Death and Justice

[lucky_kari]

No: HPFGUIDX 36987

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "talondg" <trog at w...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at y..., "grey_wolf_c" <greywolf1 at j...> wrote:

> > " 'He deserves death'.
> > 'Deserves it! I daresay he does. 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. For even the very wise
> > cannot see all ends.' "
> > -- J. R. R. Tolkien - The Lord of the Rings (LotR)
> > 
> > That, for those here that haven't read LotR, is an exchange 
between 
> > Gandalf and Frodo about the destiny of Smeagol/Gollum. The 
> > similarities and parallelisms between them and D'dore, Harry and 
> > Wormtail are inmediatly obvious (I hope) to anyone who's read both 
> > books,
> 
> Ah, but there are a couple of very important differences too.
> 
> Smeagol/Gollum is not intrinsicly evil, in that he does not _choose_
> to be evil for evil's sake. He has been corrupted by a magical 
device
> whose purpose is to corrupt for its own ends.
> 
> In Harry-Potterspeak, he is under the influence of a particularly
> subtle and insidious Imperious Curse, and even then, when faced with
> Frodo's kindness he manages to resist it, for a while at least. He's
> not really himself when the Ring is doing its thing.
> 

I think you're misconstruing Tolkien's set-up.

The Ring is the ultimate corruptor. It turns even the heroically 
virtuous to evil in the end. In that sense, you are right. If one 
continues with the Ring, one is not responsible for what happens. The 
case in point is Frodo (quoting from memory): "I do not choose the 
deed I came here to do." Darn right, he isn't choosing. He's 
completely passive. The Ring's in charge.

However, up to that last impossible moment, he had tried very hard to 
hold on to his independance of the Ring. He does not take it 
enthusiastically, he spends half the trilogy trying to hand it to 
someone else: Gandalf, Aragorn, Galadriel, he stays his purpose to 
destroy the Ring until he is right at the Cracks of Doom, he fights 
against every urge to use it, and he apologizes to Sam when the Ring 
momentarily overcomes him.

Take on the other hand, Smeagol Gollum. Smeagol already seems to be a 
bit of a sneak when he goes out with his best friend on the Anduin 
that fateful birthday. He gives up to the Ring lust without any 
resistance by killing his friend for it, burying the body, and then 
coming home and pretending nothing's happened. He furthermore goes on 
to use the dearly bought Ring for stealing food from the larder 
(hobbitish behaviour)..... Being a hobbit, and hence tough (looks in 
Cindy's direction) he hangs on instead of fading to a ringwraith, and 
by the time Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam encounter him he is the complete 
mess we know and a) for the tough Sams, despise, b) for us bleeding 
heart Frodos, pity. 

But the point was that he made a very bad beginning. He got himself to 
his destination just as surely as Pettigrew got to his. No-one denies 
that Pettigrew probably was afraid of Voldemort's power or that he was 
perhaps very strongly tempted by Voldemort. Neither can one deny that 
Smeagol was very strongly tempted by the Ring. But Smeagol's murder of 
his best friend is as blameable as Pettigrew's murder of his. 

Smeagol vs. Frodo is like Pettigrew vs. Bertha Jorkins.

And the reason Pettigrew and Smeagol are so piteous is that they have 
done it to themselves, but then got way more than they wanted.

> > On-topic, I believe that quote is the greatest piece of thinking 
of 
> > LotR, and I've often used it as a base against death sentence.
> 
> Well, do not forget that Smeagol/Gollum is a literary construct who
> has a place to play in the moving-forward of the plot of the book.
> When Gandalf speaks, he speaks not with the voice of a wise man with
> insight into the moral function of the universe, but rather, with 
the
> voice of the authour who knows that Gollum has a further role in the
> plot.

One could similarily disregard any moral insight in most works of 
literature on the grounds that it furthers the plot. In HP, for 
example, Dumbledore's words to Harry about the Mirror of Erised set up 
the climax, but they are also worthwhile in their own right. Perhaps, 
in the run of things, they are most worthwhile in their own right. In 
Hamlet, "There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it 
be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it 
be not now, yet it will come - the readiness is all" is an extremely 
important plot mechanism if you want to get Hamlet into the necessary 
but very suspicious fencing match with Laertes. Should we then 
disregard Hamlet's "insight into the moral function of the universe" 
and instead keep foremost "the voice of Shakespeare who knows that 
Hamlet needs to fight Laertes if maximum body count is to be 
achieved?" 

