Moody -- "Types"--Where Are the Bleeding Hearts? (loooong)

[ssk7882]

No: HPFGUIDX 34041

Hi, Bobby.  I'm glad we're still on speaking terms.

You wrote:

 > 1)  I knew that I was making assumptions and stereotypes 
 > about your political beliefs while I was writing the post 
 > and really regretted doing so because that was what had 
 > annoyed me about your post (lumping law-enforcement, etc 
 > under the "Law-and-Order Fascist"... I do very much 
 > appreciate that you recognized the stereotype).

Well, my characterization of Moody there *was* bigoted and offensive, 
and your retaliation in kind *did* prove a highly effective means of
leading me to recognize that fact. The rebuke was warranted, and 
while the tone may have been a bit flamey for the prevailing standards
of this particular forum, it did have its desired effect.  

I'm accustomed to a much harsher mode of debate than that found here, 
actually, and can take a _lot_ without flinching.  So I wouldn't feel 
too regretful, if I were you (although for the sake of the Mods, we 
should definitely try to keep it genteel in the future, and not scare 
too many horses).

In short: no harm, no foul.

On to the topics...

On the lack of depiction of "bleeding-hearts" in canon, Bobby wrote:

  > I agree that there are no "bleeding-heart liberal" 
  > stereotypes in Potterlore and there is a reason for 
  > it....because the world of Voldemort is basically a 
  > war-time era, JKR is not really able to introduce a 
  > believable "bleeding-heart" liberal stereotype because 
  > that viewpoint simply does not wash in a time of war.

I disagree.  Regardless of what one may think of the philosophical
or political _merit_ of continuing to maintain a hard-line "bleeding-
heart" stance in a time of war (and we should absolutely *not* start
debating that issue here!), the fact remains that there are always a 
good number of people who do.  Their numbers tend to drop
dramatically during war-time, admittedly, but they are always still
in evidence, often quite noticeably so.

Also, as Barb points out, Pensieve flashbacks aside, the story is no
longer really taking place during war-time.  (Well...okay, maybe from
here on in it will be, but it has not been up to this point in the
series.)  It's taking place twelve or thirteen years *after* the last
of the hostilities.  Ample time for for the bleeding-hearts to crawl
out from the woodwork, brush themselves off, and get cracking on 
making the world unsafe for humanity. ;)  

Although I suppose that Rowling _has_ given us Fudge-as-appeaser,
who I think serves many of the same functions, although wholly in a
negative sense.  I just find the absence of bleeding-heart types a 
curious ommission from the world-as-presented, and one that leaves me 
with a decidedly (while admittedlly utterly personal and highly 
subjective) creepy feeling about the wizarding world as a whole.

 
Barb wrote:

  > I disagree that there are no "bleeding-heart liberal"
  > stereotypes in the books.  Hermione is very much playing
  > this role when she conceives S.P.E.W.  

I agree that Hermione generally fulfills this function.  In my 
original message, however, I disqualified her from membership in the 
Bleeding Heart Club on the basis of her refusal to attempt to 
intervene on Pettigrew's behalf in the Shrieking Shack scene of PoA.  
She *is* sufficiently tender-hearted (or sufficiently squeamish, 
depending on how you wish to interpret such matters) to turn away so 
that she need not witness his death, but she does not speak up on his 
behalf, and she recoils from him when he appeals to her personally for
intercession.  

Nor is this mere timidity: before Hermione becomes convinced of 
Pettigrew's guilt, she is quite vocal in raising her objections to 
Sirius and Remus' accusations, and she even goes out of her way to
address the (at that point in the series, terribly intimidating)
Sirius Black by name in order to force his engagement in the debate
(one of my all-time *favorite* Hermione moments, BTW).  Once
convinced of Pettigrew's guilt, however, she abruptly abandons her 
advocacy.

Of course, I do realize that this is largely a matter of literary
necessity.  In order for the scene to work, both aesthetically and
thematically, Harry absolutely *must* stand as Pettigrew's last and 
only hope of clemency.  

But all the same, I always find myself feeling weirdly disappointed 
in Hermione there.  I like to think that she would have spoken up in 
favor of mercy, if only the dictates of thematic necessity had not 
prevented her from doing so.

Barb continues:

  > She [Hermione] is also, IMO shown to be very much
  > out of step with wizarding society, however.  Even
  > the "Muggle-loving" Weasleys seem to be somewhat on
  > the conservative side about many things.  One wonders
  > whether very many of the Muggle-born witches and
  > wizards reflect Muggle attitudes of this sort, and
  > whether this is another source of friction between
  > 'pureblood' magical folk and these relative 'newcomers.'

I know that I've certainly been making this assumption about the
wizarding world and its political frictions.  The wizarding world
as a whole is deeply concerned with keeping itself *isolated* from
Muggles; the pureblood extremists' chosen idiom focuses on issues
of purity and corruption.  It's not too hard to imagine how these
two concepts could combine and become intertwined with one another,
thus leading even decent folk into some disturbingly shady territory
when they start contemplating the strange and upsetting Muggle 
attitudes that "those people" have started bringing in.

