Re: Snape Acquitted of All Charges!

[Dave Vanness]
> ...
> Maybe we're learning about JKR's thoughts on the ability of people to
> change their ways. Come to think of it, I can't come up with a single
> instance of a character who has really evolved -- except *perhaps* Draco.
> Of course, the kids are maturing, but -- I mean, has anyone shown any
> ability to be change?
>
> Dursleys: start out as bastards --> still bastards
> Mundungus: start out a thief --> still a thief
> Voldemort: start out a disturbed, sadistic boy --> well, you know!
> Malfoy: privileged snot --> power hungry prefect --> vengeful deatheater
> jr. --> hesitant killer (?)
> Percy: start out a git --> still a git

I'll add one:

Sirius Black: start out alive -> now dead

Of course there are many more who have started that cathartic journey in
personal growth ;-)

I sure agree that nobody here has shown an _essential_ change in character
yet. The one who's shown the most growth may be Neville Longbottom, but
even there it seems more a story of him discovering who he truly is (and has
been all along, "deep inside") than of him struggling with, and overcoming,
a darker side of his nature.

But I'm not depressed about it _yet_: things always look darkest at the end
of the penultimate book -- it just wasn't structurally possible for HBP to
be a joyful laff riot ;-)

I will be depressed if, at the end of book 7, it's still the case that
nobody achieves redemption. Or if only Draco does -- that would be a small
victory indeed. I'll be happiest if a Major Evil character finds
redemption, _and_ lives to talk about it. Somehow I don't think that could
be Voldemort ;-) And I'm afraid JKR's notions may require dying to redeem
Major Evil; I've never been able to find an original source for the JKR
quotes reported (among other places) here, and they may be bogus, but they
ring true to me:

http://cfdiocese.org/news/cfweek/pdf/cfe1201.pdf

Last year she [JKR] told a Canadian reporter that her Christian faith
"seems to offend the religious right far worse than if I said I thought
there was no God." She added, "Every time I've been asked if I believe
in God, I've said, 'yes,' because I do. But no one ever really has gone
any more deeply into it than that and, I have to say that does suit
me ... If I talk too freely about that, I think the intelligent reader?
whether 10 or 60?will be able to guess what is coming in the books."

> For a book that harps on "it's our choices" that matter, I don't see
> anyone
> really making choices that lead them down any new roads...

I think it's really that the book harps on "it's our choices that _show_ who
we are", but Troels has written eloquently about that already. It's the old
biblical admonition to judge a tree by its fruits. It's a vital life lesson
for kids to learn to pay attention to what people do rather than to what
they say, or to what we may (even desperately) wish to believe of them --
and I confess that's a lesson I've had to relearn more than once as an
adult. It's possible (and, ya, seems most likely to me) that Dumbledore
relearned that lesson at the cost of his life in HBP. Oh, well -- "die and
learn", I always say. On to the next great adventure ;-)


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