“Death is bad” is a true conclusion that Harry has arrived at through legitimate means. “I will always want to live forever” is utter nonsense, but it’s not necessary for the True Patronus.
And my problem, here, is that “death is bad” cannot be an unqualified truth. “Human death is bad” can be aspirationally true, and I am willing to believe that the unprecedented depth of Harry’s aspiration might be the key that unlocks the power of his Patronus—but it does look like EY means it literally, and that means that Harry should at some point need to distinguish between his ideology and that of, as Edward Abbey puts it, “the ideology of the cancer cell.”
“Death is bad” is a true conclusion that Harry has arrived at through legitimate means. “I will always want to live forever” is utter nonsense, but it’s not necessary for the True Patronus.
And my problem, here, is that “death is bad” cannot be an unqualified truth. “Human death is bad” can be aspirationally true, and I am willing to believe that the unprecedented depth of Harry’s aspiration might be the key that unlocks the power of his Patronus—but it does look like EY means it literally, and that means that Harry should at some point need to distinguish between his ideology and that of, as Edward Abbey puts it, “the ideology of the cancer cell.”