Spy novel? maybe (was Lupin's secrets )

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 118730


Nora wrote :
"Dumbledore says, near the end of CoS, "It is our choices that show 
what we truly are, far more than our abilities."

Show.  Not determine.  

Which is not to wholly invalidate the point made above and the subject
being discussed, but to point out that, perhaps, JKR's cosmology is a
little more essentialist than one might like.  Showing what we are
speaks to there being something there that we actually *are*, deep
down inside (an essence, if you will), and that this fundamental
aspect of our being is revealed more through our choices than our
abilities.  The focus here on revelation rather than self-shaping
seems to point to there being something fixed within people-- which,
like it or not, seems to fit with her statements that Tom Riddle never
loved anyone."

Del replies :
Agreed.

I used to misunderstand this statement, and as a consequence I had
troubles reconciling it with some other elements in the books, mainly
the obvious early "evilness" of people like Tom Riddle, Severus Snape
and Draco Malfoy (and the rest of the Slytherin kids apparently).

When I understood what DD really said, I realised that some people in
the Potterverse may indeed be more inherently evil than others. It
explains how Tom Riddle could be so screwed up at the age of 11, or
why JKR doesn't seem to have any remorse beating on Draco by not
letting him grow up or giving him a chance to make a real
life-changing choice. We haven't seen Draco have any potentially
eye-opening experience, and yet he is still expected to grow up and
see the light, and being punished for failing to do so.

But what I can't reconcile any more now, is when JKR says that she
believes nobody was born evil. Unless she means it like I saw it
explained about psychopaths : that they are the result of a
catastrophic mixture of bad nature, bad nurture and unfortunate
circumstances ?

Del