~~ self-sacrifice and individualism in hp
Aug. 18th, 2003 12:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkai know i said no meta till i get my fics done-- and face it, if i predict something like that, i should know the universe will bite me in the ass. i will write them, though. as my harry-plushie is my witness, i will write them. ahem. (the reason i keep mentioning them as if i'm -serious- or something is because i -am- serious. these are -long-. i probably need a -beta- [and no, i don't know who to ask, no]. these have -plot-, man. i'm -serious-! one of them is a h/d how-they-got-together fic!! in multiple parts!! holy guacamole, etc. no, really. it's.... it's just a special thing for me, since i've never come so very very close before. it's not like it's The Ultimate H/D Reena Fic or anything, but.... *infatuated siiiigh*)
~~
i was thinking about people's differing opinions on what it would take for harry to win.
in particular, there are people who probably think they're supporting his "hero's quest" and individualist ideals in general by saying that harry needs to defeat Evil by himself, and that he wouldn't have time or protective energy to spare for 'love'. he has a job to do, right, and love and attachments-- especially to his -enemy-, of course-- would be a -weakness-, they would -undermine- him somehow. it would be much more of a -challenge- for harry to do what he has to do if he had a demanding personal relationship to worry about.
i'm thinking of a particular fic, actually. harry & draco get together under the auspices of having meaningless sex. months pass, they have lots of it, everything is fine, except draco is starting to get too attached-- or so thinks snape. he tells draco, well, don't you -know- what you're risking here? your father will disown you, voldemort will use you against harry, where will either of you turn, how will you explain this to the wizarding world, blahblah. draco is upset because he "knows it's the truth". he meets harry for the last time, and somehow harry knows already, and they break up without discussing anything; the end. in the comments, the author says, well, i think it's better for both of them in the long run.
and this isn't a totally unusual position-- lots of people think that love is a -weakness- somehow, that the challenges of keeping it are much more plentiful than the potential rewards of -having- it in the first place. i mean, there's sex and giddy happiness, but strength? that's friendship, not love, right?
there's this wide-spread feeling in modern pop-psychology that love involves co-dependency, that it weakens one's resolve, that it creates windows where your enemies could take advantage of you. that intensely personal, individual quests like the hero's one-on-one defeat of his arch-nemesis should be left to the lone crusader.
all in all, i think this is an underestimation and a misunderstanding of love. and i'm not about to imply that love "saves the day" or anything of the sort. the -will- to love can give a person the -strength- to overcome external as well as internal obstacles, yes. love itself is merely an emotion that binds you to another person, not really necessitating you to -act- any more than any other emotion does. love binds your emotions to someone, at the basic level, right? some people think emotions make you weaker the stronger they are, of course, and an emotion that takes control away from you-- that gives some of it to another person-- must make you even weaker still, in that vein of thought.
whatever the case with love in general, this isn't how it seems to work in the hp books, anyway.
it is quite clear, i think, that harry cannot win alone, that voldemort cannot be defeated simply with a display of raw wizarding power of some sort-- the only wizard who's supposedly as strong as voldemort is dumbledore, and it is harry who must defeat him because voldemort chose him. dumbledore tells him that it is the power of his -heart- which is what voldemort fears-- harry's capacity to love, his humanity, etc. the ties he so easily makes to others, and oftentimes those others are rather downtrodden and unpopular, too-- hagrid, hermione, luna. harry has his prejudices of course, but he does seem to have the power to truly sense people's good heart no matter what. i mean, he doesn't sense draco's, for instance, but i think the text seems to be saying that this is part of harry's judgement ability-- not everyone should be trusted. sometimes one should know when to walk away from the "bad sort", because if everyone was good then judgement ability would be void.
the other obvious clue is that harry's mother basically defeated voldemort through her self-sacrificial love for her son. basically, it was a true love, a -sacrificial- love which wasn't selfish, which gave without taking. ron and sirius display this quality of self-sacrifice as well, though in different ways-- ron did it most clearly in the first book, by being the one to keep playing the chess game even though he might have had to pay the ultimate price.
individualism and the usual hero's creed would say that only the hero should be the one to sacrifice themselves for the Greater Good, for whoever he's protecting (let's say, the maiden)-- and yet, it is the people who -love- harry as much as harry himself who keep having to willingly pay a price to protect him.
