17 responses so far ↓

• 1 reyhan // Oct 21, 2007 at 11:41 pm

  Travis, JKR has pressed the red button to set the religious liberals at war with the religious conservatives and comments are zooming in like RPGs and we can’t venture onto the posts without flak jackets and you make the time to comment that Snape is worse than Voldemort because he loves only one person?

  Eros is not selfless or generous or compassionate. Eros is selfish and greedy and blind. What you’re thinking of is agape.

  Snape doesn’t do agape.

• 2 Travis Prinzi // Oct 21, 2007 at 11:52 pm

  reyhan, I told you those were random thoughts that I hadn’t spent much time on, didn’t I? Or did I forget to mention that…

  Here’s the point I meant to make, but probably didn’t: there seems to be a kind of fuzzy definition of love operating in Rowling’s mind. Obviously, agape love is a huge theme in the series. “Snape doesn’t do agape.” Correct. “Eros is not selfless or generous or compassionate.” Correct. So why does Rowling “soften” Snape’s and Dumbledore’s error by saying, “At least it happened out of love”?

  On the one hand, she compares Dumbledore’s love for Grindelwald to Bellatrix’s obsession for Voldemort; on the other, she says that his loved “excused” him a little for his error, because love blinds us. I don’t see the excuse.

  If the only thing that “redeemed” Snape was that he “loved” Lily and did what he did out of that love, I don’t get where the redemption comes in.

  Added: All of which means, of course, that I managed to just get myself confused during the podcast, which in turn means I shouldn’t have rambled on about those thoughts till I cleared them up.

  Eh. Too late for an edit now.

• 3 reyhan // Oct 22, 2007 at 12:19 am

  Two different points here, I think.

  The things we do out of eros may not be excusable because they were done out of love, but they are understandable because they are very human. We all have the capacity to love selfishly and blindly. That kind of love makes us all do silly things, sometimes destructive things. Needs and instincts take over. As you say, we are all sinners, and this is one of our most common sins.

  The second point is that Snape’s selfish love for Lily prompted him to do the right thing after she died. And something happened to that selfish love. If it was unlikely to be requited while Lily was alive, it was impossible to be requited after her death. Yet Snape still loved her. Some people interpret this as obsessive love. I see it as eros becoming a limited kind of agape. Snape loved Lily selflessly after her death, and tried to do what she would have wanted him to do.

  But I don’t think I’ve addressed what’s really bothering you about JKR’s take on eros. Are you thinking that she’s confusing the two types of love? Or just that eros is not as noble as agape?

• 4 Sean // Oct 22, 2007 at 9:28 am

  Just in case I’m not the only one who didn’t know my agape from my eros:

  Agape: is one of several Greek words translated into English as love. The word has been used in different ways by a variety of contemporary and ancient sources, including Biblical authors. Many have thought that this word represents divine, unconditional, self-sacrificing, active, volitional, and thoughtful love.

  Eros: is passionate love, with sensual desire and longing. The Modern Greek word “erotas” means “(romantic) love”. Plato refined his own definition. Although eros is initially felt for a person, with contemplation it becomes an appreciation of the beauty within that person, or even becomes appreciation of beauty itself.

  From Wikipedia.

• 5 revgeorge // Oct 22, 2007 at 10:50 am

  An excellent book to read on this is CS Lewis’ Four Loves.

• 6 Mary Jo Neyer // Oct 22, 2007 at 2:08 pm

  Reyhan writes;
  The second point is that Snape’s selfish love for Lily prompted him to do the right thing after she died. And something happened to that selfish love. If it was unlikely to be requited while Lily was alive, it was impossible to be requited after her death. Yet Snape still loved her. Some people interpret this as obsessive love. I see it as eros becoming a limited kind of agape. Snape loved Lily selflessly after her death, and tried to do what she would have wanted him to do.
  Reyhan writes that Snape’s eros love changed into a kind of agape love. REYHAN IS CORRECT, imho. Without Snape’s active participation with Dumbledore, which was due entirely to his dedication to protecting Lily’s son, Voldemort would never have been defeated. Remember, even ST.PETER couldn’t bring himself to claim he loved Jesus with agape love-the highest love he claimed for himself was phileo (not sure how to write it in English).

