Remus is the worst

[mnaper2001]

No: HPFGUIDX 99410

> Oryomai:
>  
> > 2. I have to agree with Pippin on this.  Remus is the worst of the 
> lot.  There is nothing worse than standing by and doing nothing when 
> you know something is wrong.  I know there's a line in Farenheit 451 
> about this, but I can't remember it.  By standing by and letting 
> things happen, a person is just as guilty as those who act.  It 
> wasn't just once that Remus stood by, it was time after time.
> 
> Renee:
> 
> Sorry, but I fail to see why standing by and doing nothing is worse 
> than actively harming someone without any direct provocation, as 
> happens in the Pensieve scene. I don't see why Remus is worse than 
> Peter, either. Fortunately, you put it differently the second time: 
> Remus is just as guilty. He's not worse. Or at least, not in this 
> scene. (PoA is a different matter.)

Ally:

I think Remus is worse.  When I think of Remus, I think of the person 
in the South during Jim Crow who didn't believe the races were 
unequal but stood by and watched a lynching occur.  I think of the 
German citizens in WWII who had nothing against the Jews but didn't 
speak out when a jewish neighbor was carted off to a concentration 
camp.

It didn't JUST take the KKK or the Nazis to commit these atrocities.  
It took the silence and refusal to intervene of those around them.  
The actors and the passive observers were equal partners in the 
terrible things that occurred.  Their passivity was a necessary 
component of the actors' success.  But we focus so much on the 
actors - because they're out in the open - that we forget the role 
the passive observers play.  

So what makes Remus worse to me is, in a sense, the easy presumption 
that he somehow isn't.  At least  Sirius' impetuousness and arrogance 
are out in the open.  Remus' wishy-washiness - his contribution to 
Snape's humiliation - is hidden.  He is a partner in it, but pretends 
he isn't.  It makes it easier to feel you aren't responsible if you 
don't act, and it makes it easy for others to forget the part you 
played.  

And, in my mind, that makes it easier to repeat those mistakes.  Its 
that insidious aspect of it that makes it worse.

Its harder to see and harder to fight.