in fact, it may be this sort of bravery on ron's and hermione's part that has made some people say that -ron- is really "the hero" in hp, because of course it has to be The Hero who sacrifices himself, who is therefore pure and Good. he cannot have -help-. the hero must do it themselves.
harry throws himself into danger in OoTP to rescue sirius, off to be the hero-- and he couldn't (and -doesn't-) really do it alone. everyone gets hurt, everyone pays a price but him, except in that harry's price is to -watch- other people get hurt (and die) because of him, because they believe in him. because they love him.
basically, heroism (in hp, at least) cannot be a one-way street, and neither can love or sacrifice. one -gives- and one accepts and one returns, all in a circle of mutual effects that transforms everyone into heroes. neville is a hero too, just as much as harry is. harry's -existence- and the existence of neville's parents (heroes in their own right) -motivate- neville to be a hero himself. harry motivates ron and hermione as well. harry -inspires- people and people (say, sirius or mr. weasley) inspire harry to protect them, too. they create this circle of protection, of -unity-, a community of people. i think that is the goal, anyway.
that is what -gryffindor- is, too, isn't it? a community of heroes, a house for the brave, where all of the students look out for each other, everyone can be united in a cause. this isn't co-dependence, then, it's interdependence.
i really think that -unity- is what's really the goal of the quest in this story, as well as self-realization-- you could even say that the goal is self-realization through unity. ron, hermione and harry -need- each other for balance-- they have such different and yet complementary qualities, don't they. hermione has the logic and the base of knowledge, ron has the strategy and the loyalty, harry has the drive and the raw power and the connectiveness to bind them all. they work as a team, each contributing different elements to create a whole-- and clearly, this should work on a larger scale of gryffindor house and hogwarts as well before success could be achieved.
so draco may very well be set up as the last piece of the puzzle-- as the slytherin aspect of the unity that is needed to balance hogwarts so that it can withstand attack. of course, this is what![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ivyblossom had said in her brilliant post about draco's redemption. but this isn't really talking about why would harry -need- love, need this connection, whether with draco or somewhere else, in order to achieve his goal.
i would say draco, myself, because i think there is potential there for him completing a circuit, being that last balancing factor harry needs to come to terms with before he's ready to face voldemort without fear (the slytherin factor, basically). but really, the question of why would harry need love easily extends and flows from the more general question of why does -any- individual need love to succeed in their lives, and how could they remain an individual while acknowledging this.
mostly, without love, i think, the whole quest of heroic sacrifice and the entire grand struggle to survive and even -live- becomes meaningless, and this is precisely what voldemort doesn't understand. he thinks surviving alone is important, the mere act of beating death-- whereas harry has to realize that it's not the mere -living- that's important, not the question of who lives or dies, him or voldemort, but the -connections- one makes that makes life -worth- living, and that those connections aren't something death can ever fully take away from you. they will always be able to help guide you, always give you strength and perhaps, in ways, protect you-- just like lily's sacrifice and love live on in harry.
in hp as well as in life, in my opinion, love can never be a weakness, in the end, and you can never be better off without it. that sort of thinking leads one down the path voldemort took. love is ultimately the only strength-- the thing that makes an act of -sacrifice- into just a reflection of one's heart, and perhaps within this unity, finally, it isn't a sacrifice at all, but actually victory itself.
~~
i was thinking about people's differing opinions on what it would take for harry to win.
in particular, there are people who probably think they're supporting his "hero's quest" and individualist ideals in general by saying that harry needs to defeat Evil by himself, and that he wouldn't have time or protective energy to spare for 'love'. he has a job to do, right, and love and attachments-- especially to his -enemy-, of course-- would be a -weakness-, they would -undermine- him somehow. it would be much more of a -challenge- for harry to do what he has to do if he had a demanding personal relationship to worry about.
i'm thinking of a particular fic, actually. harry & draco get together under the auspices of having meaningless sex. months pass, they have lots of it, everything is fine, except draco is starting to get too attached-- or so thinks snape. he tells draco, well, don't you -know- what you're risking here? your father will disown you, voldemort will use you against harry, where will either of you turn, how will you explain this to the wizarding world, blahblah. draco is upset because he "knows it's the truth". he meets harry for the last time, and somehow harry knows already, and they break up without discussing anything; the end. in the comments, the author says, well, i think it's better for both of them in the long run.
