Conspiracies and re-assessments

[naamagatus]

No: HPFGUIDX 112101

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> 
wrote:
>> > 
> > 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".  
> <snip>
> .  Schoolyard brats, certainly.  Evil, to me, means a deeper lack 
of moral concern.  
<snip>
> > 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.  
> 
> 
> 
> Pippin:
> Ahhhh...community standards. Okay, but the community which 
> should apply is not yours, or mine, but Hogwarts. Is 'pantsing' 
> normal student fun at Hogwarts? Have we ever seen anybody 
> 'pantsed'  at Hogwarts before? Lupin says they were out of line 
> and he ought to know. This is not considered a bit of dirty fun. 
Lily 
> doesn't tell Snape to be a good sport and buck up, does she?
> 
<snip> 
> But perhaps you think canon takes a different view of evil? Are 
> you saying that in the Potterverse,a  person who does evil and 
> repents of it is not only evil no longer, but never was evil in the 
> first place? 
> 


I loved Ginger's definition of Evil as "deep lack of moral concern", 
and I think it's bang on in regard of JKR's own view of what is Evil. 
Remember Voldemort's "there is no good and evil, only power and those 
too weak to seek it"? This is what makes Voldemort the ultimate evil 
figure, and also a personofication of Evil -he not only lacks 
completely any kind of moral concern, he has turned this lack into an 
explicit creed. 
I agree that James' abuse of Snape is true cruelty,and as such, evil. 
However, a single evil deed doesn't show a person to be evil, right? 
Everybody has cruel, sadistic streaks in them, that may surface at 
certain circumstances. I think that an evil person (per JKR, also) is 
one who isn't concerned about those tendencies, doesn't try to fight 
them. The ultimate evil, as I said above, is to consciously choose to 
let the cruel tendencies reign. 


Naama