as I enjoyed a discussion the other night with my daughter, I just don't feel the need to do a lot of on-line analyzing--perhaps it's just that I'm that satisfied with the book and ultimately, with the whole series.
Anyway, John has had a growing list of things to discuss, so I did post my thoughts on the one about "Philosopher's Stone Echoes". Interestingly enough, as I started to re-read, I made notes in the margins and something that I kept jotting down was all the ties between DH and all the other books, and especially things that recalled the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
Philosopher’s Stone Echoes
Posted August 1, 2007 (with a few edits and corrections)
HogwartsProfessor.com
I've been re-reading Deathly Hallows and am nearing the end--they are searching for the lost diadem (which I'm quite pleased to say was something that I actually got right, though not with the back story or the way they find it, of course).
On my second read-through, I've been jotting notes in the margins. Often they are about echoes of previous books--odd that I had referred to it with the same phrase that John used. I see them more as an echo than a direct retelling of something. Take a look at Sirius's motorbike, for instance. Hagrid arrives at Privet Drive in PS/SS, riding/flying it, bringing Harry from the wizarding world to the Muggle one. And in DH Hagrid takes Harry from the Muggle world back to the wizarding world on the same bike. Yes, it is somewhat of a disaster, to put it mildly, but that's because there are other things going on. The reason Hagrid brought baby Harry to Privet Drive was also because of a disaster, so it does certainly come full circle on that note.
So while it's an echo--a reminder--we also see how much more complicated and dangerous Harry's life is now that Voldemort has truly returned. But with that motorbike, we are also reminded of Sirius, and that's without any particular exposition; Sirius, though gone, is still in Harry's heart.
The rescue group itself is an echo of Harry's Advance Guard in Order of the Phoenix. This one, unlike the first rescue, is seemingly better planned, even though things go horribly awry. But that's all tied to Dumbledore's advice to Snape that he leak the date--but not the information that there would be multiple Harrys. It's one of those uncomfortable reminders that Dumbledore did have a grand plan and that he did put his plan ahead of everyone, including Snape and Harry, the two who had been most loyal to him.
But anyway, back to Philosopher's Stone. Someone (at HogPro) already mentioned the Stone in both the first and last books and that Harry doesn't want to find either the Philosohper's Stone or the Resurrection Stone so that he can use them but instead wants to prevent them from falling into Voldemort's hands, or someone else's who is as evil. The Stones are similar in their purpose. The Philosopher's Stone will enable the user to have eternal life, while the Resurrection Stone will enable the owner to bring someone back, though not in entirely human form. They will return in ghostly form, much as Nearly Headless Nick, who (in OP) told Harry that he had not been brave enough to "go on", that most people would not prefer an existence that is neither here nor there. So both Stones have a sort of commentary about what happens when a person tries to cheat Death, and Harry would not have done either.
Then there are the seven trials in PS. There may be an echo of each one, though I don't think it's all in book 7. And I don't think that some are particularly more than a nod to the trials. The one that stood out to me was the chess reference. When they arrived at Xeno Lovegood's house, it looked like a giant rook (which Hermione thinks of the bird *snort*). And Ron, the chess player, tells her that's a castle. But likely, it is the shape that makes Ron think of a rook. (It also made me think of a book JKR said she liked--"I Capture the Castle".) And when Ron sees it as a rook, we are taken back to all the times he played wizard chess in book 1, and throughout the books, and especially to the chess game when he sacrificed himself to save Harry. It doesn't so much foreshadow Ron sacrificing himself at that moment, but that he has been willing to do so in the past, and will be again.
Then there are the rather humorous references to the seven trials: when they are trapped by Devil's Snare, Hermione is the only one who is free or who knows what it is in PS. She knows that it doesn't like the light or heat, but can't think what to do, and Ron says, "ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT!" (PS/SS, US version, p. 278) In Deathly Hallows, the trio are trying to get into the tunnel under the Whomping Willow, and Ron wishes they had Crookshanks, recalling that the half-kneazle prodded the knot at the base of the tree to make it stop thrashing about. Hermione is the one who this time says, "Are you a wizard, or what?" (DH, p. 651)
It's then that Ron uses the same spell he used to save Hermione from the troll in PS, the very one that gave him so much trouble when he and Hermione were partners in Charms: Wingardium Leviosa.
Throughout Deathly Hallows, Hermione also uses the spell that produces the very same blue flame that she used to distract Snape, when they wrongly thought he was jinxing Harry's broom, and it's the same one that made the Devil's Snare release Ron and Harry.
