Rita Skeeter ( WAS: Re: Hermione's growth)

[Kirstini]

No: HPFGUIDX 82578

 Fred Waldrop wrote:
> Laura, just wondering, would you consider Rita and Umbridge basicly 
the same type of nasty person?
Did Rita try to have dementors sent to take anyones soul?
Did Rita make anyone write lines with a quill that cuts the hand and 
uses blood from said cut to write the lines?I would not like to be 
friends with someone like a Rita Skitter, but at least she did not 
PERSONALLY try to KILL anyone, just humiliate them. There is a 
difference between being "HORRIBLE" and UNKIND. But, perhaps I have 
met more people and understand there are many levels between nice and 
horrible. *shrugs to own self also*>

I don't know if it's a case of "knowing" more people, Fred. I think 
that it's entirely possible that Laura uses the word "horrible" in an 
entirely different way from the way you use. Laura may have different 
terms that she uses to describe Umbridge..words like "horrendously, 
villainously evil" perhaps ;p? Much like morality itself, it's a 
subjective judgement. 
The "many levels" you identified are one of my favourite things about 
the Pottersverse, mainly because the sophistication JKR employs to 
construct them. Rita *can* be horrible, and make us squirm, and the 
reader thinks "Ah! Rita is BAD." Then along comes Dolores Umbridge, 
another piece of work altogether, but yet, even beside her 
atrocities, it's still incredibly difficult to judge Rita "good". 
Harry himself(especially OoP Harry), as has been pointed out on list 
before, is a hero who deliberately rejects authority and rules, and 
yet is (eventually) praised for doing so. JKR's moral landscape 
mimics life, rather than the conventional black/white morality 
espoused by so much other, more conventional children's (and adult) 
literature. 
Kirstini