Love is a governing theme and motivator in all the Potter books and is the fulcrum of the last book.

This is the more typical or standard approach to love as a motivator or theme.

I've also seen the opposite proposed, that love is a destructive and divisive force.

In the George RR Martin novels "Love is the bane of duty." A repeated theme is how crowns, flags and duty do not compare to the embrace of a women you love or the cry of a newborn in your arms.

This was brought back to the forefront of my mind last night. I was watching the last episode of the new BBC series Jekyll (which is pretty entertaining) and one of the themes that is explored is Love as a destructive force.

The character asks a woman, "When was the first time you knew you could kill a person?", the woman replies "When I first held my son in my arms."

The first woman then goes on "Hyde is not a psycopath, he is an emotion incarnate, that emotion that makes you destroy anything to protect those close to you, and we give it such a lovely name...Hyde is love."

Anyway I thought this was an interesting counterpoint and was curious where some of you stood.

I know I tend to look at the darker side of things, so I fall more in the Love as a force of obsession and destruction (which JKR does touch on in book 4, with the love potions).

And for "Hyde is love," I say, "pshaw!" Hyde is what his name says he is. Hyde is Jekyll's way of doing whatever he darn well wants to do with impunity because he can "hide" behind Hyde. What he doesn't realize, and what catches up with him in Stevenson's story, is that, as Dumbledore told Harry, the choices you make determine the kind of person you are. Jekyll, by making the choices he did as Hyde, became the monster that Hyde was. He couldn't change back into Jekyll because he had chosen to become Hyde.

So on a continuim, you have the sociopath or anti-social personality type (think John Wayne Gacy or the guy at Phillip Morris that tanked the cancer link with cigarettes; You have the stalker, or the DV perpetrator, you have loving and caring relationships with spouse, children, good friends. And for some people what they perceive as needful to them gets pretty scary.

And all those cases, if given the correct set
of circumstances, could lead to attempt to harm someone else.
And, regarding the example of the mother, in a fashion, she is actively pursuing the continued survival of her DNA. And she might have a strong drive to want to keep the father alive, too, because having the father in the home also helps assure that the kids will survive to replicate, themselves.

and, for a completely nonsequitor moment, woman significantlymore likely to sacrifice their lives to save their offspring than men.

I know it's not a famous work of literature, but it's in the pop culture and not as fraught with risk of angering anyone who hasn't seen the movie yet. (What? You read/write spec fiction and you haven't seen Star Wars III???!! LOL)

At any rate, too tired to do any actual thinking, but there's my contribution to the thread.

Anakin's turn to the dark side was a good example of great idea with terrible execution. I did want to see a story about the corruption and fall of a hero, but alas it was far from convincing. This is a story that needs to be written still, though disguised from any Star Wars connotations.

The main point of my thread was more the "Love is the bane of duty" I was just reminded of it by the scene from Jekyll.

If you haven't read the GRRM books, there is a character named Jaime Lannister who is deplorable in the first book, and still pretty nasty in the subsequent books, but his actions are cast in a different light when you discover he is protecting his sister/wife and there offspring.

Oddly I was watching another flick last night called Equilibrium (entertaining but not deep, interesting twist on Farenheit 451 though) and it has a similar theme.

Anyway, just thought it might be an interesting talking point for the forum.

Love, though it can create greatness, must have boundaries, unconditional love like anything else unbridled too easilly turns to destruction.

But back to love...unconditional love as a force of destruction? Um...I'm not there on that concept. I am probably coming at this all wrong, but from the perspective of a parent, one of the greatest gifts we can give our children is that true, deep, unconditional love. I think it's also a very difficult gift to give, because as much as we'd all like to think we love our children unconditionally, there are times when their behavior makes us question that... And we're flawed people, there are times when maybe we favor one child over another, or relate more to one child who is more like ourselves. But I don't see that sort of love as being in any way destructive.

Now, romantic love...different story. Romantic love can tip over toward obsession, which easily becomes destructive. Just thinking out loud here, but one of the main tipping points there seems to be when the romantic love equation is out of balance. When one is more "in love" than the other (or in stalking cases, when one is "in love" and the other is not...) it seems risky.

That said I am currently estranged from my parents who unquestionably do NOT believe in unconditional love :-(

As to unconditional love being destructive or possibly dangerous, imagine being the parent of Adolf Hitler or a Ted Bundy...unconditional love should have limits.

I am pretty sure this is at the forefront of my mind, because it is a theme in the latest HP book and also has been thrown in my face recently in a couple of shows I watch. This is excacerbated by some RL things going on between myself and my parents...

That said and clarified, cloudified?

Ah hell don't know where I'm going now...sigh.