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Hi, guys. I was away all last week so, as usual, this is a very late follow-up. I'm going to get with the program one of these days, you know. Honest I am. Someday it will happen. I'll start responding promptly, and posting quickly, and then finally I'll be on the same page as everybody else.
Really I will.
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On Uncovering the Buried Past
David wrote:
My understanding is that the burial ('denial' in all its connotations) and uncovering of the past is central to the whole series. . . .However, I had seen this almost entirely in a positive light. It is good that the past be uncovered and the truth be known. Even if it is initially unpleasant (even misleading), it is ultimately good.
[snip excellent examples of the Riddle's memory escaping from his diary, thus allowing him to be at last exorcised and Hagrid exonerated, and of Voldemort's rebirth, which seems likely to serve as the necessary prerequisite to his eventual banishment]
Not that he must be mortal to die - rather, the conditions that allow him to flourish are still present, and the whole plant must be dug up, not just this year's growth snipped off.
True. But you have to be careful with that, you know. All too often when you go digging, your disturbance of the ground only serves to foster the growth of more weeds. Even when the ground looks empty, it's not. It's filled with dormant roots, and every time your shovel slices through one of them, each piece grows into its very own plant. They're just like the Hydra's heads that way, roots are. If you don't treat them very carefully indeed, then you're just letting yourself in for a world of misery.
Um. Can you tell that my garden is a mess?
But no. Playing around with your metaphor like that really isn't very fair, is it? I'm sorry. I did have a point I was trying to make, though, which was that sometimes the reawakening of the past can create new evils, evils which really never had to come about in the first place. There are some things—like the dead, for example—which it is quite proper to bury and quite improper to disturb again once they have been laid to rest. There are other things—land mines, for instance—which ought to be located and dealt with, rather than allowed to remain hidden away underground.
The difficulty, of course, comes in determining which buried things are best served by which policy. We let sleeping dogs lie because a sleeping dog does no harm. We don't ignore radon leaks because radon leaks, while their effects may be insidiously subtle, are nonetheless extremely toxic. But it's not always easy to tell whether something is more like a sleeping dog or more like a radon leak, and that's just where the problem lies.
David wrote:
In relation to Neville, I would see it as a positive development for his past to be exposed.
Yes, so would I.
I fear that I may have placed such strong emphasis on the perils of remembrance in my last post that I might have given the impression of ignoring or rejecting the notion that forgetfulness, too, has its perils. Such was not my intent. I just felt that Dicentra had done such a fine job of explaining the perils of forgetfulness that she had left me free to focus my attentions elsewhere. But I certainly agree with David that denial and willful ignorance are always problematic.
In Neville's case, I think that it is clearly harmful. As Dicentra pointed out, the "filth under Neville's carpet" does seem to be interfering with his ability to function. It's not a sleeping dog at all. It's a radon leak. Neville's current form of forgetfulness is neither beneficial nor healthy for him.
But neither, I hasten to point out, is the type of remembrance that we see afflicting Harry, Sirius and Snape over the course of the series at all good for them. That both Harry and Sirius prove capable of relinquishing their unhealthy focus on the past is absolutely fundamental to their development; that Snape all too often finds himself incapable of managing this feat is portrayed as his characteristic personal failing.
While I do worry quite a bit about JKR's approach to renunciation, I think that she is quite even-handed when it comes to her portrayal of the respective perils of forgetfulness and of remembrance.
David wrote:
I don't think it necessarily beyond JKR's authorial vision to put forward a view of humanity that is outside the scope of the four houses. . . . What I think is outside her vision is the idea that some sleeping dogs really are better let lying.
Interesting! Because of course, my worries lie in precisely the opposite direction. I don't get the impression that JKR views her wizarding culture—or her four Houses of Hogwarts—in nearly as negative a light as I do. But I do think that she has laid out quite a number of examples of the perils of memory.
Amy touched on these in her response. She wrote:
I see one strong piece of evidence, however, that JKR does not believe that remembering is always preferable to forgetting, that she recognizes that not all truths are better off dredged up—at least if they won't go quietly back underground after we've taken a good honest look at them. This evidence is the Dementors. One of the worst torments Rowling's imagination has devised is the inability to escape memory, and she makes it clear that these floods of memory, far from being empowering, drain one of one's powers and make one completely ineffectual.
To which David replied:
and more disquieting still, he is drawn to the Dementors - or at least his resistance is weakened - because they give him a chance to hear his parents again.
*nods*
And the same can be said for the Mirror of Erised, can't it? It has exactly the same effect on Harry. It ennervates and distracts him, and leaves him incapable of mustering any degree of interest in his other affairs, and yet he finds it perilously addictive.