and this isn't a totally unusual position-- lots of people think that love is a -weakness- somehow, that the challenges of keeping it are much more plentiful than the potential rewards of -having- it in the first place. i mean, there's sex and giddy happiness, but strength? that's friendship, not love, right?
there's this wide-spread feeling in modern pop-psychology that love involves co-dependency, that it weakens one's resolve, that it creates windows where your enemies could take advantage of you. that intensely personal, individual quests like the hero's one-on-one defeat of his arch-nemesis should be left to the lone crusader.
all in all, i think this is an underestimation and a misunderstanding of love. and i'm not about to imply that love "saves the day" or anything of the sort. the -will- to love can give a person the -strength- to overcome external as well as internal obstacles, yes. love itself is merely an emotion that binds you to another person, not really necessitating you to -act- any more than any other emotion does. love binds your emotions to someone, at the basic level, right? some people think emotions make you weaker the stronger they are, of course, and an emotion that takes control away from you-- that gives some of it to another person-- must make you even weaker still, in that vein of thought.
whatever the case with love in general, this isn't how it seems to work in the hp books, anyway.
it is quite clear, i think, that harry cannot win alone, that voldemort cannot be defeated simply with a display of raw wizarding power of some sort-- the only wizard who's supposedly as strong as voldemort is dumbledore, and it is harry who must defeat him because voldemort chose him. dumbledore tells him that it is the power of his -heart- which is what voldemort fears-- harry's capacity to love, his humanity, etc. the ties he so easily makes to others, and oftentimes those others are rather downtrodden and unpopular, too-- hagrid, hermione, luna. harry has his prejudices of course, but he does seem to have the power to truly sense people's good heart no matter what. i mean, he doesn't sense draco's, for instance, but i think the text seems to be saying that this is part of harry's judgement ability-- not everyone should be trusted. sometimes one should know when to walk away from the "bad sort", because if everyone was good then judgement ability would be void.
the other obvious clue is that harry's mother basically defeated voldemort through her self-sacrificial love for her son. basically, it was a true love, a -sacrificial- love which wasn't selfish, which gave without taking. ron and sirius display this quality of self-sacrifice as well, though in different ways-- ron did it most clearly in the first book, by being the one to keep playing the chess game even though he might have had to pay the ultimate price.
individualism and the usual hero's creed would say that only the hero should be the one to sacrifice themselves for the Greater Good, for whoever he's protecting (let's say, the maiden)-- and yet, it is the people who -love- harry as much as harry himself who keep having to willingly pay a price to protect him.
in fact, it may be this sort of bravery on ron's and hermione's part that has made some people say that -ron- is really "the hero" in hp, because of course it has to be The Hero who sacrifices himself, who is therefore pure and Good. he cannot have -help-. the hero must do it themselves.
harry throws himself into danger in OoTP to rescue sirius, off to be the hero-- and he couldn't (and -doesn't-) really do it alone. everyone gets hurt, everyone pays a price but him, except in that harry's price is to -watch- other people get hurt (and die) because of him, because they believe in him. because they love him.
basically, heroism (in hp, at least) cannot be a one-way street, and neither can love or sacrifice. one -gives- and one accepts and one returns, all in a circle of mutual effects that transforms everyone into heroes. neville is a hero too, just as much as harry is. harry's -existence- and the existence of neville's parents (heroes in their own right) -motivate- neville to be a hero himself. harry motivates ron and hermione as well. harry -inspires- people and people (say, sirius or mr. weasley) inspire harry to protect them, too. they create this circle of protection, of -unity-, a community of people. i think that is the goal, anyway.
that is what -gryffindor- is, too, isn't it? a community of heroes, a house for the brave, where all of the students look out for each other, everyone can be united in a cause. this isn't co-dependence, then, it's interdependence.
i really think that -unity- is what's really the goal of the quest in this story, as well as self-realization-- you could even say that the goal is self-realization through unity. ron, hermione and harry -need- each other for balance-- they have such different and yet complementary qualities, don't they. hermione has the logic and the base of knowledge, ron has the strategy and the loyalty, harry has the drive and the raw power and the connectiveness to bind them all. they work as a team, each contributing different elements to create a whole-- and clearly, this should work on a larger scale of gryffindor house and hogwarts as well before success could be achieved.
