[ SECRET POST #270 ]

[shahni.livejournal.com]

⌈ Secret Post #270 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

-The F!S Friending Meme! Go do it moar!
- NAME THAT FANDOM, FIRST COMMENT. Modly-lady is in school :3

Secrets Left to Post: 06 pages, 130 secrets from Secret Submission Post #039.
Secrets Not Posted: 0 broken link, 0 not!fandom, [1] repeat.
Next Secret Post: Tomorrow, Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007.
Current Secret Submission Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: 22

[cftf.livejournal.com]

I think that JKR frequently chose to emphasize that it was the choices you made rather than anything else that made you who you were. This is most prominently embodied in the Sorting Hat, of course.

But look at the characters who didn't exactly grow up in the best of environments. Voldemort and Snape succumbed to their darker desires... but then you have characters like Harry and Sirius (and Regulus, if a bit later in life) who made choices that led their paths away from where their upbringing might have led them.

Re: 22

[haro.livejournal.com]

Yes, you nailed it. In JKR's universe she really focuses on choice. She gives us characters with similar upbringings, and shows us how it is their personal choices and not their environment that matters. It doesn't matter what you are born, it's the choices you make. Whether this is consistent with real psychology is not really relevant, I think. It's the message within her fictional universe. Although Tom and Harry really embody this a lot better than Snape and Harry, I think.

Snape's tragedy isn't his upbringing (in fact we know next to nothing about it), it's the poor choices he made and not realizing what they were soon enough.

Re: 22

[panksters.livejournal.com]

I love you so hardcore, like it's not even funny. Every time I had a thought pop into my head in response to anogete, you said the same thing right away.

I fear you may have stolen my brain :(

Re: 22

[agnes-perdita.livejournal.com]

Adding to the love for your responses in this thread. :) I've been nodding my way through it and wishing that I could write with your clarity. Also, since reading DH, I'd agree that while Snape sort of is situated between Harry and Voldemort on the scale of the different choices orphans with bad pasts can make, I'm more and more inclined to see parallels between Dumbledore and Snape. While Harry and Voldemort embody a straight trajectory in the kind of polar opposite lifestyles they choose, Dumbly and Snape serve as a reminder that we are not the people we were at the age of 18 and that growth and a sharp change in the kind of outlook we have is always possible. The difference being that while their motivations both stem from the traumatic death of a loved one, Dumbledore channelled that change and epiphany outwards to reach as many aspects of his life that he could whereas Snape constantly seemed to internalise it, couldn't move beyond it and saw his own good work in protecting Harry as further reminder of his failure to do the same with Lily. Which made him a bitter bitter old man.

OR maybe I'm just babbling. I think my friend put it best after we both read it when she said that Harry Potter characters really don't know how to let anything go, do they? =D