The Mirror of Erised is portrayed very differently than the Dementors on the gut emotional level, of course—the Mirror is pleasurable and entrancing, while the Dementors are horrifying and fearsome—but in essence, they are the same. Both Mirror and Dementors strike me as representations of the harmful (and yet seductive) aspects of memory retention. In both cases, Harry returns to them again and again, even though he knows that they are not good for him.
At the same time, though, I do think that both the Mirror and the Dementors serve a useful initial function for Harry. It was a Good Thing, IMO, that Harry received the opportunity to see the images of his lost family in the Mirror of Erised — indeed, there's strong implication that this was one of the very reasons that Dumbledore left it lying around for him to find in the first place. It was also a Good Thing, although very painful, for Harry to hear the sounds of his parents' voices and to learn a bit more about their deaths.
What wasn't good for him was dwelling on those things.
Amy wrote:
It's true that Harry is driven, and almost driven to a disastrous action, by his Dementor-induced memory of his mother: one of the things that most enrages him about Black is that he, the murderer, doesn't have to relive this memory while Harry does. . . .That moment is the closest Harry comes to killing Sirius, driven by an inescapable memory; the past, forcibly recalled, can turn one into an avenging angel.
It can, I agree.
It can also turn one into a monster.
'If it can, the Dementors will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself -- soulless and evil.'
It always strikes me that the human character who comes the closest to resembling a purely malevolent (i.e., "soulless and evil") force in canon—exempting Voldemort, of course, who is no longer fully human—is Crouch Jr., who was rescued from Azkaban only once he was tottering on the very brink of death. I really don't think that's at all coincidental.
Amy:
If we wish to be free and act morally, we can neither reject history in the absolute sense of refusing to acknowledge it (keeping it buried), nor steep ourselves in it completely. We look into the Mirror of Erised, sigh with longing that it is not real, and move on.
"Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place..."
Yes.
I hope that's the model that JKR will finally endorse: one that mixes memory and renunciation.
Me too.
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On the Renunciation of Legacies
David, who is blessed (as I am not) with the gift of brevity, summarized my position on this as follows:
That Neville is a kind of anti-Harry, in the sense that he renounces an overt legacy that is very similar to the covert legacy that Harry discovers and embraces. She expresses the fear that JKR will show such renunciation to be misconceived, and that Neville will be given authorial approval for taking up his auror's mantle; Elkins would rather that a positive place be given for renouncing the kick-ass approach to dealing with evil.
Yup. That about sums it up. No Dementor's been anywhere near David's wit, that's for sure.
One thing that I would like to point out here is the distinction that David drew between Neville's overt legacy and Harry's covert one. There is a paradox implicit in the parallel between Neville and Harry: Neville is the one who suffers from forgetfulness, while Harry suffers from memory, yet Neville is the one who is aware of his own legacy, while Harry remains largely ignorant of his own.
Neville knows, but cannot remember.
Harry remembers, but does not know.
This distinction becomes highly relevant, to my mind, when we start talking about Neville-as-renunciate.
Abigail, for example, felt that I was confusing rejecting the past with hiding from it. She wrote:
Whether or not his memory has been modified, Neville's memory issues, his inability to face up with his legacy as you call it, is not a choice, it is the result of fear. . . .He hasn't made any choice, either to embrace the role his family has set out for him or to reject it, because in order to do so he would first have to be aware that such a choice exists.
Oh, but I think that Neville is most certainly aware that such a choice exists. How could he not be? His family speaks to him about his obligations to uphold the family honor all the time. When he gets into trouble at school, his howler berates him for "bringing shame on the family name." As a child, he had to endure mad Uncle Algie's constant attempts to coax some magic out of him by doing things like dropping him into deep water and out of windows. His professors view his behavior with disdain or outright hostility. His fellow Gryffindors nag him to "stand up for himself." He visits his parents in the hospital over his holidays.
I mean, how could he not know? The kid does have a poor memory, true, but it's really not all that bad. He does remember his upbringing. He does know what happened to his parents. He is aware—all too well-aware, I'd say—of the expectations and desires that his family, and his culture as a whole, have placed upon him. He is, in fact, far more knowledgable about precisely what it is that he is rejecting, I'd say, than Harry is about precisely what it is that he is so eager to accept. In fact...
Abigail:
In this context Neville represents neither memory nor forgetfullness (that is, the choice to forget something, as you say the wizarding community has collectively chosen to do) but a complete unawareness that the past even exists. In much the same way that children are unable to conceive of a world that existed before their birth.