The potions in PS, which were Snape's protection in the seven trials, are an echo of the green potion in the Cave in HBP, with the explanation coming in Deathly Hallows. The reason I see it as an echo is that in both one and six/seven it was necessary to work out the puzzle of how to get round a potion that is intended to poison the drinker--Hermione works out the puzzle in book one and enables Harry to go on while she can go safely back to get help, while in book seven we learn what the potion made Dumbledore see (not at all what I thought), but also how Regulus solved the puzzle and outsmarted Voldemort. Both puzzle solutions lead to the same thing--a way for Harry to have the opportunity to defeat Voldemort as well as a resolution to some of the hatred between the races--the understanding between the trio and Kreacher (something I never in a million years expected to happen--and one of the nicest surprises in DH).
Another big echo was the return to Gringotts in book seven. We may have been back inside the bank in the books in between, but I don't remember them as anything significant (and without looking, I'd say we weren't there--only references to Harry's money being taken out, once by Bill). But in book one we spent a lot of time there, learning about goblins, about the bank itself, about the rumor that there was a dragon (and there was some fire coming from one of the side tunnels), about what happens to people who try to rob Gringotts. All of that, while being rather exciting and interesting, was as Janet Batchler would say, the set-up for Harry's return to Gringotts in search of the cup, and possibly other Horcruxes.
The goblins, it turns out, are every bit as cruel to other creatures as they complain the wizards are to them. Imagine forcing a creature like a dragon, something huge that lives alone in the wild, to live its life underground and chained, fearing the sound of clankers because its been tortured, never allowed to smell fresh air or see the hills and lakes. They've also devised some pretty awful methods for trapping would-be thieves--the duplicating, burning treasure. (A warning of what happens when one is too focused on acquiring earthly treasures?) Of course, as Ron points out to Griphook, the bank has been broken into--when Quirrell tried to steal the Philosopher's Stone and failed. But Quirrell did come out of that unscathed--at least unscathed by any of the goblin protections. So, the goblins show themselves, just as Voldemort does, to be arrogant in a way that leads to their defeat--defeat, because Harry is able to "steal" the cup from the Lestranges high-security vault, and he, Ron and Hermione escape.
In book one, Gringotts almost seems to hold a place of reverence when Hagrid talks about it. Yet in book seven, we watch the destruction of the only wizarding bank. The protections, the ones set by the goblins, were effective when the goblins were true to their purpose of protecting the treasure of its depositors, but once the bank itself was corrupted by wizards, Death Eaters, not even the goblin protection was enough to stop Harry from doing what was right. So in that way, we came full circle on the bank, with the realization that an institution is only as good as its true purpose and its security is only as good as those who are in charge.
Harry first hears of and sees Hogwarts in book one, of course, when he learns he's a wizard. But in that first book and in HBP as well, we spend over a third of the time NOT at Hogwarts. In fact, in HBP, there is little time spent in the normal everyday activities that we saw in the middle books, except in Slughorn's Potions class which are nearly a complete opposite to Snape's first classes. We, and Harry, spend a lot of time learning things from Snape in HPB, though Harry has no idea that his beloved Prince is the one person he is the most determined to hate.
That's one of the things I really liked in the Epilogue and especially in the chapter, "The Prince's Tale"--finding out that Snape, disagreeable and nasty as he was, was true to his promise to Dumbledore in ways that Harry had never imagined. The character of Snape in the first book was so flat to me--the mean teacher who went out of his way to assert his authority over all the students, not just Harry (but especially Harry), turns out to be a hero, with so much depth to his character. And I couldn't have been more pleased with the way Rowling wrote Snape's story--she didn't turn him into some cuddly warm-hearted character but left him as the flawed, but finally understood and appreciated hero that he always yearned to be.
Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallowsfocused on things in the past and in the future, things that have nothing to do with regular classes and Quidditch (I'm one of the few who didn't miss Quidditch, btw). But the point was that Harry needed to prepare for what he would eventually face, and sitting in the Great Hall for a cozy meal, or having Quidditch practice and games, or sitting around the Gryffindor common room studying and chatting, were the things of his childhood, things to be left behind.
The simplest way to make the point was to deprive Harry of all of those things by not having him return to Hogwarts. By sending the trio on the run, with all the camping and moving and near misses at being caught, Rowling gave us a real picture of the kind of war they are fighting. It's not a neat and tidy one, but one that means the freedom fighters have to go underground, into hiding, very often working in small groups rather than as a large organized (and well cared for) army. I thought of the people all over Europe who hid Jewish families during World War II or helped them to freedom, much to their peril, when the trio was rescued and hid at the Tonks's house before going to Auntie Muriel's or later at Shell Cottage; there were echoes of the Underground Railroad and Harriet Tubman, smuggling the slaves to safe houses, with Aberforth smuggling them in and out of Hogwarts and providing the refugees in residence with food and information.
