[HPforGrownups] Re: Punishing Marietta

[Barb Roberts]

No: HPFGUIDX 120850




>  Lupinlore wrote:
>  "Or, to paraphrase James Clavell, "Their is absolutely no excuse for
>  defying legally constituted authority -- unless of course you win.  If
>  you win everything is all right."

What? A pithy statement, but really...but it's a caustic put down of an 
ancient debate. I also think this is an argument that could easily get 
off canon. Many wars, many causes have been fought because people 
argued that a higher authority or at least a universal moral principal 
exist which has more importance than the current civil authority.  
Before the US Civil War, northern abolitionists based their cause on a 
higher law.  The constituted authority declared slavery to be legal in 
the Southern states and that runaway slaves must be returned to their 
rightful owners. The abolitionists, however, pointed to the principals 
of a higher law. And it was controversial then.  Very.  And yes, the 
northern abolitionists *eventually* won, but it took almost a 
generation of time for them to win, and  But if the abolitionists had 
lost would they really believe that there was no excuse for freeing the 
slaves or operating the underground railroad? Of course not.

Hermione definitely comes from the school of thought that one should 
obey the higher law or principals over merely the legally constituted 
authority.  This is a basic part of her character.  All her SPEW 
activities prove it.  She is a house-elf abolitionist.  Whatever one 
thinks of her activities, Hermione would think that it is wrong not to 
resist the authorities whom she sees as disobeying higher, universal 
principles.  And of course, anyone, Hermione or Marietta, if caught, 
will be penalized for disobeying any kind of authority--legal, or in 
Marietta's case, underground.

This is going to be difficult to explain clearly and simply. The world 
of Harry Potter operates in many of the same ways our world does, but 
there is a sense in which  JKR personifies and/or shows in a tangible 
way things that happen in our world when she writes about them.  For 
instance, I am sure that many teachers  think that there is a spirit of 
Peeves operating in their school. Of course, Peeves physically exists 
at Hogwarts.  Likewise Marietta, in real life, would have been 
figuratively branded a traitor by being shunned etc. JKR just makes it 
more real in her world.

Barbara Roberts


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