• 7 Travis Prinzi // Oct 22, 2007 at 2:10 pm

  I agree, and if y’all wouldn’t mind…please ignore my pointless ramble at the end. Good analysis in response!

• 8 GL // Oct 22, 2007 at 3:56 pm

  Travis wrote “y’all” in the comment above. That’s not quite to the level of Rowling’s announcement this past week, but still. To paraphrase Nixon, “We’re all y’allers now.”

• 9 Sean // Oct 22, 2007 at 4:05 pm

  Thanks for the book recommendation revgeorge. Thanks Travis for repairing my posting spastification.

• 10 Jennifer // Oct 22, 2007 at 8:28 pm

  Excellent podcast, Travis. I listened to it twice and very much enjoyed the fair response to both sides of the current debate, particularly your clarity on the difference between righteous anger and “hotbutton topic”.

  Also … I haven’t read the comments thoroughly, so hopefully when you referred to ignoring your “pointless ramble at the end”, you didn’t mean “stop commenting about Snape and Lily” … but while I do agree with you and Reyhan about Snape’s eros becoming agape, it seemed to me that you made an important point about wrong emphasis on romantic love. I believe romance can be highly virtuous and move people to great deeds, but I also believe that the fulfillment of romantic passion has become “the greater good” nowadays, and that does trouble me.

  Anyways, once again: Great work.

  P.S. I’m still laughing at Matthew’s comment about replacing Michael Gambon with Ian McKellen. That was hilarious

• 11 Mrs. Lovegood // Oct 23, 2007 at 2:02 pm

  I’ve been thinking a lot about this news about Dumbledore since Friday night.

  One podcast that helped clarify my thinking on this is the HP Prognostications podcast. Greg was talking about the whole issue of whether the author has the right or ability to add extra details that aren’t in the text, as Travis discussed as well.

  It made me realize something about the way I read, something I always knew but hadn’t stopped to verbalize before: I much prefer to read books by authors who share the same values and worldview that I have. I don’t think Christians should only read the Bible — you’d just have to step into my house and see how many books I own to know that’s very far from the truth! — but I do like to know where an author is coming from. If I can’t get that information from the back flap of the book jacket or a website about the author, I will watch for clues within the book itself. Some authors are better than others at hiding or disguising their worldview.

  I think those who fall into the conservative Christian category are more likely to feel this way about the authors of the books they read than is the general population.

  About why Christians seem to zero in on homosexual activity as a sort of mega-sin, which I agree is wrong. Travis is exactly right, we’re all sinners and we all sin. But we see a specific danger in continuing in a certain sin, willfully continuing to participate in a sinful activity, and also in approving of such behavior. We wouldn’t want someone to approve of murder or of adultery. What it comes down to is a disagreement of whether this activity is sin. But we’re not happy to leave the person who intends to continue sinning in their sin.

• 12 Mrs. Lovegood // Oct 23, 2007 at 2:42 pm

  My computer did something strange and wouldn’t allow me to keep typing, so I posted what I had and will continue in a second post.

  As I was saying, we feel it’s wrong to not call it sin, to not confront the person who continues in a sin (no matter which one), because that would not give the person the opportunity to repent and turn to God.

  We would do the same, feel the same, for any type of continuing sin behavior. The difference for homosexuality, and also with abortion, is that there are those who disagree that these activities are sin and so they actively promote them. We don’t see people actively advocating for murder or stealing, so we don’t react the same way.

