Good moral core (Re: Dirty Harry/Clean Harry)

[Dan Feeney]

No: HPFGUIDX 117138


Del:
> > > It always goes back to "this is the right thing to do". But 
why ??

Neri:
> > If you don't have a lot of information, going with the nice 
people is a better bet than going with the nasty people (hey, I just 
realized this is what JKR said about men ;-) ). If later it turned 
out you made the wrong choice, this is why we have second chances.
 
SSSusan:
>  It *felt* like the right thing to do once he'd "chosen" Ron over 
Draco. Ron was fun, Ron was nice, it felt like the right thing to 
do.... It *felt* GOOD, we're told.  It *felt* RIGHT. There's your 
reinforcement.  And that doesn't seem hard to understand or believe, 
for me.
> Rather than (understandably) giving in to their circumstances as 
many do, some **identify** with others outside their circumstances 
and fight the circumstances.  

Dan:
Well, this is really core for me, in trying to limn the ethical 
dimensions of the books.

Our own response to Draco in our encounters with him are set up so as 
to parallel Harry's. Harry, new to the WitchWizard World, as we are, 
hears all kinds of judgemental claptrap from Draco about what is, to 
Harry, more or less an entirely new and amazing world - regarding 
Hufflepuff ("..imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, 
wouldn't you?"), school rules (first years not allowed to have their 
own broomstick), the crime if Draco isn't picked for Quidditch, 
according to his dad, who he refers to both with derision ("I think 
I'll bully father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in 
somehow") and with some respect (Father says), and, most tellingly, 
his response to Hagrid, which is dismissive (a servant of some sort). 
In this last, Rowling is clearly playing on our somewhat whimsical 
response to Hagrid - we have responded to this well-meaning but 
somewhat thick oaf, our first real WitchWizard character, with 
suspended judgement - we are basically forced to, as he is our first 
wizard. We may even like him, as a character. And then, after showing 
us Hagrid, she throws Draco into our presence, overtly arrogant, 
derisive, practicing prejudice in an entirely juvenile way, trying to 
embody, even, these recieved prrejudices. Draco is our first glimpse 
into the petty, into the kind of division and mean-spiritedness that 
is, finally, at the centre of the books. All this is quite overt.

When we meet Ron, however, we are rather introduced to someone who 
expresses natural curiosity, and observational skills (about the 
scar, e.g.), self-depricating humour (Scabbers and he's useless), 
and, most importantly, someone who, though from an all-wizarding 
family, expresses fair-mindedness ("There's loads of people who come 
from Muggle families and they learn quick enough.")

My question is, then, what choice is there? Susan says we are told it 
*FELT* right. Perhaps the setup by Rowling I've described is what she 
means, for Rowling doesn't, as usual, describe how Harry is feeling, 
either when he first meets Draco, though he is reminded of Dudley, or 
when Draco and Co. enter Ron and Harry's compartment on the train.

"He was looking at Harry with a lot more interest than he'd shown 
back in Diagon Alley." That is, Draco is interested and observant now 
about Harry BECAUSE he's Harry Potter. As we know, this aspect of his 
fame will become quite irritating to Harry in the next 2 or 3 years.

Now, without going into too great detail, the answer to Del's "why" 
is really the answer to why WE would choose Ron over Draco, if that 
is what we would do. These are tests, not tests like math tests, but 
like testing the waters. We are going to have to negotiate this new 
and amazing world, with only our internal registers to go on, at the 
start.

Answering why Harry chooses a certain response, which has been 
described as right, or good, is answering why we ourselves do. But 
that is not Rowling's project. We do make those choices, mostly 
without understanding wholly why we do. There's no reductionism, or 
moralism involved. A better question, in my opinion, is how Rowling 
can make her own choices so crystal clear, without descending to that 
moralism. Maybe it is, after all, BECAUSE she is not interested in 
reducing these processes to such simple catagories, to some moral 
code.

This is how I read Rowling, at any rate. 

Dan