Hmm. Well, really, isn't this a far more accurate description of Harry's position (at the start of the series) than it is of Neville's? It is Harry, after all, who is wholly ignorant of his own family legacy when the story begins. In fact, he starts out in a state of ignorance about the very existence of the wizarding world to which he belongs. And as David pointed out, with each successive volume, he learns a little bit more — about his past, about his family, and about the world which he has only recently entered.
Neville, on the other hand, has been utterly immersed in that world for all of his life. What he lacks is not the knowledge of history—his reaction to Crouch's demonstration of the Cruciatus makes it abundantly clear, to my mind, that he's got plenty of that—but the direct memory of it, which is not at all the same thing.
What Neville's poor memory represents, in my reading, is not ignorance at all, but rather repudiation and rejection.
Abigail:
If we accept that Neville hasn't yet made a concious choice either way, and that in order to make that choice he has to first get over his memory block, whatever is causing it, then for him to be the prince renunciate he must stop forgetting. He has to look back at whatever it is he doen't want to see and actively say "No, I don't want to do that."
Mmm. I think that we may be talking at cross-purposes here. I certainly agree that renunciation is only a meaningful choice if one knows what it is that one is renouncing. Otherwise it isn't really renunciation at all, but merely ignorance.
I think, though, that once we start talking about the thematic significance of things like Neville and Harry's respective memories, as opposed to their plot significance, then it becomes useful for the purposes of discussion to ascribe a certain degree of agency to the characters involved, even if they do not in fact possess it on the more literal level of the plot. This is because on the thematic level, distinctions between conscious and unconscious, passive and active, internal and external, are often blurred and therefore become far less meaningful.
In other words, just as we can view what exposure to the dementors does to their victims as representative of the dangers of dwelling on the past as a matter of conscious choice, rather than of magical coercion, so I think that it is reasonable to view Neville's faulty memory and many of his personality defects as representative of the dangers of ignoring the past as a matter of conscious choice, rather than as a negative side-effect of some form of artificial memory suppression.
Viewed in this context, Neville's poor memory is evidence of a decision that he has already made to reject his legacy. He has not chosen to reject it in a very healthy manner, it is true (although he's still one-up on Crouch Jr, who picks just about the worst path of renunciation that one can possibly imagine). His decision is causing him a lot of problems. But I do nonetheless see his behavior as indicative of an active will towards renunciation.
As for what would be a healthy form of renunciation, though...
Abigail:
But see, I don't see Neville coming into his own and Neville rejecting the expectations of his family to be mutually exclusive.
No, neither do I. That was the reason that I wrote:
...the coming of age story that accompanies Neville's type, is one of renunciation, rather than of acceptance, of "coming into ones own" by finding the strength to reject the legacy and to forge instead a new destiny of ones own choosing.
Obviously, I think that this is a perfectly legitimate form of coming-of-age story, and one that Abigail describes quite nicely here:
And wasn't it you, Elkins, who said that Neville's problems with magic have nothing to do with power and everything to do with control? Coming into his own might mean, in that context, taking control not only of the direction his life is taking but of his own abilities, and not necessarily choosing to use them to prod DE buttock.
Indeed, if Neville were the protagonist of the tale, then this would be how the story would have to play out. And even as things stand, with Neville serving as a literary double to Harry, it could still play out that way. It could. Certainly I would very much like that.
Abigail:
As someone who was once weak, frightened and bullied herself, what I expect and hope for Neville is to gain the kind of maturity that allows him to look at the people deriding him and say "Why would I give a damn what those idiots think of me?" and go his own way no matter what they say. I want Neville to truly believe that he's worth ten Draco Malfoys, because I think he is.
Yes, I agree. This is what I, too, want most for Neville. In fact, quite some time ago now, I wrote a post outlining all of the things that I would love to see Neville do in canon. All of them fell fairly firmly under the aegis of "going ones own way no matter what they say."
Unfortunately, though, I don't have much faith that JKR will oblige us here. For one thing, as I've said before, I haven't seen very much evidence that the positive aspects of renunciation are something that she has given much thought to. I could be wrong about that, of course. I certainly hope that I am. But so far, JKR has chosen to portray characters who reject their legacies in unremittingly negative ways. (The only possible exception to this rule might be Snape, but we know so little about either his past or his upbringing that it is really impossible to say for sure whether he is an exception to the rule or not.)
I also find it unlikely because I feel fairly well convinced that the thematic pattern that JKR has already established when it comes to the exhumation of long-buried things—that such reawakenings yield dramatic reversals and violent results—will likely hold true in future volumes as well.
Pippin wrote, as the summation to her excellent analysis of Harry and Neville's mirror relationship:
I do see renunciation of the warrior role ahead, but for Harry, not Neville. I think Harry will eventually choose to give up his magic, while mirror image Neville will choose to embrace his.