  Travis asked about reacting to a character who participated in another sin, as a sort of litmus test to see whether we’re reacting as Christ would. I tried to think of a good example and I couldn’t. The closest I came was when Harry was shown to use the cruciatus curse and the imperious curse. I had been watching for this, and it disturbed me. I felt, however, that when she showed Harry use Expelliarmus, rather than the AK, to finally kill Voldemort, it meant he realized the unforgivables were, well, unforgivable. And we can assume he doesn’t still use them. Likewise, Ron left Harry and Hermione but repented of that and wanted to go back. I was disturbed that other Order members used the AK and advocated its use, but then again, I would never advocate the use of a gun to kill a human in civilian life, but I acknowledge the need for it in a war situation, so I saw it as similar. I guess what I’m saying is that, for the other sins that the “good guys” did, I saw evidence of either repentance or extenuating circumstances. That doesn’t apply to this situation with Dumbledore, so I don’t see my view as hypocritical.

  I think the problem we get down to is that the gospel is offensive to some people. It’s offensive to some people to say that all people sin, that any specific person sins. Some people define sin as something that hurts or harms another person. So, if you do something that is identified in the Bible as sin, but no one is hurt by it, you can decide your actions are not sin. So it really gets down to what you believe the Bible says about such things. Some people consider it intolerant to say that Jesus is the only way to eternal life, but it says that in the Bible, too.

  The Bible is plain and clear that Jesus died for the sins of every single one of us. We all can take advantage of that, but we can’t do it on our own terms, we have to do it on God’s terms.

  I hope all of this is taken as respectful because that’s the way it’s meant. I don’t want to offend anyone, but I also refuse to not speak the truth to save someone’s feelings.

• 13 Sarah // Oct 23, 2007 at 8:54 pm

  I think I need to learn some Greek too…

  Thanks, Travis, for your thoughtful explanation. You’re absolutely right that at this point it makes no difference whether I agree with your particular position or not, but it’s very helpful to have an explanation of where the more conservative Christian ideas on homosexuality come from. Provided it’s handled as respectfully and thoughtfully as you’ve done it –and that once the expression of concern is made and accepted it is not belabored unless both parties are interested in continuing the discussion — I find I can understand and accept this particular form of love. Please do correct me if I’m missing somethink I should know.

  Thanks for sharing “The Ballad of Nearly Headless Nick” — it was cute!

• 14 Anne // Oct 25, 2007 at 10:01 am

  Hi, I’ve never posted here before, but I have read off and on. Your podcast is very insightful, Travis, and I agree with virtually all the points you made.

  But I wanted to respond to Mrs. Lovegood’s very well-rationed argument. I agree with your assertion that the sins you mention which the “good guys” commit are to some degree or another recognized as sin within the context of the story. So you can’t really use those sins as your litmus test for your attitude. But my question for you is this: what was/is your response to the pervasive lying and cheating committed by the “good guys” that goes unchecked (at least by my interpretation) in the story. Rowling offers us neither commentary nor negative consequences in the story that would suggest that any of the good guys (except Hermione) view these actions as sinful. I have always considered this to be a moral flaw in series that could send very confusing messages to children. I assume you picked up on this flaw as well. So I wanted to offer up Rowling’s treatment of lying within the series as a more apt comparison point for her treatment of homosexuality. I might also point out that this comparison is made even more appropriate because lying and homosexuality are both referred to in the Bible as “abominations,” which would seem to indicate that they are equally repulsive to God. Furthermore, as a current college student, I can assure you that the world takes cheating very lightly.

  Please don’t think that I’m making any accusations of any kind, I’m merely curious to hear your response.

