Mugglenet.com's Harry Potter Should Have Died - Emerson Spartz [64]
Yet Harry doesn’t forget about Snape’s sacrifice, and names one of his sons after him. So for Harry, Snape becomes like family through his name-sake Albus Severus, and is remembered as the bravest man Harry ever knew [DH, p. 758]. We never see Snape’s headstone, nor his headmaster portrait at Hogwarts, but the fact that Harry hasn’t forgotten him nineteen years after his death is epitaph enough.
Verdict
Sirius and Dumbledore die untimely deaths before Harry is ready to let them go. Dobby is a childlike and amusing little character who never does any harm, and his death is a wake-up call to Harry. Snape is dark and complicated, but his outward appearance is deceiving and his actions speak louder than words. He is the character who suffers the longest, but his death is more grotesque and chilling than sad. Each death affects Harry in a different way, but each person dies while thinking about Harry’s future. Because we see human deaths so often in movies, we have become desensitized to them. But we rarely see animals being killed, so when we do, it’s particularly tragic. And Dobby is like Harry’s more human-like pet—loyal, loving, and most importantly, completely innocent. Verdict: The other deaths certainly impact Harry more, but Dobby’s death twisted open the tear spigots for us the most.
Should Voldemort be pitied or loathed?
Loathed
“It is our choices, Harry, far more than our abilities, that determine who we truly are.”
—Albus Dumbledore
Voldemort should inspire nothing but loathing, since he has no reason to become as evil as he does. He and Harry have nearly the same type of childhood as orphans, and they both have the same education at Hogwarts. So what excuse is there for Voldemort to turn into the cruelest wizard who ever lived? Was his life really so bad? Most of his teachers were fond of him. He seems to have everything going for him, but he channels his energy into achieving despicable things. That is a choice he makes, and no one forces him into the life of crime. Dumbledore and Slughorn both want to help Tom Riddle, but he never listens to them, and indeed, fools them with the death of Moaning Myrtle, which he blames on Hagrid and Aragog, the giant spider. He even hunts down his own family and murders them in GoF, before going on a rampage of killing to make himself immortal as described in HBP. So he was never the victim, and he doesn’t deserve any pity.
Pitied
Young Tom Riddle can’t help it that there is insanity in the Gaunt family as we see in HBP, or that his mother decides to die rather than live and take care of him. It’s a shame the wizarding world does not insist that magical orphans be raised by magical foster parents, instead of shelving kids like Tom in uncaring Muggle institutions. Many children raised in orphanages never have a mother figure, and so they become detached from other human beings and lack in emotion. That is Tom’s problem. He is a victim. His nature is bent before Dumbledore ever comes to get him at the orphanage as we see in the Pensieve in HBP, so anything he learns later at Hogwarts won’t change his personality. So everyone should pity him because he is never a complete and healthy human being, even before he tears up his soul to make Horcruxes.
Verdict
Should we loathe Voldemort for his merciless violence and all the pain he causes, or should we pity the man who grew up with no understanding of love? Given that many other characters have childhood problems and learn to cope, such as Lupin, Snape, Luna, Neville, and Harry himself, does Voldemort really have any excuse? A child’s environment significantly impacts their