I find this suggestion highly compelling. And I don't think that it bodes very well at all for a scenario in which JKR chooses to take Neville down a path of beneficent renunciation.
Dogberry wrote:
I see no reason to have him change personality and become a symbol of vengence. You need someone like Neville, to keep a grip on the value of life. I rather like the idea of "to err is human, to forgive is divine" for Neville.
So do I. But Pippin's hypothesis would suggest that it may well be reserved for Harry in the end, with Neville playing his usual role as Designated Mirror.
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On Competition, Power, and the Warrior Ethos
I wrote that I believe that Neville fears power, and "not only power in the general sense, but even more specifically, power as it seems to find its primary expression in the traditional culture of the wizarding world." I then went on to describe this conception of power as one rooted in an ethos of combat, competition, and strife.
Cindy wondered why Neville would fear such a thing:
I would guess that most people don't have a problem possessing power (although many people have difficulty deciding what, if anything, to do with it). By definition, not possessing power renders one powerless, and few people aspire to be powerless, I'd say.
Well, there was a reason that I specified the type of power that I believe that Neville fears. Indeed, few people aspire to be powerless. But there are many different conceptions of power.
In a highly competitive culture, power is defined not as power to, but as power over. In other words, ones own personal power is defined not in terms of what it enables one to accomplish, but purely in terms of its ability to supercede or to override the power of others. It's a zero-sum game. And I can certainly think of many reasons why if one were culturally encouraged to perceive of power in those particular terms, one would both fear it and want desperately to renounce it.
Here we begin to tread perilously close to the borders of the Garden of Good and Evil. The warrior culture's definition of power—power over others—is kissing kin to Dicentra's definition of Evil as the ethos of predation. It belongs to a moral system in which one can never gain through another's gain, but only through another's loss. And like Dicentra, I do tend to view that as fairly close to my own personal definition of evil. If Neville feels the same way, and if that is how the culture in which he was raised has defined "power," then I find it utterly unsurprising that he might shy away from it as a matter of both moral principle (healthy) and phobic aversion (not at all healthy).
Cindy then asked:
So why is Neville different?
Ah, well. These things do happen, don't they? It's just like Hagrid said about Dobby. Every culture, like every species, is bound to have its weirdos. ;-)
Maybe the fact that the wizarding world is so competitive is the reason I like it so much? :-)
Heh. Well, it's certainly one of the reasons that I like the books so much. It's my own personal revision of P.A.C.M.A.N., you see. "Politically Appalling Cultures Make Appealing Novels."
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I cited the House Cup as an example of the atmosphere of conflict and certamen that Hogwarts nurtures in its students. Abigail wrote:
I expect that, as the kids start growing up, as the magnitude of what's happening (or will be happening) around them becomes clear, the inter house competitions will seem less and less important - downright silly, even.
Perhaps. Or possibly they will begin to seem even more important. In the years of Voldemort's first rise, was the Gryffindor/Slytherin rivalry less heated than it was in the first three books, do you think? Or was it more heated? Certainly in the current day, it seems far more heated to me in the fourth book than it did in previous volumes. We've now reached the point where students are hexing each another on the train! And we still have three books to go.
Cindy wrote:
They want the House Cup only because others want it, and the only value it has is the fleeting warm fuzzy feeling of . . . having kept the Cup away from a rival. Kind of sad, really.
I tend to view it as worse than sad. I see it as directly linked to the endless, cyclical, and seemingly inevitable rebirths and returns of dark forces within the fictive world. Salazar's monster sleeps beneath Hogwarts school. Voldemort rises again. And before Voldemort, there was Grindewald. And before Grindewald...
Well.
To get back to David's original metaphor, I tend to view the wizarding world's problems as very deeply rooted indeed. Harry's "defeat" of Voldemort didn't last because it only sliced the plant off at the surface of the soil, rather than pulling it up by the root. It's growing again now from its root. And one of the manifestations of that root, as I see it, is Hogwarts' House system and its inter-House competition. If there is to be any sense of true resolution by the end of the series, then I feel that we must see that dynamic transcended in some fashion.
This was what I was trying to get at when I wrote of "None of the Above" Neville as capable of affecting a more profound type of change than "All of the Above" Harry. Harry's current talents and virtues certainly do make him the ideal agent for yet another slicing off at ground level, but is that really what we want? I think that what the wizarding world needs is a more radical approach — and I use the word "radical" here in its etymological sense. "Radix" means "root" in Latin. A radical approach is one that goes directly to the root of a problem.
In order for that to happen in a way that I will personally find convincing, Harry will have to adopt at least some form of the principle of renunciation, as well as that of acceptance, before the series' end.
—Elkins
Posted to HPfGU by Elkins on May 14, 2002 2:46 AM
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