• 15 Dave // Oct 29, 2007 at 9:18 am

  I’ve just discovered this site and I it seems to be just what I’ve been looking for. I would like to present one idea for your consideration. I am not presenting my personal views on homosexuality just a “what if” to help explain why Ms. Rowling didn’t let on earlier about DD orientation. Pretend just for a moment that the culture in which we live absolutely accepted homosexuality (or any sexuality) as just another characteristic of an individual, like the color of your hair or your eyes. This may not be a great analogy but what I’m trying to convey is a society that doesn’t consider ones sexual orientation a big deal at all (I know this is not the case but for my illustration just imagine this is true). When you talk about person you don’t usually make a huge deal about their hair color or what size shoe they wear. You would probably not be concerned with whether or not they were gay either. If you wrote a book, living in this fictitious society, you may envision a character with blue eyes or was bi-sexual but unless it was important to the story you may not include that information. If a character was gay it would be about as big a deal as if you said that their favorite color was green. Although this is not really true of our society I’ll bet there a some people (probably not many Americans) that feel that a person’s sexual orientation is not a very big deal and not worth mentioning unless it is pertinent to the discussion or plot of the book you happen to be writing. Perhaps Ms. Rowling feels this way. Maybe being gay is just another characteristic of a person and if it is important to the story it will be included. I believe that Ms. Rowling needed a situation where DD experienced deep love for the Grindelwald character. A love that caused DD to loose his perspective and make a big mistake. She didn’t need the love to be reciprocated or for there to be a sexual encounter (remember these are children’s books). Perhaps, for her, making DD gay was not a big deal. He just needed to fall in love with another key character that just happened to also be male. Why couldn’t that great and powerful Grindlewald wave been written as a witch instead? I don’t think much of the story would have changed if Grindelwald had been female. DD would still have fallen in love and the tragedy would have occurred. Finding out that DD was strait would not have been headline news. Did Ms. Rowling feel that a female gender would be too week for the part of such a dark and powerful challenger to DD . Perhaps the feminist should explore this. They may have an issue too.

• 16 reyhan // Oct 29, 2007 at 3:53 pm

  Feminists probably have enough battles to fight with things as they are to worry about battles concerning fictional characters.

  We talked in earlier posts about why Harry was not a Harriet (my own guess: fewer boys would have read the series). I think that Gellert could easily have been Griselda. Certainly, JKR is quite able to create compelling, megalomaniacal female characters (e.g. Bellatrix Lestrange). Which makes me think that Gellert was a guy because Dumbledore was gay, and that Dumbledore’s orientation was a basic aspect of his character, ie. JKR didn’t decide to make him gay, that’s just how she saw him.

  I do see that his gayness provides an extra degree of tension to the plot because of his platonic but passionate feelings towards Harry. Absent the gayness, you have the story which almost everyone believed we had prior to the revelations of October 19th. Which is the more interesting one?

• 17 Dave // Oct 30, 2007 at 7:19 am

  I was being facetious when I questioned JKR choice of gender for Grindelwald. My point was that if he (Grindelwald) were written as a witch, the rest of the text could have preceded pretty much the same with the same tragic results. We wouldn’t be looking for clues throughout all seven books for DD heterosexuality and the fact that he is described as wearing a flowered hat that he obtained from a Christmas cracker during Harry’s first year would simply mean that the man knew how to have fun at party. As it is, we adults insist on analyzing this children’s book for details about sexuality that are not there because JKR knew not to put that kind of stuff in a kids book. She simply thought of DD as a gay guy having whatever characteristics she thinks a gay guy has. Apparently, for her, a gay guy can act pretty much the same as a strait guy except that a gay guy might fall in love with another guy whether or not the other guy is also gay. I’m sure this scenario happens at least as often as it does with strait guys who fall in love with girls who are not in love with them. Sometimes the girl ends up being nothing but trouble too. Something else that has just occurred to me is that one of the themes in the book is to be tolerant and un-assuming of others as you will frequently be wrong. Perhaps when we go back and look at the scenes that should have clued us in to whatever we now know about a character we are doing the very thing we are advised not to do. We are profiling a character based on our own pre-conceived notions. “We should have known” based on some scenario of events that had occurred that an aspect of a person’s character is “such in such”. Gay guys usually act this way so we should have known better. This kind of assumption is dangerous especially since JKR has a gift for using misdirection (when she wants to).

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