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Dan Hemmens on Harry Potter, Aslan, and John Sheridan

Kyra Smith says...

Hmmm...interesting, very interesting. *strokes goatee* Actually, it occurs to me that Harry's Big Deal is that he supposedly understands LOVE unlike Lord V. And that his sacrifice is, you know, this amazing, jesus-like act of LOVE. But surely the point of love is that it's personal and small-scale. I mean, it's LOVE that inspires the Malfoys to say "fuck this war and everything else, we're saving our son." If I had a son and he was walking off to lay down his life before a nose-less super-villain (and by, super, in this context I mean inept) I'd probably be all "Son, son, run away to Australia, you can live with Hermione's parents, go, go now." I wouldn't be saying "Hey, kid, death is fun. You're being really brave." LOVE is another one of those weird double-thinks, it's the ultimate selfish emotion that, nevertheless, inspires selfless acts. Thus Lily Potter dying for her son. Not Lily Potter grinning happily that the son she *gave her life to protect* is about to *fling his own away*.

Similarly, you'd think LOVE would not gather around Harry

Kyra Smith says...

Also I have to wonder if the 7th book was trying to ship RAB/Kreacher, just because it occurs to me that drinking the Killing Juice himself was an insanely noble sacrifice, especially when Kreacher survived it and, in fact, had suffcieint dodgy plot-hole house elf magic to be able to get them both out of the cave again. Also to lay down your life for an attempt to kill your house elf strikes me as ... well ... is that LOVE do you think?

Arthur B says...

I think the general rule with Harry Potter books is that "if the fans think they can discern a relationship between characters which is not specifically stated in the text to be a relationship, they are Wrong because they are trying to corrupt the Holy Writ of Rowling".

Kyra Smith says...

I don't know, I think there's definitely something going on between RAB and Kreacher... Greater love hath no man than he who is willing to lay down his life for house elf... Oh, sorry, we're talking about Rowling here so that should be LOVE.

Jen Spencer says...

My current favourite source of heroism: David Sumner in Straw Dogs. He is willing to fight the pack of maniac locals to the death because he will not stand by and let them lynch a slightly retarded murderer, and he certainly will not let them violate the sanctity of his home (again) to do it. You go dude!

Kyra Smith says...

I haven't seen Straw Dogs, I'm afraid it's another one of those movies that would upset me. I gotta comfort zone and I'm sticking in it, dammit.

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