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Maternal vs. Paternal Love in the HP Series, Which Dominated?
Which type of love dominated?
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Total Votes: 94
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lirene
post Jul 1 2008, 01:15 PM
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Throughout the HP series, the theme if Love is interwoven brilliantly and it is a major theme in the story. There is also an undercurrent of maternal vs. paternal love as well. To many readers it seems as though maternal love played a more prominent role in the series than paternal love and it was almost as if paternal love was left more to the wayside. Wasn't it after all Lily's sacrifice that enabled an infant Harry to survive Voldemort's attack?

This poll is about how you as a reader, feel how maternal and paternal love were portrayed, and if one type of love was highlighted more in Rowling's story than the other.

Do you feel that both maternal and paternal love had equal importance in the story?

You may choose from more than one of the options given above in the poll, and vote for "other" if your choice reflects something other than has been given in the poll. You are encouraged to support your views with canon evidence, and pose your own questions as well.

This post has been edited by lirene: Jul 9 2008, 09:57 PM


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harrypottergeek2
post Aug 5 2008, 02:47 AM
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Excellent posts here! Just to add to them:
QUOTE(Pleione @ Aug 4 2008, 12:02 PM) *
QUOTE(momwitch @ Aug 4 2008, 12:18 PM) *
But I just wanted to ask...is Love in itself dominant? wink.gif Parents can be overbearing and smothering at times (on both sides maternal and paternal), but that is most often a reaction of fear, not Love.

Oh, that's a very good point! Along the same line of thought, doesn't the fear exist because there is love? It's the love of a child that causes that gut-wrenching, heart-pounding fear for their safety. I think the two must go hand in hand, to some extent. The smothering parent lets the fear control, perhaps.

I agree with Pleione's line of thinking: it's the love (i.e. the emotional attachment) that induces the fear in question. Love (and emotional attachment in general) is where the fear (and emotional turmoil in general) essentially comes from - without the emotional attachment, there is no emotional turmoil to be had. This is very much the situation with Dobby's death - Harry discovers (through DD's influence) that his grief over Dobby's death is really another form/expression of love:
QUOTE
"Grief, it seemed, drove Voldemort out... though Dumbledore, of course, would have said it was love..."


Staying with this line of thought, there are two lines from songs by Thousand Foot Krutch that jump out at me here:

"Pain is what's inside of me, not when you're bleeding". This is obviously saying that true pain is not a physical experience - it's emotional turmoil or damage.

"Sometimes love feels like pain, and sometimes I wonder if it's all the same". This goes back to what I said about emtional pain essentially coming from emotional attachment; once the pain is induced, it almost becomes merged with the emotional attachment, since the pain is really just the damaged emotional attachment.

QUOTE(ami louthwaite @ Aug 4 2008, 03:45 PM) *
There are, of course, other acts of sacrifice in the books, but Lily's sacrifice was the only one that evoked the ancient magic, so I would conclude that maternal love took precedence in the series, both in reflection and importance. (Not that there wasn't strong paternal love present)

You make an interesting observation here, but I would argue that since it wasn't really maternal love in particular that evoked the magic when Lily sacrificed herself, I don't think we are meant to think that maternal love took precedence in both reflection and importance. Time-wise, it certainly did, but looking at the series as a whole, considering that any human being in the same situation could have technically evoked the same magic, I think the fact that it was Lily (acting on maternal instinct) who evoked the magic is just a technicallity (at least in terms of comparing maternal love to paternal love).

In fact, I think that it was because the importance of maternal love was so profoundly established early in the series that Jo devoted so many more characters to paternal love as opposed to paternal love. Plot-wise, the importance (or rather, the effects) of maternal love had to be established this profoundly early on, so I think Jo felt the need to balance it out by establishing paternal love in more numerous ways so that it's importance as a whole would not be missed or under-appreciated by the reader.


