Potions and Snitches :: Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

Title: Soulspeaking	11 Jul 2006 7:33 am
Reviewer: Kirinin (Signed)	[Report This]

I am still recovering. Hold a moment.

What a brilliant, eerie story; and what an interesting and altogether unexpected way to bring two canon characters such as Harry and Ron together when your universe is completely disparate from canon.

I have to say, though, that I wonder what your own point of view is about the Harry you've created. The impression I'm left with is that, although Harry was created so seem (think himself to be?) godlike, he is inherently flawed.

If Harry could see brotherhood in Ron, and therefore, presumably, brothers themselves, and friends and family - how could he not be aware of what he was destroying when he destroyed everything but Ron? Presumably this means he murdered Ginny and Bill and Charlie and Ron's parents, and pretty much everyone who allowed Ron to keep and develop this quality. In fact, by definition, Ron cannot possess it if he is alone. Harry is taking what he admired most in Ron - the reason he did not kill Ron - and destroying it. Why bother leaving him alive, in that case? This may seem nitpicky, but this is the very reason he saved Ron, at least, by his own account.

And, surely, Ron isn't the only one worth saving? What makes him so special that he is spared by death Himself?

Although it seems like Harry may be a metaphor for death - it is blind, it comes for all of us - it's still hard to believe that it comes for all of us at once... unless Harry is the Bringer of the Apocalypse, the Second Coming. I'm not certain that you had to go as far as you did with the whole everyone's-dead-everywhere ending, in other words. While dramatic, it did not make as much sense as the rest of the story did. It lapses over the confines of your metaphor and ends with a dramatic bang that has a lot of impact but cheapens the rest of the story, like a thick paste of makeup on an already beautiful girl. Your story could have died with a whimper instead of a bang, and I would've appreciated it a lot more.

Mind you, I'm still rating this quite highly. It's lovely and amazingly original, and so eerie at parts that sometimes I forgot to breathe. I would not be addressing any of these things if the story weren't worth the thought; it's very good. The end bothered me. Oh, and I also figured that, if you're this good, you've had CC before and won't burst into tears or hate me.

*crosses fingers, anyway*

-Kirinin

Author's Response:
First of all, let me say thank you for the CC. I wish more people would provide it, rather than the usual omg i luved ur story!!! stuff.

Actually, your comments about the whole Harry-kills-em-all bit being overboard are very much in line with what I thought after going back and reading this story about a week after writing. I was trying to get an idea across, an idea I'm not too sure I understand myself, but I will attempt to explain.
Harry was not loved, but rather feared by the Durselys, and this is truly the root of the story. When you are feared for something out of your control, one of two things happens: either you become a ruthless, controlling tyrant, using that fear to control other people or you withdraw, either because of a want to fit in or of a growing fear of yourself. (Harry did something of the latter.) After then being rejected by the world he belonged to, for something once more out of his control, this was the breaking point. Harry had no home, no connection to the human race. After he left -- and no, I will not pretend I know where the heck he went -- he presumably had little more contact with humanity.
Harry's discussion with Ron, about the singing and the family and love, is something of a revelation. Though he understands the concepts, he does not understand what these things are. He has never experienced love. He is eloquent on the topic of pain, and this is because he knows suffering.
I tried to get this concept across when I talked about Harry's perception of magic. He talked of the wards "singing", of feeling magic. Ron couldn't do that. Just as blind people "see" things differently, Harry understood magic differently.
And now, the big finale. The killing of everyone. Harry wants to take away everyone's pain. He does not like suffering, not in himself or in anyone else. The Dursleys feared him, causing him not only emotional pain but also forcing a little of that fear back on himself. But he cares little for people as people. People have done nothing but hurt him.
Ron has not hurt him, so he is spared. The little girl who has been tortured is suffering, so he takes away the pain. Draco Malfoy caused pain -- and Harry crushed his soul without a second thought.
Maybe Harry thought that by taking away the suffering people and the ones who caused the suffering would make the world better. Who knows how far his massacre reached. Did it touch the muggle world? Ron understood, and had been good to Harry, so he was spared. Harry understood little of families and love, and would not/could not understand the fact that Ron would suffer without his family. Harry wanted his own suffering to end, so he too left.
And... that's it.
Mila
PS: You're officially my favoritest reviewer now for your CC. Feel free to drop by at any time...