Pettigrew's deserts (was Nel #10)

[naamagatus]

No: HPFGUIDX 41696

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "davewitley" <dfrankiswork at n...> wrote:

<snip> 

> If Pettigrew *does* deserve to die, then Harry's act of clemency, 
> while correct from the point of view of due process, loses some of 
> its moral force since, in thematic terms, he is permitting a 
> miscarriage of justice in order for JKR to give him a life-credit 
> from Pettigrew for plot purposes.
> 
> Thoughts?  Does the text imply Pettigrew deserves to die?
> 

I think the text implies that Pettigrew deserves to die and ALSO that 
it is wrong to kill. It is one of the places that feel very Christian 
to me. In the same way that Tolkien is at his most Christian when he 
says, through Gandalf, that "Many that live deserve death.  And some 
that die deserve life.  Can you give it to them?  Then do not be too 
eager to deal out death in judgement."
I think that JKR is making a moral, not a legalistic, point (although 
it's a moral point that should bear a lot of weight in the legalistic 
debate regarding the death penalty). She is showing us a person who 
deserves death. That is, there is no doubt as to the severity of his 
crime and as to his guilt. The common perception of justice, as 
exemplified by Sirius and Lupin, is that he should be killed. Harry's 
act of clemency is not just that, it is justice of a higher order, 
because it takes into account what that act of killing does to the 
*executioners*, not only whether the criminal deserves death. Harry 
doesn't want Sirius and Lupin - who are good people - to become 
killers. 
It's an interesting way to put it, isn't it? It's really saying that 
no matter how deserving of death is somebody, it still makes his 
executioners killers. It shows the reader the act of execution from a 
different angle than he is used to. Most death penalty debates, I 
think, discuss what levels of guilt make the criminal deserve death, 
if at all. Some would argue that no matter what the crime, nobody 
deserves to die. I think that to say that nobody should be killed 
because no matter how deserving of death s/he is, it makes the 
executioners (in real life, that would be society as a whole) killers 
is a much more compelling argument. 



Naama