healing themes on hpfgu

going to share here a post (with permission from the author - thanks sydney) from the harry potter for grownups list.

it is set up by a quote from a previous post on snape's situation - being stuck basically in the past, unable for whatever reasons (bitterness etc) to move on towards a redemption and resolution.


Sydney:Oh, man, this goes right to the heart of the themes of the series,doesn't it? So many of the adult characters are stuck in thissituation that they can't move on from. Like Sirius couldn't leavehis mother's house. Snape can't break away from these repressed darkfeelings of hatred-- represented by being a spy on the Dark forces. Lupin looks like the first one to actually start something new-- hewas in this space where he was holding himself apart from otherpeople, because he's afraid he'll hurt them. And Hogwarts has thisunresolved issue going back, like, a thousand years, of an angrybreakup, fragmentation, something that was broken and hasn't beenfixed. And how did this unresolved stuff come out? Overflowingblocked pipes full of snakes, that's how. Rowling doesn't have a bigbook with "Freud" on the spine for nothing!A lot of how I see the series turning out is because it seems to methat this isn't a "Lord of the Rings" style epic of warrior heroes; it feels a lot closer to "The Secret Garden" or "Little White Horse"or even "Great Expectations"-- a darker, more elaborate version of thechild healer story. I just finished "I Capture the Castle", anotherbook JKR's cited as a big influence, and it's the same sort of thing--at the heart of the story is a blocked writer, who needs his childrento break through these badly healed scars, get the blood flowing, andrecover in an organic way. JKR says she didn't set out to write achildren's story-- I think she set out to write a story that requiredchildren, as symbols of renewal and the possibilty of starting again. I read an interview once with the great animation director Miyazake,who was asked what the difference was between children's movies andadult movies. He said that in an adult movie, you have to make do andstruggle on with all your crippling mistakes; but a children's moviealways has this feeling that everything can start fresh and clean again.One thing nearly all of Rowling's favorite books have in common--"Little White Horse" and "Pride and Prejudice" and "I Capture theCastle", is that they're dramas of recognition, or re-cognition-- thecentral event is the protagonist going back over events that she sawone way, with one set of assumptions, and re-thinking everythingbecause of new knowledge about the past and about people'smotivations. This has the same sort of thematic movement as a healingstory, because it's all about opening up festering wounds and lettingout all the toxins, as it were, to the air, so they can heal properly.People seem to be speculating about big battles and the Horcrux-huntbeing an Indina-Jones-type-thing and everything sort of going along anaction-adventure, destroy the baddies thing. I don't think it's goingthere at all. I think book VII will be packed full of backstory, ofmisunderstandings cleared up, of things that were broken being puttogether. I don't think the Locket is going to be the first Horcruxthat's going to turn out to have been already taken care of in someway. What's needed isn't destruction, it's recognition, or un-burial. I mean, not there won't be a lot of derring-do and such, but with atwist. I wish there was another thing coming up where we could putquestions to JKR, because I'm longing to ask her if she has put inTarot stuff other than the Tower and the Hanged Man. Because shortlyafter the Tower appears in the deck, the Judgement card shows up-- acard showing people joyfully rising from graves. I'm certain at leastone character we thought was dead will be alive; whether it's Regulusor Emmeline Vance or even Dumbledore (though I doubt it will be him). I dunno... I don't really have enough coherence to put together anactual post on this. Random thoughts--I LOVE Magpie's idea of Draco paying back Snape's life debt by savingHarry. It's so appropriate to the genre, that the children have tostep forward, because the adults are just plain stuck. Snape is thepast; Draco is the future. I think there's something important to the Sectumsempra healing spellsounding like a song-- Phoenix song? I wonder did Snape learn it fromFawkes? Dumbledore tells Harry in CoS that only true loyalty couldhave called Fawkes to him-- is this how he's so certain of Snape'sloyalities? I'm just sort of riffing on suicidal!Snape, because itwould be so like him to express this extraordinary remorse Dumbledorespoke of by trying to destroy himself, rather than by healing. "Sectumsempra" means to "cut forever", it seems very appropriateChristina symbolism that the Phoenix can heal even that which seemscut forever. "Sectumsempra"-- wow, that spell is just Snape in anutshell- the idea that things can just be cut off and that takes careof them. Sorry to stay on Snape, but, I mean, he does seem to appear at theheart of the thematic stuff! There has to be some connection here tothat damn DADA job. The job is cursed by Voldemort, the embodiment ofDark magic, that is, hatred and fear. Snape seems to be pursuingthis-- I dunno, Snape thematically is so tied in to the ideas ofrepressing bad feelings and lashing out against them, rather thanembracing and healing them-- spying and Occlumency and non-Verbalspells. This whole thing bugs me, I can't quite figure out whatmeaning it's meant to have. But the disagreement between Snape andDumbledore on that job seems to go right to the heart of the symbolicstuff.On Snape's crimes and redemption generally: I think whatever Snapedid as a DE will likely remain offscreen, like what the centaurs didto Umbridge, where people's imaginings can be as lurid as they like. Personally I have a hard time picturing Dumbledore twinkling atsomeone who'd tortured helpless people to death, and offering himvulture hats because he takes himself too seriously. But then, somepeople think Dumbledore's a lot more of a psycho than I think he is! Anyways, I'm pretty sure the question with Snape isn't one ofredemption, in the sense of what side he's on; I think that's alreadyhappened. All the symbols Rowling puts around him seem a lot moretied into the idea of recognition, of bringing out the hidden. Ireally see Harry's role here as one of being able to say, even ifSnape doesn't change a hair, "I trust Severus Snape completely",because he'll have attained this Dumbledore-level integration with hisdark side. Just my feeling. Anyways, random long disconnected post.. -- Sydney, feeling both expansive and incoherent at the same time, nota great combination.