George
06-07-2007, 16:38
Hello all. It's been over a year since my last thread ... it's taken several months to come up with this and another couple now; so here goes:
The thesis at hand in this thread deals with Harry's commitment to fighting evil as a reactionary stance to the dark precedent set forth by Voldemort. Thus, several axiomatic points must be accepted, or at least understood, by the reader before we proceed:
1. Harry fights against Voldemort in order to uphold his values and avenge his parents.
2. Harry has learnt his values as a direct result of his company in Hogwarts, or in other words, Gryffindor House.
3. Harry is able to love due to the nature of the sacrifice his mother made for him.
4. Voldemort does not understand love because none of it was ever shown to him.
5. Voldemort fights the wizarding world in order to uphold his values.
Taking all this into account, let us now consider several scenarios.
In the first, Voldemort would have killed Harry's parents, then disappeared, leaving Harry to live with his aunt and uncle, until Harry would have been allowed to get his letter on the day the first one arrived. Harry would have gone to Hogwarts, alone, and would have been sorted in Slytherin, as the Hat suggested. Nobody would have told Harry of Voldemort or Dark Wizards, and the House of Salazar would not have had its name tainted. Harry would have made pureblood friends, and would have learnt separate values. If he had known his parents had died for him in the way that they did, there would have been little he could do, when, at the end of his first year, Voldemort offered him a place amongst his own ranks. Harry would have taken this over what seemed a certain death (being a Slytherin with Slytherin values), and Voldemort would have been resurrected, with Harry at his side, a faithful Death Eater.
In the second, Voldemort would never have existed, but Harry himself would have been subject to the same conditions as the Dark Lord ... a father that did not want him, a mother that died giving birth to him, leaving poor Harry at an orphanage. How likely is it, upon getting news of his magical power (which Harry, no doubt, would have already been aware of, if only to a slight degree), that Harry would have wanted to go to Hogwarts and prove himself? How likely is it that Harry would have wanted to hunt his father down for condemning him to a life in an orphanage? And with the thirst for knowledge and cunning required to live in an orphanage, how likely is it that Harry would have been sorted into Slytherin, and charmed all his teachers, being, after all, but a quiet and well mannered orphan? It is my thesis here, that Harry would have wanted to become powerful beyond measure, so as to counter the rather poor hand of cards that life had dealt him. Would he, perhaps, not knowing love and caring, have gone to the same boundaries of magic that Voldemort himself pushed? It is likely.
In the third and final scenario, Harry would have been born before Voldemort, gone along the same path, and almost perished in the attempt to kill a baby, who, it was prophesized, would have the power to bring down Harry Potter. If that boy had the same personality as Tom Riddle, and had been constantly put down by his aunt and uncle, it is highly probable that, upon learning that he was a wizard, and being pampered by Hagrid, and endoctrinated about the evils of the Slytherin House, and favored so heavily by Dumbledore, Voldemort would have gone in Gryffindor House, or Ravenclaw, and fought Harry Potter with all his magical power (perhaps more intelligence and magical might than the Harry in his childhood). Had the characters been reversed, even a boy who was cruel to others and to animals and whatnot would still have been attracted by the light side by plain virtue of the will to get revenge.
In conclusion, Voldemort was made into what he was by the circumstance surrounding his birth, his childhood, and (most importantly) Dumbledore's refusal to introduce him to the wizarding world in the same way that Harry was introduced by Hagrid: with affection and patience. Harry, too, was encouraged upon a specific path by factors that were out of his locus of control: Dumbledore's insistence that Hagrid travel with Harry, and the love his mother had for him, as Dumbledore deftly explains at the end of PS/SS. So, had the characters' circumstances been reversed, the same effect would have been observed upon the personalities of the two quantities that JKR describes as being opposites without compromise.
Savvy?
The thesis at hand in this thread deals with Harry's commitment to fighting evil as a reactionary stance to the dark precedent set forth by Voldemort. Thus, several axiomatic points must be accepted, or at least understood, by the reader before we proceed:
1. Harry fights against Voldemort in order to uphold his values and avenge his parents.
2. Harry has learnt his values as a direct result of his company in Hogwarts, or in other words, Gryffindor House.
3. Harry is able to love due to the nature of the sacrifice his mother made for him.
4. Voldemort does not understand love because none of it was ever shown to him.
5. Voldemort fights the wizarding world in order to uphold his values.
Taking all this into account, let us now consider several scenarios.
In the first, Voldemort would have killed Harry's parents, then disappeared, leaving Harry to live with his aunt and uncle, until Harry would have been allowed to get his letter on the day the first one arrived. Harry would have gone to Hogwarts, alone, and would have been sorted in Slytherin, as the Hat suggested. Nobody would have told Harry of Voldemort or Dark Wizards, and the House of Salazar would not have had its name tainted. Harry would have made pureblood friends, and would have learnt separate values. If he had known his parents had died for him in the way that they did, there would have been little he could do, when, at the end of his first year, Voldemort offered him a place amongst his own ranks. Harry would have taken this over what seemed a certain death (being a Slytherin with Slytherin values), and Voldemort would have been resurrected, with Harry at his side, a faithful Death Eater.
In the second, Voldemort would never have existed, but Harry himself would have been subject to the same conditions as the Dark Lord ... a father that did not want him, a mother that died giving birth to him, leaving poor Harry at an orphanage. How likely is it, upon getting news of his magical power (which Harry, no doubt, would have already been aware of, if only to a slight degree), that Harry would have wanted to go to Hogwarts and prove himself? How likely is it that Harry would have wanted to hunt his father down for condemning him to a life in an orphanage? And with the thirst for knowledge and cunning required to live in an orphanage, how likely is it that Harry would have been sorted into Slytherin, and charmed all his teachers, being, after all, but a quiet and well mannered orphan? It is my thesis here, that Harry would have wanted to become powerful beyond measure, so as to counter the rather poor hand of cards that life had dealt him. Would he, perhaps, not knowing love and caring, have gone to the same boundaries of magic that Voldemort himself pushed? It is likely.
In the third and final scenario, Harry would have been born before Voldemort, gone along the same path, and almost perished in the attempt to kill a baby, who, it was prophesized, would have the power to bring down Harry Potter. If that boy had the same personality as Tom Riddle, and had been constantly put down by his aunt and uncle, it is highly probable that, upon learning that he was a wizard, and being pampered by Hagrid, and endoctrinated about the evils of the Slytherin House, and favored so heavily by Dumbledore, Voldemort would have gone in Gryffindor House, or Ravenclaw, and fought Harry Potter with all his magical power (perhaps more intelligence and magical might than the Harry in his childhood). Had the characters been reversed, even a boy who was cruel to others and to animals and whatnot would still have been attracted by the light side by plain virtue of the will to get revenge.
In conclusion, Voldemort was made into what he was by the circumstance surrounding his birth, his childhood, and (most importantly) Dumbledore's refusal to introduce him to the wizarding world in the same way that Harry was introduced by Hagrid: with affection and patience. Harry, too, was encouraged upon a specific path by factors that were out of his locus of control: Dumbledore's insistence that Hagrid travel with Harry, and the love his mother had for him, as Dumbledore deftly explains at the end of PS/SS. So, had the characters' circumstances been reversed, the same effect would have been observed upon the personalities of the two quantities that JKR describes as being opposites without compromise.
Savvy?