Vengeance

[Jim Ferer <jferer@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51782

Elkins:"I keep obsessing on scenes like the Train St...er, *Step* and
how  they are constructed), is that this emphasis on
Vengeance-As-Peril  seems so very much at odds with the author's
fondness for 'just  deserts' humour and 'comeuppance' resolutions to
her plotlines."

Cindy:"Anyway, I'm not entirely sure what to make of JKR's treatment
of vengeance. For instance, we are meant to enjoy Harry's throwing mud
at Malfoy from the cover of the cloak. Come-uppance humor, once again.
Harry gets to take vengeance upon his tormentor without consequence. I
read JKR as signaling that we are not to be bothered by what Harry does."

Harry's mudballs are vengeance of a mild sort.  JKR doesn't seem to
have any problem at all with comeuppance or just deserts, what I
called rough justice.

Cindy:"Similarly, there's Hermione's slap of Draco. That one struck me
as another moment when a character is allowed a bit of vengeance
without author condemnation."

I don't think we should call that vengeance, at least not calculated
retribution. Hermione was overwhelmed with outrage, enough that for
once she stopped being intellectual, in control Hermione. She
surprised her friends, and she surprised us. What she did has more in
common with the Train 'Stomp' than the mudball incident.  I've never
seen anything to make me think JKR has a problem with that, either.

I wouldn't be surprised that when JKR writes one of those scenes she
remembers all the times some creep who richly deserved a comeuppance
didn't get it.  Many of her readers (myself, I admit it) get quite a
bit of vicarious satisfaction that somewhere the bad guys pay - proof
positive, if any were needed, that the story is indeed a fantasy.

Cindy:"I do have to say that I sense a double-standard. Vengeance from
an Evil character is bad; vengeance from a Good character is OK, so
long as no one gets hurt. And maybe sometimes even if someone gets
hurt. Ton Tongue Toffee, anyone?"

Yes. JKR does not believe in moral equivalence. The good guys are
good, and therefore don't deserve bad things happening to them. The
bad guys are bad, and do deserve comeuppance. Karma is not delayed in
the wizard world. Sometimes. More proof the wizard world is not like
this one.

Cindy:"And vengeance by an Evil character against an Evil character
(Voldemort torturing Wormtail as punishment for letting Crouch Sr.
escape)? I get no sense that JKR wishes the reader to disapprove."

I get no sense she approves, either.  She does make the point that
evil people don't care for anyone, even the ones that bring you back
to life.  It negates the notion that Voldemort's is just the other
"side," with mutual loyalty and dedication applied to a different
leader and a different cause. IOW, Voldemort is not loyal to his
followers the way Dumbledore is; he holds his followers in almost as
much contempt as his enemies.  Another lesson in the nature of evil.