Some more Deathly Hallows thoughts
Aug. 8th, 2007 02:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matrilI don't suppose this is too deep or sophisticated, but I think it's an interesting theme that pops up quite a bit in HP, particularly DH.
So all through the seventh book, we have various characters who get into trouble by obsessing over something to the exclusion of everything else. Dumbledore's obessession over the Deathly Hallows made him blind to Grindelwald's true nature and put his sister in danger. Harry's obsession with the Deathly Hallows almost keeps him from his true quest of destroying Voldemort's Horcruxes. Voldemort's obessession with the Elder Wand keeps him so distracted it never dawns on him that Harry might be tracking down his Horcruxes until it's too late to stop him. Rufus Scrimgeour's obsession with the objects that Dumbledore left in his will keeps him from doing pretty much anything else, so that it was probably a piece of cake to take over the bulk of the Ministry without his even noticing it, and then it's just a matter of offing him. He spent a month doing nothing but examining the Deluminator, the book, and the Snitch? That's downright pathetic, and he paid a heavy price for it.
But as I think of it, obsession is a theme from the very first book. Harry is nearly consumed by his desires to see his family in the Mirror of Erised, and it's only Dumbledore, who understands this obsession and its dangers by painful personal experience, who can pull him back out again. In PoA, Sirius is so obsessed with getting vengeance on Wormtail that he behaves exactly like a convicted murderer and pretty much destroys any chance of proving his innocence. Harry is himself so determined to exact vengeance on his parents' betrayer that he probably would have gotten himself killed trying to kill Sirius, if he had in fact been guilty. Interestingly, it is the memory of his father that brings Harry back from this obsession and leads him to preserve Wormtail's life. In OotP, Voldemort, newly returned to power and still largely hidden from the wizarding world, could be doing any number of things, but he spends the entire book trying to get the prophecy. Killing Harry; that has become his one and only purpose. His obsession regarding Harry guides every single one of his actions from the very first moment he hears the partial prophecy. And it is precisely that obsession, that crazed fixation on one boy, that makes Harry most fit to destroy him!
I think the whole "our choices make us who we are" thing plays out most strongly in the contrasts between Harry and Voldemort. It's not just that Voldemort keeps making evil choices; it's that he really thinks he has no choice. It never ever occurs to him to even consider anything other than his quest for immortality, his vendetta against Muggles and Muggle-borns, his victory over Harry Potter. If he had left Harry and his family alone, he never would have been destroyed. He had that choice, but he thought that he didn't. He's profoundly fatalistic. That's why he can't comprehend Harry. He can't understand how, faced with much the same background as his own, Harry would choose so differently, would be able to choose differently.
And Harry chooses differently because in the end, he escapes his obsessions. He spends the sixth book obsessing over Draco's mysterious mission, and endangers Dumbledore's whole plan to save Draco by putting his nose where it doesn't belong. Now of course Harry excels at sticking his nose into the wrong places, and it's true that such behavior has resulted in very good things in the past - keeping the Philosopher's Stone from Voldemort, saving Ginny and defeating Tom in the Chamber, etc., etc. But when it becomes obsessive, that's when it's dangerous. Whether or not Dumbledore was justified in risking so much for one boy's soul....that's not the point here. The point is that it's not healthy for Harry to be fixating on something. He's learned better by the seventh book, and avoids obsessing on anything by and large until he learns of the Deathly Hallows. This is his last great stumbling block, and he's struggling with it almost simultaneously with Voldemort. One of my very favorite parts of the book is after their escape from Malfoy Manor. Dobby's death was heartbreaking, but it was wonderful to see the grief transform Harry and lift him up out of his obsession even as he senses Voldemort's continuing determination to claim the Elder Wand for himself. It shows such enormous strength of chararacter for Harry, his restraint and his wisdom. He still doesn't know if he's made the right choice in the long run, if perhaps he's just signed his own death sentence, but the clarity that returns to him after the Deathly Hallows have been clouding his mind is so pure and right. And ultimately it turns out to be Voldemort who's signed his own death sentence.
The message - obsessive behavior is destructive. Yeah, pretty simple, but somehow it comes across as quite profound by the end.