As for the Weasleys seeming fairly conservative, though, I would
like to point out that although Arthur Weasley is indeed a "Muggle-
lover," he is also a government official, and so not all that
likely to hold views ranging too far outside of the bounds of 
conservative wizarding culture.  He is a liberal (and his career
advancement has been held back because of it), but he is still
within the mainstream.  I suspect that you might find far more 
radical attitudes in those pureblood wizards who work in, say, the 
music industry, or in retail.  (How might the Weird Sisters' booking 
agents, assuming that they are purebloods, feel about House Elf 
Liberation?  Or the proprietor of one of Diagon Alley's smaller 
bookshops?)


Barb wrote:

  > Also, while it is easier to "sell" conservative attitudes
  > during times of war, the wizarding world has been free
  > of Voldemort for going on fourteen years.  What excuse
  > is there for continued entrenchment and conservatism?
  > (Other than force of habit?)


I know that I myself said much the same thing above, but I would point
out that fourteen years is not really all that long a time when it 
comes to recovering from the degree of cultural trauma that 
Voldemort's reign of terror would seem to have inflicted.  They can't
even say his *name,* for heaven's sake!  The culture is clearly still
deeply scarred, and I don't think that's unreasonable: fourteen years
is nothing, really.  It's not even a full generation.  It's a blink
of the eye.

I still think there would be bleeding-hearts, though.


RE: Crouch and Moody, Bobby wrote:

  > Crouch is clearly set as a "bad" example of power-hungry law 
  > enforcement, while Moody is set up as a "good" example....
  > By creating these two characters, she does a fantastic job 
  > of addressing a touchy issue.  On one hand, with Crouch, she 
  > acknowledges the danger of a militarized state in the name of 
  > peace.  However, with Moody she acknowledges that to fight 
  > evil, sometimes you have to get a little dirty yourself.  

I can accept this reading, although it is not my own.  I didn't
perceive Crouch and Moody as juxtaposed in quite the way you
describe, and although I think that you make a very good case 
for it, it doesn't quite work for me.  Crouch struck me as far
more strictly juxtaposed against Fudge in GoF, while Moody seemed
to me to be held up more against Sirius' unnamed "Bad Aurors" than 
against Crouch himself.  But it's an interesting reading, and 
certainly food for thought; and I absolutely agree with you that
both characters serve to force the reader to think about the
ends-means difficulties of times of war.

I would argue, however, that both Crouch and Moody are deliberately
ambiguous characters -- I don't perceive Crouch to be painted nearly 
as black as you imply, nor Moody nearly so white -- and that both
of them speak to the ethical perils and temptations and slippery
slopes of the dilemma of ends and means.  

On which subject, a quick quibble...

  > Moody's tactics may be questionable, but his motives are clear 
  > and just, and they are SUCCESSFUL.  This is not a case of the 
  > ends justifying the means, only one of practicality.  

But that's exactly what a case of "ends justifying the means" *is!*

To "use questionable tactics in the service of just motives" is
a perfect example of "using the ends to justify the means."  In
fact, it is one of the *classic* examples.  How do you see a 
difference between this and "mere practicality?"

However.  This is really a moot point, as far as I'm concerned, 
as we have no evidence at all to suggest that Moody has ever once 
used questionable tactics, or bent the rules of engagement, or 
failed to do things "by the book."  Maybe he has, maybe he hasn't.
On this subject, canon is silent.  Canon does, however, suggest
that his tactics are not all that questionable -- or, at least, that
he was not as prone to using questionable tactics as a number
of his colleagues were.

But what makes Moody an ambiguous character to my mind really has 
nothing to do with any suspicions of malfeasance or questionable
tactics (no matter how justified).  It has everything to do with 
the state of his psyche, and with how I suspect that this state 
might lead him to behave toward others.  

It is quite clear, I think, that Moody is a *scarred* individual, 
internally as well as physically.  Sirius as good as says so, when 
he talks about Moody's paranoia being unsurprising "given what he's 
seen," and even the many characters who are personally fond of him 
readily acknowledge that his experiences have left him erratic and 
prone to violence.  And the one glimpse we get of the "real Moody" in 
the Pensieve scene also shows us that he has been calloused -- or, if 
you prefer, "hardened."  All of the things I've cited elsewhere in
defense of my personal problems with the character -- his sneering at 
fallen enemies, his lack of any evident remorse over killing, his 
blase attitude toward the dementors -- they all attest to this fact.  
Moody is paranoid, he is prone to violence, and he is callous.

Is that his fault?  No, of course not.  Is it reasonable for someone
with his life experiences to have become that way over time?  Yes, of
course it is.  Did he get that way in the service of admirable and 
heroic goals?  Yes, he did.

Does any of that make me feel any more comfortable with him, or 
mitigate my sense that this fellow is not someone I altogether trust?

No.  It does not.

