Dirty Harry/Clean Harry

[Kelsey Dangelo]

No: HPFGUIDX 117027


Del:
>I know they had good intentions, but 
>this in itself does not excuse the theft 

Eggplant: 
>> Committing a very small crime in order to stop a vastly greater evil 
is not only justified it is smart. If Harry had not stolen the potions ingredients from Snape because he thought stealing was wrong in my book 
he would forever be branded as a terminally boring Goody Two Shoes. 
Nobody wants to read about the further adventures of Mr. Dudley Do-right.
In future books I hope to see Harry do something REALLY controversial, 
not just saying something rude to a friend or being late returning a 
library book. I want to see Harry spill some (bad guys) blood and not 
feel particularly guilty about it. Remember, Harry is now in a war. A war 
where good people don't sometimes have to do very bad things is impossible; 
and sometimes those good people even start to enjoy the killing. I think 
that's one of the things that makes war so horrible. << 

Kelsey:
I'm laughing because we're back with the 'Goody
two shoes' terminology!! [my personal opinion is
that 'goody two shoes' can be used to describe
someone's moral core, not just their actions, i.e. a
goody two shoes can break the rules, but that was a
different post].

In fact, Eggplant, your whole post brings us back to
the original debate, 'will Harry become 'Dirty
Harry' and do morally not-right things for the
greater good?' debate. Thank you.

I personally think that Harry is very interesting
_because_ he is so good and won't cross that moral
line (killing people) in order to do what's right.
That's maybe the main crutch of the next two books
in Harry's moral dilemma. Obviously, he might have
to kill Voldemort as his destiny, but I think he's
going to be very messed up because of it. And I do
make a difference between breaking a small 'rule'
or moral code (i.e. stealing potions from a large
store in order to track a murderer) and a bigger moral
code (i.e. killing someone). The first doesn't
really hurt anyone and the second does. The first was
because there really wasn't any other option; the
second makes him just as bad as his enemy.

There are lots of 'normal' and 'human'
characters that are realistically breaking rules and
being not perfect. But I think Harry is interesting
because he shows us that someone who cares not a lot
for rules, who is so 'normal' and 'human' and
'realistic', can have such a sound and strong
moral core.

Kelsey, who hopes she's not being redundant.