Conspiracies and re-assessments

[quigonginger]

No: HPFGUIDX 111889

> Pippin:
> ::blinks:: IMO, grayness was studying illegal magic and leading a 
> werewolf through a populated area for kicks. Evil is holding 
> someone against their will and threatening to strip them naked 
> in public. Does evil have to be wearing a robe and a hood before 
> we recognize it?

Ginger ponders:

Wow, this is one of those areas where I don't think there will ever 
be a consensus drawn.  We all bring in our pasts and experiences.  

Personally, I don't think James and Sirius were any worse than the 
kids I grew up with.  I knew plenty of guys who got "pantsed" on the 
schoolyard.  I never got "pantsed" myself, but I did get "bra-ed".  
Then there was that little incident with the faminine product stolen 
out of the girls' room trash and thrown from guy to guy around the 
classroom as they announced to whom it belonged.  That's what you get 
for being "first".

If these were the worst things that happened in my life, I'd be a 
happy duck.  Or maybe I'd obsess on them because nothing else worse 
had happened to make me realize how trivial they were.  As is, they 
make amusing stories to tell when rehashing the "good old days".

So does this make the people who did this "evil"?  Not in my mind.  
Immature, tactless, vulgar, insensitive... sure.  None of them grew 
up to be evil.  That's why I have a hard time labeling J&S as "evil" 
based on the Penseive scene.  Schoolyard brats, certainly.  Evil, to 
me, means a deeper lack of moral concern.  I think that had they 
continued on in this fashion they could have become evil.  They were 
showing a definate lack of compassion towards Snape, which, had they 
continued to treat others with that same lack of compassion, could 
have lead to a downward spiral.

I guess the gist of what I'm saying is that if I label J&S as "evil", 
then I have to label the RL people I know who did the same things 
as "evil" as well.  I can't do that, because I know they are not.  

Anyone who may have a different definition of "evil" is most 
certainly entitled to consider them as such, but for me, they fall 
short.

As I said, I don't think this is an area on which we (meaning the 
list) will ever agree.  Such is the case with relative terms.  But it 
does make for interesting discussion.  

Ginger, feeling the dormant psych minor rising as she waits to read 
both sides of this issue.