Moody's an ambiguous character, IMO, not because of anything he has
ever done, necessarily, but because of who he has become -- and 
because of what that might mean in terms of his future behavior.  To 
put it unkindly, he is damaged.  That's not his fault at all: he 
sustained that damage most honorably indeed.  But the damage is
still there, and it strikes me as the particular *kind* of emotional 
damage which is more than likely to manifest itself in ways that are 
both dangerous and harmful.  

Even paranoids have enemies, true, and if you're going to be hunting
down Dark Wizards for a living, you had better develop some fairly 
thick callouses, or you will very quickly be dead.  But that doesn't
mean that paranoia and callousness are *good* for people.  They're
not.  They don't make people behave well.  All too often, they 
combine to make people behave very badly indeed.

So when I wrote the paragraph that offended you so badly, when I
wrote that I considered Moody "the sort of person who would happily
strip away all of my civil liberties, given half the chance," this
may have been harsh, and it may have been unjust; it may have been
a conclusion reached on the basis of rather scanty evidence -- we
have, after all, seen precious little of Moody himself so far in
canon.  And it may not have given him very much in the way of benefit 
of the doubt.  

But it *was* an assumption based on observations of his behavior in 
the one scene in which he appears, and on what may be deduced about 
him from other characters' statements about him, and I don't think 
that it was an especially irrational one.  Everything that we have 
seen and heard about this character so far has to my mind combined to 
paint a rather disturbing picture: a picture of a man who holds what 
I consider to be some highly dubious and potentially harmful character
traits.  If Moody shows up in the fifth book and reveals himself to 
be completely different than the sketchy portrait I've got of him so
far, then all to the good.  But in the meantime, I draw my 
conclusions based on what we've been offered.


  > However, Moody has spent his life fighting the bad guys 
  > for all the right reasons.  He has lost his leg, his eye, 
  > and a large chunk of his nose.  He never asks for thanks, 
  > or power, or riches.  And what does he have to show for 
  > it?  A writer for the Daily Prophet, who has never actually
  > fought anyone from the Dark Side, believes Moody to be a 
  > threat to civilized society.  Is that fair?  

No, of course it isn't fair, if you mean "fair" in the sense of
"people getting their just reward."  But that doesn't mean that it
is not *true.*  Truth is often horribly unfair that way.  

<sigh>  Look.  I certainly hope that you're right about Moody,
that emotionally scarred and troubled though he may be, he would
nonetheless never allow his paranoia, or his callousness, or his
ruthlessness, or his propensity for violence to lead him into
any unethical behavior, or to cause him to act with a disregard for 
the rights of others.  I really do.  But if we're going to talk about 
our willingness to look unflinchingly at the nature of evil, then I 
think we must acknowledge that people who share Moody's character 
traits often *do* exhibit just such a disregard, and all too often in 
ways that end up harming innocent people.


Finally, I'd like to draw (once again!) a distinction between 
a personal liking for a character *as a person,* and approval of a
character on moral, ethical, or political grounds.  There is a big
difference between considering someone a good person and actually 
*liking* him.  There is an even bigger difference between approving
of someone's actions and considering him a person you might want
to invite to dinner.  

>From what we have seen of Moody so far, I do not like him as a
person.  His behavior in the Pensieve scene raises my hackles.
Even understanding that he must be particularly frustrated by
the situation -- I'm sure that I would feel pretty cranky as well,
if I'd spent six months of my life risking life and limb to 
apprehend a criminal, only to have him walk free after a plea 
bargain -- I still don't care for his attitude.  He strikes me
as callous and unpleasant, and as someone whose company I would
personally not enjoy at all.  I don't like hearing people say 
things like "throw him back to the dementors," and it genuinely
offends me when I hear *anyone* referred to as "filth" or as "scum."  
These are things that just really do bother me.

But this is a personal reaction, a matter of "liking," and while
it obviously has philosophical underpinnings, at the end of the
day it is really less a matter of philosophy than of plain old 
compatibility.

So when I write, say, that I've got a problem with people who
refer to their enemies as "filth" and "scum," and then Bobby 
replies:

  > Believe it or not, Karkaroff is "scum" and "filth".  

Well, all I can really manage by way of reply is to laugh uneasily
and say: "Well...yes.  I suppose that he is, rather.  But that's 
still no reason to SAY so, is it?"

No, but seriously.  Karkaroff is, IMO, quite possibly Rowling's least
sympathetic character to date.  Just about the only nice thing 
I can think to say about him is that he did, at least, seem to suffer
from a brief moment of inner turmoil right before he fingered Snape
to the ministry.  That's about it, really.

But, you know, I *still* didn't like the way Moody was talking about 
him.  It really rubbed me the wrong way.

 > My basic disagreement was that 1) you disliked Moody even though 
 > he gave his life to protecting the populace with no other designs 
 > for power, riches, etc... 

Yes, but am I really obligated to like him because of that?  I mean, 
to respect him?  Okay.  To admire him?  Perhaps.  To feel grateful
to him?  Certainly.  But to *like* him?

I don't really see why I should be obligated to like him.  Many 
people do heroic things without becoming in the least bit likeable.  


                                   --- Elkins