Vengeance

[David <dfrankiswork@netscape.net>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51792

Cindy wrote:

> 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.  

Ah, but I think we *are* to be bothered, because it is this incident 
that causes Harry to be caught and ultimately be flayed by 
Lupin's "Your parent's sacrifice" speech.

I read (past tense) the Hogsmeade visit as Harry being on a knife-
edge, and the Draco scene as him falling off it.  The fact that it 
is very funny does not alter this.

> 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.

To me, that's not vengeance, that's Hermione helping Draco to 
understand that this really matters.  I doubt the physical pain 
amounted to much at all: what counts is the moral condemnation, and 
paradoxically, the better the person Draco is on the inside, the 
more thast hurts him.  She is paying him the compliment that he is 
worth slapping.
> 
> 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?

I think Arthur's reaction shows that the author recognises that more 
than one view of this scene is possible.  JKR, IIRC, does not really 
take sides, or encourage us to take sides, in the argument between 
him and he twins.

It occurs to me that a really *good* author who wanted to address 
the perils of vengeance might well include scenes designed to let 
the reader choose whether to join in.  In which case, there ought to 
be scenes later which work in the reverse direction: readers who did 
not join in get some sort of reward, readers who did get a shock.

> 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.

Interesting that.  It has never occurred to me to question that this 
incident is meant to show how nasty (and stereotypical) Voldemort 
is.  In short, my own disapproval drowned out any other textual 
signals.  I shall have to go back and look.

David, who would like to question the definition of vengeance in the 
Potterverse