OOP: A person is more than the worst thing they have done

[donna_immaculata]

No: HPFGUIDX 63793

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Susanne <siskiou at e...> wrote:
> 
> 

> 
> This probably has come up before, but there is just now way
> I can read all the posts coming in right now:
> 
> Wasn't it Sirius, who told Ron (I think) that you should
> look how a person treats their inferiors to get a real
> measure of what that person is like?
> 
> I was quite surprised to see him treat Kreacher the way he
> did, after the lecture he gave Ron.
> 
> -- 
> Best regards,
>  Susanne     

Sirius has indeed lectured Ron on this subject, but you musn't forget that his circumstances are so very different from Crouch's. Sirius is left (mostly) alone, trapped in a house he hates, and on top of everything he's been through, and dealing with severe depressions, he has to endure the mad babbling of a house-elf who is devoted to the family he despises. I would certainly lose my temper with the elf, and I've got Lupin's patience. 

And there is a great difference between how Crouch treats Winky and how Sirius treats Kreacher. While Crouch talks to Winky from the position of a person belonging to a supreme species, calling her elf in a cold, unpersonal manner, Sirius's anger is... well, personalised. He dislikes Kreacher because the elf is a nasty, devious creature, not because he's an elf. He treats him like he would any human, too, who annoyed him just as much. AND he always refers to him as 'Kreacher', not as 'elf'.

Donna Immaculata
*who hopes that she remembers correctly that Crouch, too, was calling Winky 'elf' whilst talking to her*



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