So all through the seventh book, we have various characters who get into trouble by obsessing over something to the exclusion of everything else. Dumbledore's obessession over the Deathly Hallows made him blind to Grindelwald's true nature and put his sister in danger. Harry's obsession with the Deathly Hallows almost keeps him from his true quest of destroying Voldemort's Horcruxes. Voldemort's obessession with the Elder Wand keeps him so distracted it never dawns on him that Harry might be tracking down his Horcruxes until it's too late to stop him. Rufus Scrimgeour's obsession with the objects that Dumbledore left in his will keeps him from doing pretty much anything else, so that it was probably a piece of cake to take over the bulk of the Ministry without his even noticing it, and then it's just a matter of offing him. He spent a month doing nothing but examining the Deluminator, the book, and the Snitch? That's downright pathetic, and he paid a heavy price for it.
But as I think of it, obsession is a theme from the very first book. Harry is nearly consumed by his desires to see his family in the Mirror of Erised, and it's only Dumbledore, who understands this obsession and its dangers by painful personal experience, who can pull him back out again. In PoA, Sirius is so obsessed with getting vengeance on Wormtail that he behaves exactly like a convicted murderer and pretty much destroys any chance of proving his innocence. Harry is himself so determined to exact vengeance on his parents' betrayer that he probably would have gotten himself killed trying to kill Sirius, if he had in fact been guilty. Interestingly, it is the memory of his father that brings Harry back from this obsession and leads him to preserve Wormtail's life. In OotP, Voldemort, newly returned to power and still largely hidden from the wizarding world, could be doing any number of things, but he spends the entire book trying to get the prophecy. Killing Harry; that has become his one and only purpose. His obsession regarding Harry guides every single one of his actions from the very first moment he hears the partial prophecy. And it is precisely that obsession, that crazed fixation on one boy, that makes Harry most fit to destroy him!
I think the whole "our choices make us who we are" thing plays out most strongly in the contrasts between Harry and Voldemort. It's not just that Voldemort keeps making evil choices; it's that he really thinks he has no choice. It never ever occurs to him to even consider anything other than his quest for immortality, his vendetta against Muggles and Muggle-borns, his victory over Harry Potter. If he had left Harry and his family alone, he never would have been destroyed. He had that choice, but he thought that he didn't. He's profoundly fatalistic. That's why he can't comprehend Harry. He can't understand how, faced with much the same background as his own, Harry would choose so differently, would be able to choose differently.
And Harry chooses differently because in the end, he escapes his obsessions. He spends the sixth book obsessing over Draco's mysterious mission, and endangers Dumbledore's whole plan to save Draco by putting his nose where it doesn't belong. Now of course Harry excels at sticking his nose into the wrong places, and it's true that such behavior has resulted in very good things in the past - keeping the Philosopher's Stone from Voldemort, saving Ginny and defeating Tom in the Chamber, etc., etc. But when it becomes obsessive, that's when it's dangerous. Whether or not Dumbledore was justified in risking so much for one boy's soul....that's not the point here. The point is that it's not healthy for Harry to be fixating on something. He's learned better by the seventh book, and avoids obsessing on anything by and large until he learns of the Deathly Hallows. This is his last great stumbling block, and he's struggling with it almost simultaneously with Voldemort. One of my very favorite parts of the book is after their escape from Malfoy Manor. Dobby's death was heartbreaking, but it was wonderful to see the grief transform Harry and lift him up out of his obsession even as he senses Voldemort's continuing determination to claim the Elder Wand for himself. It shows such enormous strength of chararacter for Harry, his restraint and his wisdom. He still doesn't know if he's made the right choice in the long run, if perhaps he's just signed his own death sentence, but the clarity that returns to him after the Deathly Hallows have been clouding his mind is so pure and right. And ultimately it turns out to be Voldemort who's signed his own death sentence.
The message - obsessive behavior is destructive. Yeah, pretty simple, but somehow it comes across as quite profound by the end.
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Date: 2007-08-09 02:20 pm (UTC)(BTW as you can tell we FINALLY finished DH the other night. I liked it a lot, but I wanted more ending - to find out what happened to EVERY character down, down to Florean Fortescue and Arabella Figg).
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Date: 2007-08-09 03:44 pm (UTC)That's an interesting point about Snape's obesession for Lily. It seems to be a sort of two-edged sword, motivating him to serve the right side instead of Voldemort, but simultaneously making him unfairly despise Harry because he looks too much like the man who (as Snape sees it anyway) stole Lily away from him. I guess true obsession is fundamentally selfish, and that's the part that creates Snape's prejudice against Harry. The other part of his love for Lily is more selfless, driving him to continue protecting Harry even though he hates him, since Lily did after all die for him. Interesting how a character can turn out to be good and loyal and still be rather detestable. ;)