Conspiracies and re-assessments

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 111930

> >  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?
> >
> >  Pippin
> 
> Caesian:
> Oh for heaven's sake. :: slaps forehead ::  I see the light!  I
mean,  even though (obviously) the author intended that when we look back
on  that scene, we'll all realize that it was Lupin who was really,
really  evil.  Lupin who kept trying to read his book, and didn't laugh
when  James insulted Snape.<

Actually, I think that is exactly what JKR intends. We will see that
Lupin's choice to look the other way while what he considered to be
really bad things were being done foreshadowed similar behavior in the future. I haven't
seen JKR demonstrate there is any difference at all between evil that puts you on the evil
list for good, and evil that you repent of, except that you decide to take your second 
chance, as Dumbledore puts it. 

But your original statement as I understood it, was that we wouldn't
learn anything about the people whom Harry thinks are good which
would provoke the reader to reassess their moral character. 
Now maybe schoolyard bullying doesn't qualify as evil in your opinion,
but did you think, before the Pensieve scene, that Teenage!James was a
schoolyard bully who was given to the kind of things we saw him do? I would say that most
readers, and Harryhimself, did reassess their opinion of Teenage!James. 

For most of us, not being Tom Riddle wouldn't be a choice between what's right and what's 
easy. Very few of us are capable of following in Riddle's footsteps. Most of us would not 
decide on our own to commit genocide or eat little children, but history shows that a great 
many of us are sadly capable of looking the other way while these things are being done, 
or of being led to do them ourselves if no one is brave enough to stop us. 

IMO, JKR is not addressing herself to potential Riddles, she's addressing
herself to the complacent and the apathetic. Harry complacently made some assumptions 
about his father that turned out to be wrong, and I suspect most readers were just as 
surprised as he was.

Pippin