Love vs. Will (I wanted to call it Love Under Will, but that's taken!)

[sistermagpie]

Well, this is the thing about lists, you never know when I'm going to prattle on so much in a reply that it creates a post in itself. First Slughorn, now...this. But I thought it was interesting because recently I know I was talking to somebody about why Occlumency and throwing off Imperius were so different and why Harry sucks at one and is good at the other. I was reading a discussion about Harry's greatest strengths and weaknesses (does he need to learn to keeps his mind shut like Snape says?) and it got me around to seeing what may be the difference.



Occlumency is not, I don't think, the key to anything for Harry as he can't do it and that seems to be fine. But Snape's parting shots do still sound like something Harry will have to learn in his own way--he's got to have something left to learn about his personality in the last book, after all.

Harry's love will indeed be the thing that saves him etc., and since this is JKR's book she's going to control what defeats evil, but there's only so much moral weight you can give to something that's strictly tempermental before you lose credibility. Harry is openly emotional because that is his natural temperment. He can't hide his emotions for the same reason.

Harry is our hero and so it's his personal strengths that will see him through, and the author has probably chosen a personality to which she herself most relates. The villains, by contrast, do happen to be more able to compartmentalize their emotions, but it can't come completely down to temperment. That would be like a person who is very athletic, for instance, saying, "Well, I'm athletic because I'm healthy and love life and therefore good. Bookish people are therefore afraid of life and unhealthy and therefore bad." Any temperment can be good or evil, the trick is to make the best of your strengths, and seek a balance. It's just that our hero is going to be dealing with his own strengths and weakness, so that's what we're going to see.

The moral of OotP is not that Harry must learn Occlumancy, but Voldemort still uses Harry's nature against him--and he's able to do this because Harry is still not mature, imo. Harry could not and should not ever become Snape, but he's not yet perfect himself. Given that the four houses represent the four elements, a balance between the basic natures of each seems implied in the story.

In fact, Slytherin is the house of water, and water is emotion, not fire (Gryffindor's element). Fire is Will. I do think a strong Will is Harry's nature--thus the ability to throw off Imperius. A mature Harry would have not been as vulnerable to Voldemort in OotP not because he'd lost his emotions but because of his strong Will to resist being dominated. Harry's inability to compartmentalize fits nicely with that--he is not a fragmented person. He is always whole and so directs his will. Therefore when Voldemort manipulates Harry's emotions Harry confuses the two and his will is manipulated to do what Voldemort wants--that's exactly what happens.

The Slytherin books (CoS and HBP) deal with love most openly. If we were talking about cold intellect, that would be air and Ravenclaw. (The author has openly said the houses correspond to the elements and I'm only saying things I see supported in the books themselves.) Slytherins may therefore be able to manipulate their emotions, but this does not have to imply giving them up. Their emotions do not contain the exact type of danger because they are compartmentalized, they don't have the Will that Harry does. Draco is the character JKR describes as a natural Occlumens (Harry is natural thrower-off of Imperius), yet he's not without emotion at all. In fact, his story in HBP seems to be partially about his freeing emotions he has unhealthily repressed with is own Will.

I'm not making Draco and Harry equals here in the text here, but HBP did give them both tasks during the year. Harry did need to learn to consciously use emotions to support his will (like when he uses his dead mother to manipulate Slughorn) more in this book, and not allow his emotions to dominate his Will. (Harry's emotions want to jump Ginny early on, but he controls them. It is only when his entire self gives the okay that he acts on those emotions, setting his Will to getting the girl and of course succeeding.) The other kid, Draco, is encouraged to free the emotions he had repressed by Will. In both cases the dominant strength of the house (Will and Emotion) is the dominant strength of the boy, but only when used with the support of the other elemental strengths. It's not that Harry has to change his nature. On the contrary, to truly be himself is to claim his true strength, his Will, and connect to all the other elements of his personality through that. His emotions will always give strength to his Will; he just can't let them *replace* his Will. Draco and Snape have so far been weakened the opposite way, I think.

So Harry does have to learn a bit from Snape there, but Snape has to learn from Harry as well. Harry, I'm confident, will learn what he has to learn. Snape maybe won't. So far he hasn't, so he has not grown. He's still as Slytherin and so emotional as ever, but perhaps still trying to repress it.

Comments

Re: *sigh* i REALLY need my own lj.......

[saturniia.livejournal.com]

Personally, I think that the fact that Draco was crying in the bathroom creates a sort of middle ground for Slytherins. It sort of qualifies what you said, making it seem more like "Slytherins consider showing emotions weakness; they don't want to be weak, they don't want to have weaknesses, so they strive to supress those emotions, to hide them". The emotions themselves aren't weaknesses, but to a Slytherin showing one's emotions before one is ready is akin to having a shitty poker face... it's done, and done often, but it isn't good for one's plans.

Also, you'll notice that Slytherin emotions, excluding pride, are only fully apparent when three or less people are present; in HBP, this includes Narcissa's fear/love for her son in "Spinner's End", Severus's fear for Draco during the Christmas party and following Sectumsempra, and Severus's anger when Harry tries to turn the older man's spells against him during the flight from the castle. This has little to nothing to do with trust, as far as I can tell. Rather, it's a way of denying it ever happened. The fewer witnesses, the better, since it can more easily be dismissed as gossip.

Re: *sigh* i REALLY need my own lj.......

[(Anonymous)]

But that's exactly what I mean.

I'm not saying that all Slytherins push their emotions down as far as they can go. They hide them. That's what I'm saying. They're weaknesses in that they hinder their plans when they are shown (or they think it does). They have ambitions, they want to succeed, and they can't have those hindrances.

As for the Slytherins... it's not so much when they're faced in a room with small numbers, I don't think. It's when they're faced with the problem in question, actually faced with it. Snape was worried about Draco and he was facing Draco alone, and were able to talk upfront to each other about what was bothering them, so his worry showed.

Re: *sigh* i REALLY need my own lj.......

[saturniia.livejournal.com]

Ah, now I see the difference between what you meant, and what I thought when I read your first post.

And yes, the difference isn't in the number of people in the room (though that does affect one's actions), but whether one is confronted with the actual problem or its representation. Good distinction.