> > "If they had killed him, many other people wouldn't have died", 
> > since they couldn't have known (the plan was to imprison him, not 
> > let him go free). 
> 
> They DID know. They had steeled themselves to the task at hand 
(taking
> any life, even one as deserving of death as Wormtail, is never a
> casual decision) and were about to do the deed when Harry stepped 
>in.

I think you have misunderstood him. He said that Lupin and Black 
cannot offer up the justification that HP fans often use for killing 
Pettigrew. This is correct. At the time, Lupin and Black were faced 
with the alternatives of 1) killing Pettigrew and 2) handing him over 
to the authorities. Neither of these alternatives was difficult to 
carry out. Nevertheless, Lupin and Black plan to do the first. There 
was no question of Wormtail causing more future deaths at this point. 
The possibility does not even enter these men's minds. 

> Sirius and Lupin are treating him as if he were the most dangerous
> creature in the universe, and are entirely correct to do so. Past
> behaviour is on their side.

I always thought that they were treating him as if he was the weakest 
incompetent in the universe, actually. They just don't take him 
seriously, and manage to mangle up a rather simple operation. Chained 
to Ron. HMPPHHH.

> Harry's big mistake is to equate the putting-down of Wormtail with
> "murder".

O.K. Let's put it this way. Tomorrow morning you wake up and you see a 
wanted murderer with a gun and some dynamite on your back lawn. Given 
that he's a very dangerous person, would you be justified in shooting 
 and killing him with your hunting rifle? Sure. I don't think anyone 
would disagree, though it might be considered more prudent to run out 
the front door and let someone else deal with it.

However, consider that you look out your backwindow and see the wanted 
murderer lying unconscious on the lawn in a pool of blood, unarmed. 
Would you be justified in shooting and killing him with your hunting 
rifle? 

I don't believe so. It doesn't matter that he deserves to die. It 
isn't even primarily a question of the rights and wrongs of capital 
punishment. But it's the law's responsibility. Unless the law is 
failing in its responsibility, I don't see citizens as having the 
right to take the law upon themselves. In Book V, we will be seeing 
the law failing in that responsibility, but in PoA, it was ready to 
assume it. 

> Death isn't punishment. Death is the removal of a danger that cannot
> be removed any other way.

Exactly. This is always my argument against Capital Punishment, 
actually. After all, most death row inmates aren't dangerous in any 
way, but perhaps we should not go there. As was brought up a long time 
ago when I was bemoaning Rowling's out-of-hand dismissal of Vernon's 
views on the death penalty, this is a very touchy issue for Americans. 
Surprisingly touchy from a Canadian point of view. But then we don't 
have the death penalty currently, so our discussions are pretty much 
academic. If it came back, we might heat up like our Southern 
neighbours.

> But I wouldn't be so quick to assume that his habit of giving second
> chances is extended to _everybody_, but rather, I suspect it is only
> given to people who deserve it. I don't believe for a second that
> Dumbledore would have pardoned Wormtail.

Well. There's different things you can mean by pardon. I don't think 
anyone should give Wormtail a second chance. He's gone a little too 
far and should at least be serving out the rest of his life in jail. 
Now, if Wormtail really repented and asked for forgiveness, a heroic 
Dumbledore might give it to him, but forgiveness does not equal 
special breaks. I nearly choked over an article in the newspaper 
recently about the would-be assassin of John Paul II who is now 
arguing that he should be let out of jail because the Pope has 
forgiven him, and therefore, the attempted murder he committed doesn't 
count. Now, that's logic worthy of Peter Pettigrew. 

Now, I always found it rather funny in a twisted, edgey sort of way 
that Lupin is all bleeding heart to Harry in the patronus practice 
scenes, but turns really tough in the Shrieking Shack. 

Eileen