Conspiracies and re-assessments

[Nora Renka]

No: HPFGUIDX 111921

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:

> Nora:
> 
> > Lily doesn't, but...
> > 
> > "Students all around had gathered to watch.  Some of them 
> had gotten  to their feet and were edging nearer to watch.  Some 
> looked  apprehensive, other entertained...
> > 
> > Several people watching laughed; Snape was clearly 
> unpopular...
> > 
> > 'It's more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean...'
> > 
> > Many of the surrounding watchers laughed, Sirius and 
> Wormtail  included, but Lupin, still apparently intent on his book 
> didn't, and  neither did Lily."
> > 
> > Loathsome as we may (and I certainlny do) find James' 
> behavior, there  are very strong textual hints that a lot of the 
> students are,  frankly, getting a kick out of it.  It's Lily the 
> Muggleborn who  doesn't buy into the larger community 
> standards here.<
> 
> Pippin:
> 
>  Lupin is not a Muggleborn. He is the one in charge of  enforcing 
> community standards and keeping them from being corrupted, 
> and he admits that he failed to do so. How is the behavior of the 
> watching students different from the behavior of the crowd at the 
> QWC? 
> 
> GoF ch, 8
> "Loud jeering, roars of laughter, and drunken yells were drifting 
> towards them; [...] More wizards were joining the marching 
> group, laughing and pointing upward at the floating bodies."

My point was not about Lupin being a coward and failing to reign in 
his friends.  The point was more that a notable amount of the student 
body is getting a kick out of watching what they do to Snape--no one 
but Lily is intervening, no one is gasping in horror or expressing 
open outrage--in other words, this doesn't seem to be something 
deeply shocking to the student body.  Perhaps we should note that it 
is, as is so often in the WW, a case of where the official 
written 'community standards' and the standards that the community 
itself actually holds to in action are not exactly the same thing?

> Nora:
> > I think James is certainly being cruel, and it's an awful action, 
> but  I personally am reluctant to term it 'evil', partially because
> of the  rather unclear motivation and intention--the pantsing 
> seems to be a  misdirected vengeance for Snape's calling Lily a 
> Mudblood.  There's  also questions of scale, and let's not 
> succumb to the slippery slope  here.<
> 
> Pippin:
> 
> I don't see any slope to slide down here. James's motivation isn't 
> unclear at all. He hated Snape 'because he exists' and his friend 
> was bored with celebrating. How is that different than hating Mr. 
> Roberts  and being bored with celebrating? 
> 
>  James was not a willing, conscious ally of Voldemort, nor do I 
> think he ever wanted to become one. But the world isn't divided 
> into evil people and non-Death Eaters either.

I'll go on record as suspecting that there's a little more behind 
that than just simply 'because he exists'--or, we might unpack that 
statement, which is far less clear than it seems in both cases.  The 
DEs are toying with the Muggles because they believe that they are 
inferior creatures who can be treated as objects of amusement by 
those with superior power.

Why exactly James is toying with Snape (who is fully capable of 
fighting back) is another question that is, one must admit, still 
rather canonically open.  My suspicion is that it comes out of a 
hatred and fear of anything associated in his mind with the Dark 
Arts.  I don't know--I just know there's something behind it.  (And 
analystically, we continually admit that we don't know the full range 
of reasons for why Snape is being nasty to the kids--shouldn't we 
extend the same common courtesy of admitting we don't know everything 
in this situation?)

This poster, at least, would like to make a difference between 
tormenting the truly helpless, and tormenting and abusing someone who 
has at least some capacity to fight back.  I do think the parallels 
are intentional, but I think one act is considerably more vile than 
the other.  The slippery slope here is to assert them as complete 
parallels, which elides out the profoundly different contexts.

-Nora gets her research groove on--fun with madrigals