Quite honestly, who would have wanted to spend more time at Hogwarts in Deathly Hallows, given what it's become. When we see Neville and Seamus and all the others, and hear how the place that Harry (and all of us) loved has been desecrated, I was glad we didn't have to see the daily details of that horror. Just imagining them was bad enough.
And of course, we have Neville, who in book one was brave enough to stand up against his friends, showing in book seven that he is brave enough to stand up FOR his friends against all enemies, in ways we never dreamed possible for Neville. Fantastic complete circle, that one. It was especially poignant that it was Neville, standing in front of Voldemort, taunted and humiliated, who was able to pull Gryffindor's Sword out of the Sorting Hat and then, with a courage he hadn't fully realized in the first book, had the courage to do what had to be done, to behead Nagini.
In the Philosopher's Stone, we see Harry being left at the Dursleys, a place where he will wait until he is old enough to take his place in the Wizarding world; in Deathly Hallows, we see Harry forced once again into the Muggle world, apart from the world where he belongs, once again waiting until the right time for him to return, but this time it is with a terror hanging over the heads of all of them, where in the first book it was with a feeling that the terror had gone. The difference between the two books is that we don't know what we are missing of the wizarding world in book one and in book seven, we do. But both are frustrating times for Harry, both show his helplessness, with it being even more frustrating in book seven when he knows what is at stake, what the consequences will be if he fails.
I thought Rowling did an excellent job of tying up all the lose ends. No, she didn't answer every question, but it turns out that was because we, as avid readers, had way too much time and too many questions to answer. There has to be something of mystery left in a book or it reads like an encyclopedia--boring. There has to be something where the reader fills in the missing information. She wrote the story that she wanted to write, and it does seem to come full circle--or more like a spiral, I suppose. Each book comes back around to Harry returning to his Muggle existence, but with more knowledge and understanding of what his life is to be.
With the last book, we see Harry and Ron and Hermione putting all those puzzle pieces from their previous six years together, we see that they have all overcome their short-comings from the first books, and that they have remained the true friends they were meant to be, true to their original goals of doing the right thing, making the right choices, and of making the world a better place to be.
Pat
I've now finished reading ,Deathly Hallows all the way through the second time, and liked it even better when I was wide-awake and had time to think it through. For some reason, as much as I enjoyed a discussion the other night with my daughter, I just don't feel the need to do a lot of on-line analyzing--perhaps it's just that I'm that satisfied with the book and ultimately, with the whole series.
Anyway, John has had a growing list of things to discuss, so I did post my thoughts on the one about "Philosopher's Stone Echoes". Interestingly enough, as I started to re-read, I made notes in the margins and something that I kept jotting down was all the ties between DH and all the other books, and especially things that recalled the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone.
Philosopher’s Stone Echoes
Posted August 1, 2007 (with a few edits and corrections)
HogwartsProfessor.com
I've been re-reading Deathly Hallows and am nearing the end--they are searching for the lost diadem (which I'm quite pleased to say was something that I actually got right, though not with the back story or the way they find it, of course).
On my second read-through, I've been jotting notes in the margins. Often they are about echoes of previous books--odd that I had referred to it with the same phrase that John used. I see them more as an echo than a direct retelling of something. Take a look at Sirius's motorbike, for instance. Hagrid arrives at Privet Drive in PS/SS, riding/flying it, bringing Harry from the wizarding world to the Muggle one. And in DH Hagrid takes Harry from the Muggle world back to the wizarding world on the same bike. Yes, it is somewhat of a disaster, to put it mildly, but that's because there are other things going on. The reason Hagrid brought baby Harry to Privet Drive was also because of a disaster, so it does certainly come full circle on that note.
So while it's an echo--a reminder--we also see how much more complicated and dangerous Harry's life is now that Voldemort has truly returned. But with that motorbike, we are also reminded of Sirius, and that's without any particular exposition; Sirius, though gone, is still in Harry's heart.
The rescue group itself is an echo of Harry's Advance Guard in Order of the Phoenix. This one, unlike the first rescue, is seemingly better planned, even though things go horribly awry. But that's all tied to Dumbledore's advice to Snape that he leak the date--but not the information that there would be multiple Harrys. It's one of those uncomfortable reminders that Dumbledore did have a grand plan and that he did put his plan ahead of everyone, including Snape and Harry, the two who had been most loyal to him.
