(no subject)
So I saw Harry Potter 7-2 a few months ago, and as before, I had some thoughts.
If you don't feel like rereading the old entry, here's the meat of it:
I think that's a fundamental flaw in the book- one that cuts deeper than, and ultimately is responsible for, many of its other weaknesses (the slow pacing, the coupon plot, etc.). Part of being a "good" character seems to be a very, very passive approach to the world- an approach I can't help thinking of as sort of a liberal European mentality, though that may not be accurate. You can resist the bad guys as you run from them, sure, and attack their magical sources of power- but you can't kill them, or hunt them down, or gather up an army of your own to oppose theirs. Those are things that bad people do- good people either live their lives as though nothing is wrong, or go it alone so as not to endanger anyone else.
It's a fundamentally ridiculous position, and the work suffers for it.
I enjoyed part 2 quite a bit more - it is, after all, the part of the book where Stuff Actually Happens. But I think this criticism still holds true for it, and I think that's clearest in a bit near the end.
Voldemort's dead, from, uh, one heck of a disarming spell, apparently. Harry is, at last, the undisputed master of the Elder Wand - the most powerful wand in existence, and one that apparently acts as a turbocharger for the magic of the wizard using it. That's the extent of what it does, though: it takes the magic you can already do, and it makes you better at it.
Harry snaps it in half.
The question, of course, is why? This isn't the One Ring we're talking about, here - it doesn't whisper seductively. It won't taint his soul. It doesn't equip him with power beyond the ken of mortal man (aside from being, you know, a wizard) - it just makes him a little better at what he does. It's been established that Dumbledore used the darned thing for years, during a time when he became a better person.
So we can't claim that the wand is corruptive, or "power man was not meant to have" - not with a straight face, anyway. The film's apparent explanation is that, having destroyed the wand, no one will ever come looking to harm him, to take it from him...
... Except that we know that Harry has a dangerous life ahead. He wants to be an Auror - that is, someone whose day-to-day occupation is confronting black magic. That'd be bad enough, but he's still the Boy Who Lived. Voldemort's minions, many of whom are apparently just let go - hi, Future Draco and your lovely family! - are still out there; many of them have grudges, presumably, or at minimum a reason to want to make a name for themselves by taking down Harry Freaking Potter. There's lots of people who want this kid dead, and there will be for his entire life, entirely apart from the Elder Wand.
So the theory breaks down. Yet that seems to be Rowling's explanation, and I think it's worth looking at exactly what principle is in play here: to be safe in the world, strip away your own defenses and leave nothing of value to be taken. It's the same, bizarre "If I close my eyes and pretend evil's not out to get me, everything will be fine" attitude that poisons the first half of the book/movie - and here, apparently, it works.
Now, none of this is unique or original to the Potterverse, and I don't mean to suggest that Rowling's, I dunno, pushing some kind of deep philosophical treatise here. But the Good Guys Don't philosophy that underlies this is wrong, and wrong in ways that make it rather self-destructive to actually put into practice.
If you don't feel like rereading the old entry, here's the meat of it:
I think that's a fundamental flaw in the book- one that cuts deeper than, and ultimately is responsible for, many of its other weaknesses (the slow pacing, the coupon plot, etc.). Part of being a "good" character seems to be a very, very passive approach to the world- an approach I can't help thinking of as sort of a liberal European mentality, though that may not be accurate. You can resist the bad guys as you run from them, sure, and attack their magical sources of power- but you can't kill them, or hunt them down, or gather up an army of your own to oppose theirs. Those are things that bad people do- good people either live their lives as though nothing is wrong, or go it alone so as not to endanger anyone else.
It's a fundamentally ridiculous position, and the work suffers for it.
I enjoyed part 2 quite a bit more - it is, after all, the part of the book where Stuff Actually Happens. But I think this criticism still holds true for it, and I think that's clearest in a bit near the end.
Voldemort's dead, from, uh, one heck of a disarming spell, apparently. Harry is, at last, the undisputed master of the Elder Wand - the most powerful wand in existence, and one that apparently acts as a turbocharger for the magic of the wizard using it. That's the extent of what it does, though: it takes the magic you can already do, and it makes you better at it.
Harry snaps it in half.
The question, of course, is why? This isn't the One Ring we're talking about, here - it doesn't whisper seductively. It won't taint his soul. It doesn't equip him with power beyond the ken of mortal man (aside from being, you know, a wizard) - it just makes him a little better at what he does. It's been established that Dumbledore used the darned thing for years, during a time when he became a better person.
So we can't claim that the wand is corruptive, or "power man was not meant to have" - not with a straight face, anyway. The film's apparent explanation is that, having destroyed the wand, no one will ever come looking to harm him, to take it from him...
... Except that we know that Harry has a dangerous life ahead. He wants to be an Auror - that is, someone whose day-to-day occupation is confronting black magic. That'd be bad enough, but he's still the Boy Who Lived. Voldemort's minions, many of whom are apparently just let go - hi, Future Draco and your lovely family! - are still out there; many of them have grudges, presumably, or at minimum a reason to want to make a name for themselves by taking down Harry Freaking Potter. There's lots of people who want this kid dead, and there will be for his entire life, entirely apart from the Elder Wand.
So the theory breaks down. Yet that seems to be Rowling's explanation, and I think it's worth looking at exactly what principle is in play here: to be safe in the world, strip away your own defenses and leave nothing of value to be taken. It's the same, bizarre "If I close my eyes and pretend evil's not out to get me, everything will be fine" attitude that poisons the first half of the book/movie - and here, apparently, it works.
Now, none of this is unique or original to the Potterverse, and I don't mean to suggest that Rowling's, I dunno, pushing some kind of deep philosophical treatise here. But the Good Guys Don't philosophy that underlies this is wrong, and wrong in ways that make it rather self-destructive to actually put into practice.