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Posts in this topic
- lirene   Maternal vs. Paternal Love in the HP Series   Jul 1 2008, 01:15 PM
- - harrypottergeek2   Great thread, Lirene! If we look at it from...   Jul 10 2008, 06:41 PM
- - StepInTime   I agree, great poll, lirene! Um, so far as I c...   Jul 10 2008, 06:59 PM
- - tonksgirl   very good poll indeed, but also very intriguing. ...   Jul 10 2008, 07:43 PM
- - harrypottergeek2   I didn't even see the poll! However, now ...   Jul 10 2008, 11:17 PM
- - Fricka   All the responses thus far have been great. My vot...   Jul 11 2008, 08:48 PM
|- - harrypottergeek2   QUOTE(Fricka @ Jul 11 2008, 08:48 PM) All...   Jul 11 2008, 11:36 PM
- - Tarantellegra   This is a really interesting thread, lirene, one o...   Jul 13 2008, 01:09 PM
|- - harrypottergeek2   QUOTE(Tarantellegra @ Jul 13 2008, 01:09 ...   Jul 13 2008, 03:33 PM
- - Lost Centaur   Wonderful topic, lirene. Although both maternal a...   Jul 13 2008, 03:11 PM
- - Ex Libres Cogito   If this poll takes only the reader's perspecti...   Jul 16 2008, 11:37 AM
|- - harrypottergeek2   QUOTE(Ex Libres Cogito @ Jul 16 2008, 12...   Jul 16 2008, 02:21 PM
- - Lemmy   I voted for Maternal, as it always seemed to me th...   Jul 16 2008, 12:25 PM
- - silviera   QUOTE(harrypottergeek2 @ Jul 10 2008, 11...   Jul 25 2008, 05:58 AM
- - VoodooPadfoot   I think that there is a lot more emphasis on the l...   Jul 25 2008, 07:06 AM
- - Henrietta   I voted for equal portrayal because while Lily...   Jul 25 2008, 09:23 AM
- - katihpfan   I was shocked to see so few votes for paternal lov...   Jul 25 2008, 09:06 PM
- - blue4t   In my opinion, maternal love dominated. Harry is ...   Jul 28 2008, 10:18 PM
- - Mary Wanguard   Wow, this topic really got me confused. So that a...   Jul 30 2008, 06:01 AM
- - weaselyfan   I think that the theme might be best as parental l...   Aug 4 2008, 09:51 AM
- - momwitch   Interesting topic, Lirene! But I just wante...   Aug 4 2008, 11:18 AM
|- - Pleione   QUOTE(momwitch @ Aug 4 2008, 12:18 PM) Bu...   Aug 4 2008, 12:02 PM
- - momwitch   I'm really liking this train of thought, Pleio...   Aug 4 2008, 02:33 PM
- - ami louthwaite   Well, I suppose you could put the 'love' a...   Aug 4 2008, 03:45 PM
- - momwitch   Ah, interesting! But I do think that Love can...   Aug 5 2008, 10:08 AM
|- - harrypottergeek2   QUOTE(momwitch @ Aug 5 2008, 11:08 AM) I ...   Aug 5 2008, 01:41 PM
|- - Cassy V   Another great discussion. I just wondered if y...   Aug 6 2008, 07:04 PM
|- - momwitch   QUOTE(harrypottergeek2 @ Aug 5 2008, 06:4...   Aug 6 2008, 10:05 PM
- - harrypottergeek2   QUOTE(Cassy V @ Aug 6 2008, 08:04 PM) Ano...   Aug 7 2008, 06:43 PM
- - Professor L E Snape   Brilliant topic/question. I think the biggest prob...   Aug 27 2008, 08:35 PM
|- - harrypottergeek2   QUOTE(Professor L E Snape @ Aug 27 2008, 09...   Aug 27 2008, 10:50 PM
|- - Emms   QUOTE(harrypottergeek2 @ Aug 28 2008, 04...   May 29 2009, 11:41 AM
|- - Lou_Lovegood   QUOTE(Emms @ May 29 2009, 05:41 PM) QUOTE...   Aug 12 2009, 06:07 AM
- - lirene   First of all, kudos to all of the wonderful insigh...   Aug 27 2008, 11:34 PM
- - Nickel   I voted for both being equal. Harry is someone wh...   Sep 6 2008, 02:23 AM
|- - harrypottergeek2   QUOTE(Nickel @ Sep 6 2008, 03:23 AM) what...   Sep 7 2008, 12:45 PM
- - Professor L E Snape   QUOTE(Nickel @ Sep 6 2008, 08:23 AM) Sorr...   Sep 6 2008, 10:00 PM
- - Love4Fawkes   QUOTE(harrypottergeek2 @ Sep 7 2008, 12:4...   Sep 8 2008, 08:07 PM
- - Professor L E Snape   QUOTE(Love4Fawkes @ Sep 9 2008, 02:07 AM)...   Sep 8 2008, 10:03 PM
- - harrypottergeek2   I didn't mean to say that Augusta's and Pe...   Sep 15 2008, 07:23 PM
- - wickedboy   I think they were shown to be equal. Harry's ...   Oct 30 2008, 06:24 AM
- - Dragonsun   It was a really tough decision. The male character...   Oct 31 2008, 09:18 PM
- - wickedboy   I'd say both. Lupin, James, Arthur, Harry, Ro...   Nov 9 2008, 09:18 AM
- - nevertobeparted.   Because of Lily's sacrifice, and JKR's own...   Nov 9 2008, 11:54 AM
- - Eva Hedwig   I voted for both parents. Thinking about all of t...   Nov 9 2008, 04:19 PM
- - MesserMoony   I can't help thinking that maternal love domin...   Jan 3 2009, 07:01 PM
- - Wandguardnoodle   QUOTE(Professor L E Snape @ Aug 27 2008, 09...   Jan 22 2009, 10:30 AM
- - VoodooPadfoot   I really feel that maternal love dominated the ser...   Jun 23 2009, 05:55 AM
|- - cooncatbob   QUOTE(VoodooPadfoot @ Jun 23 2009, 03:55 ...   Jul 19 2009, 10:38 PM
- - ravenclawgal608   I believe they are both equally protrayed. On the ...   Aug 9 2009, 09:39 AM
- - midzy   i think it was maternal love that dominated most i...   Sep 1 2009, 11:35 PM
- - patronuscharm734   Maternal is far more dominant. With only the exce...   Feb 2 2010, 06:48 PM
- - cminmd   I agree with Patronus charm that the mothers have ...   Feb 13 2010, 01:30 PM

 

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