But anyway, back to Philosopher's Stone. Someone (at HogPro) already mentioned the Stone in both the first and last books and that Harry doesn't want to find either the Philosohper's Stone or the Resurrection Stone so that he can use them but instead wants to prevent them from falling into Voldemort's hands, or someone else's who is as evil. The Stones are similar in their purpose. The Philosopher's Stone will enable the user to have eternal life, while the Resurrection Stone will enable the owner to bring someone back, though not in entirely human form. They will return in ghostly form, much as Nearly Headless Nick, who (in OP) told Harry that he had not been brave enough to "go on", that most people would not prefer an existence that is neither here nor there. So both Stones have a sort of commentary about what happens when a person tries to cheat Death, and Harry would not have done either.
Then there are the seven trials in PS. There may be an echo of each one, though I don't think it's all in book 7. And I don't think that some are particularly more than a nod to the trials. The one that stood out to me was the chess reference. When they arrived at Xeno Lovegood's house, it looked like a giant rook (which Hermione thinks of the bird *snort*). And Ron, the chess player, tells her that's a castle. But likely, it is the shape that makes Ron think of a rook. (It also made me think of a book JKR said she liked--"I Capture the Castle".) And when Ron sees it as a rook, we are taken back to all the times he played wizard chess in book 1, and throughout the books, and especially to the chess game when he sacrificed himself to save Harry. It doesn't so much foreshadow Ron sacrificing himself at that moment, but that he has been willing to do so in the past, and will be again.
Then there are the rather humorous references to the seven trials: when they are trapped by Devil's Snare, Hermione is the only one who is free or who knows what it is in PS. She knows that it doesn't like the light or heat, but can't think what to do, and Ron says, "ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT!" (PS/SS, US version, p. 278) In Deathly Hallows, the trio are trying to get into the tunnel under the Whomping Willow, and Ron wishes they had Crookshanks, recalling that the half-kneazle prodded the knot at the base of the tree to make it stop thrashing about. Hermione is the one who this time says, "Are you a wizard, or what?" (DH, p. 651)
It's then that Ron uses the same spell he used to save Hermione from the troll in PS, the very one that gave him so much trouble when he and Hermione were partners in Charms: Wingardium Leviosa.
Throughout Deathly Hallows, Hermione also uses the spell that produces the very same blue flame that she used to distract Snape, when they wrongly thought he was jinxing Harry's broom, and it's the same one that made the Devil's Snare release Ron and Harry.
The potions in PS, which were Snape's protection in the seven trials, are an echo of the green potion in the Cave in HBP, with the explanation coming in Deathly Hallows. The reason I see it as an echo is that in both one and six/seven it was necessary to work out the puzzle of how to get round a potion that is intended to poison the drinker--Hermione works out the puzzle in book one and enables Harry to go on while she can go safely back to get help, while in book seven we learn what the potion made Dumbledore see (not at all what I thought), but also how Regulus solved the puzzle and outsmarted Voldemort. Both puzzle solutions lead to the same thing--a way for Harry to have the opportunity to defeat Voldemort as well as a resolution to some of the hatred between the races--the understanding between the trio and Kreacher (something I never in a million years expected to happen--and one of the nicest surprises in DH).
Another big echo was the return to Gringotts in book seven. We may have been back inside the bank in the books in between, but I don't remember them as anything significant (and without looking, I'd say we weren't there--only references to Harry's money being taken out, once by Bill). But in book one we spent a lot of time there, learning about goblins, about the bank itself, about the rumor that there was a dragon (and there was some fire coming from one of the side tunnels), about what happens to people who try to rob Gringotts. All of that, while being rather exciting and interesting, was as Janet Batchler would say, the set-up for Harry's return to Gringotts in search of the cup, and possibly other Horcruxes.
The goblins, it turns out, are every bit as cruel to other creatures as they complain the wizards are to them. Imagine forcing a creature like a dragon, something huge that lives alone in the wild, to live its life underground and chained, fearing the sound of clankers because its been tortured, never allowed to smell fresh air or see the hills and lakes. They've also devised some pretty awful methods for trapping would-be thieves--the duplicating, burning treasure. (A warning of what happens when one is too focused on acquiring earthly treasures?) Of course, as Ron points out to Griphook, the bank has been broken into--when Quirrell tried to steal the Philosopher's Stone and failed. But Quirrell did come out of that unscathed--at least unscathed by any of the goblin protections. So, the goblins show themselves, just as Voldemort does, to be arrogant in a way that leads to their defeat--defeat, because Harry is able to "steal" the cup from the Lestranges high-security vault, and he, Ron and Hermione escape.