so draco may very well be set up as the last piece of the puzzle-- as the slytherin aspect of the unity that is needed to balance hogwarts so that it can withstand attack. of course, this is what
ivyblossom had said in her brilliant post about draco's redemption. but this isn't really talking about why would harry -need- love, need this connection, whether with draco or somewhere else, in order to achieve his goal.i would say draco, myself, because i think there is potential there for him completing a circuit, being that last balancing factor harry needs to come to terms with before he's ready to face voldemort without fear (the slytherin factor, basically). but really, the question of why would harry need love easily extends and flows from the more general question of why does -any- individual need love to succeed in their lives, and how could they remain an individual while acknowledging this.
mostly, without love, i think, the whole quest of heroic sacrifice and the entire grand struggle to survive and even -live- becomes meaningless, and this is precisely what voldemort doesn't understand. he thinks surviving alone is important, the mere act of beating death-- whereas harry has to realize that it's not the mere -living- that's important, not the question of who lives or dies, him or voldemort, but the -connections- one makes that makes life -worth- living, and that those connections aren't something death can ever fully take away from you. they will always be able to help guide you, always give you strength and perhaps, in ways, protect you-- just like lily's sacrifice and love live on in harry.
in hp as well as in life, in my opinion, love can never be a weakness, in the end, and you can never be better off without it. that sort of thinking leads one down the path voldemort took. love is ultimately the only strength-- the thing that makes an act of -sacrifice- into just a reflection of one's heart, and perhaps within this unity, finally, it isn't a sacrifice at all, but actually victory itself.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-08-19 08:37 pm (UTC)...and I think that Harry Potter is about love, that is the tie between all of the books, the moral, if you will. For this reason I find the people who think the Potters are satanic endlessly amusing; it is similar to Fahrenheit 451 being banned when it itself is about censorship. It astounds me that the mere mention of witchcraft (and, being fascinated with Wicca, amuses me, but that is another story) will blind religious fanatics to the true message in a story.
...and Draco should be integral in the Sorting Hat plotline that is sure to develop. Right? And he will rock my socks. Right?
no subject
Date: 2003-08-19 10:52 pm (UTC)i'm a bit unsure about tying romantic love to the sort of love -jkr- means (i think in the hp books, the love that is the doom and salvation of the characters is more a familial, protective-- sometimes overly protective-- love).
there are definitely instances of adversarial love-- ron & hermione, lily & james, but those are immature forms. eventually, it settles like tea-leaves to become a stable, committed bond that is beyond friendship or teenage-type infatuation, more like family, where romance and platonic love merge in a way.
but yes~:)
as for draco, i'm rather skeptical even as i yearn for it to be true. i think she kind of hates draco, because he's supposed to be "a type" of obviously the sort of person she considers a worthless bully -.-
i wonder what she thinks about percy....
there are really parallels between percy & sirius & draco, of weird kinds.
yah, -something- has to happen with the sorting hat song. something, that's for sure. otherwise the arc is totally incomplete.
but....
even knowing the people he dislikes aren't "evil" or on the "dark side", harry doesn't warm up to them, really-- ie, snape. in canon, i'm sure harry won't admit to any goodness or worthiness in draco even if draco became the posterboy for redeemed slytherin, and wore muggle clothes and read muggle books in celebration of muggledom everywhere. or something.
poor boy, he's doomed.
on the bright side, then someone will probably rewrite a chunk of the books from draco's pov, rework everything with the knowledge of complete canon, and unsympathetic-but-human!draco (sort of like jonathan, from buffy) will be born~:) *siiiigh* that'll be the day~:)
no subject
Date: 2003-08-20 08:44 pm (UTC)I think that maybe OotP is almost better for Draco fans to work from than GoF. Even though she has as of yet held to the stereotypical sneering evil for him (and, sigh, what rational thoughts I have left in my brain insist that she will continue to do so despite my prayers), there are more things left open than cut off in OotP. Harry's real romance, the possible redemption of the Slytherins- even though these things may not ever appear in canon, they are likely enough from this point that fanfic authors can have a bit of fun!
And along the lines of Snape... Harry needs to learn how to forgive. In a perfect world, JKR will write Draco as we want him to be - redeemed - and Harry will be able to sympathize with him, will realize that real life isn't as black and white as he has been seeing it. Every book strengthens the case for Snape as a wonderful character. He has such depth! If only Draco were so lucky. (!) Oh, my little 2 dimension duckling. Heh.
And on an entirely unrelated note: I would love to beta a fic. Let me know if you're interested!