In book one, Gringotts almost seems to hold a place of reverence when Hagrid talks about it. Yet in book seven, we watch the destruction of the only wizarding bank. The protections, the ones set by the goblins, were effective when the goblins were true to their purpose of protecting the treasure of its depositors, but once the bank itself was corrupted by wizards, Death Eaters, not even the goblin protection was enough to stop Harry from doing what was right. So in that way, we came full circle on the bank, with the realization that an institution is only as good as its true purpose and its security is only as good as those who are in charge.
Harry first hears of and sees Hogwarts in book one, of course, when he learns he's a wizard. But in that first book and in HBP as well, we spend over a third of the time NOT at Hogwarts. In fact, in HBP, there is little time spent in the normal everyday activities that we saw in the middle books, except in Slughorn's Potions class which are nearly a complete opposite to Snape's first classes. We, and Harry, spend a lot of time learning things from Snape in HPB, though Harry has no idea that his beloved Prince is the one person he is the most determined to hate.
That's one of the things I really liked in the Epilogue and especially in the chapter, "The Prince's Tale"--finding out that Snape, disagreeable and nasty as he was, was true to his promise to Dumbledore in ways that Harry had never imagined. The character of Snape in the first book was so flat to me--the mean teacher who went out of his way to assert his authority over all the students, not just Harry (but especially Harry), turns out to be a hero, with so much depth to his character. And I couldn't have been more pleased with the way Rowling wrote Snape's story--she didn't turn him into some cuddly warm-hearted character but left him as the flawed, but finally understood and appreciated hero that he always yearned to be.
Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallowsfocused on things in the past and in the future, things that have nothing to do with regular classes and Quidditch (I'm one of the few who didn't miss Quidditch, btw). But the point was that Harry needed to prepare for what he would eventually face, and sitting in the Great Hall for a cozy meal, or having Quidditch practice and games, or sitting around the Gryffindor common room studying and chatting, were the things of his childhood, things to be left behind.
The simplest way to make the point was to deprive Harry of all of those things by not having him return to Hogwarts. By sending the trio on the run, with all the camping and moving and near misses at being caught, Rowling gave us a real picture of the kind of war they are fighting. It's not a neat and tidy one, but one that means the freedom fighters have to go underground, into hiding, very often working in small groups rather than as a large organized (and well cared for) army. I thought of the people all over Europe who hid Jewish families during World War II or helped them to freedom, much to their peril, when the trio was rescued and hid at the Tonks's house before going to Auntie Muriel's or later at Shell Cottage; there were echoes of the Underground Railroad and Harriet Tubman, smuggling the slaves to safe houses, with Aberforth smuggling them in and out of Hogwarts and providing the refugees in residence with food and information.
Quite honestly, who would have wanted to spend more time at Hogwarts in Deathly Hallows, given what it's become. When we see Neville and Seamus and all the others, and hear how the place that Harry (and all of us) loved has been desecrated, I was glad we didn't have to see the daily details of that horror. Just imagining them was bad enough.
And of course, we have Neville, who in book one was brave enough to stand up against his friends, showing in book seven that he is brave enough to stand up FOR his friends against all enemies, in ways we never dreamed possible for Neville. Fantastic complete circle, that one. It was especially poignant that it was Neville, standing in front of Voldemort, taunted and humiliated, who was able to pull Gryffindor's Sword out of the Sorting Hat and then, with a courage he hadn't fully realized in the first book, had the courage to do what had to be done, to behead Nagini.
In the Philosopher's Stone, we see Harry being left at the Dursleys, a place where he will wait until he is old enough to take his place in the Wizarding world; in Deathly Hallows, we see Harry forced once again into the Muggle world, apart from the world where he belongs, once again waiting until the right time for him to return, but this time it is with a terror hanging over the heads of all of them, where in the first book it was with a feeling that the terror had gone. The difference between the two books is that we don't know what we are missing of the wizarding world in book one and in book seven, we do. But both are frustrating times for Harry, both show his helplessness, with it being even more frustrating in book seven when he knows what is at stake, what the consequences will be if he fails.
I thought Rowling did an excellent job of tying up all the lose ends. No, she didn't answer every question, but it turns out that was because we, as avid readers, had way too much time and too many questions to answer. There has to be something of mystery left in a book or it reads like an encyclopedia--boring. There has to be something where the reader fills in the missing information. She wrote the story that she wanted to write, and it does seem to come full circle--or more like a spiral, I suppose. Each book comes back around to Harry returning to his Muggle existence, but with more knowledge and understanding of what his life is to be.
With the last book, we see Harry and Ron and Hermione putting all those puzzle pieces from their previous six years together, we see that they have all overcome their short-comings from the first books, and that they have remained the true friends they were meant to be, true to their original goals of doing the right thing, making the right choices, and of making the world a better place to be.
Pat
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