[HPforGrownups] Re: Conspiracies and re-assessments

[Magda Grantwich]

No: HPFGUIDX 112596

> Valky now:
> Let's investigate their sense of superiority in Sirius own words.
> In POA we are told that James and Sirius befriend a WW outcast 
> discovering his inner greatness and redeeming a wrongly 
> condemned child from his tragic existence into the arms of 
> unselfish, bigotry free brotherhood. 
> The defense for Snape in the pensieve is that he was minding his
> own 
> business. Hmm... was he also minding his own business while others 
> disdained First Year Remus arriving from his transformations 
> deprived of sleep and looking haggard and unkempt? 
> Indeed I think he was.  Was it Snape who made to give lonesome 
> tragic Remus a kindness he had never known and was unfairly denied.
> No it was James and Sirius. 


Magda:
Oh, please.  You've been reading waaaay too much fanfiction.  But
granting your assumptions: so what if he was minding his own
business?  Is that a crime? Does that mean the hundreds of other kids
who didn't become Remus' "bestest mates" were also in some way
morally challenged?  Even if they weren't minding their own business?


> In GOF Sirius relates to us that the world was dark and awful when 
> LV was terrorising the neighbourhood. It was well known that he had
> turned the Dark Arts on the community. Killed people they knew and 
> their dearly beloved, created enmity and discord among the 
> wizardkind turning brother against brother (I am sure Sirius and 
> Regulus weren't the first.) ,crushed innocence in his furious
> pinch, bereaved good people before their time. 
> He was a monster *Obsessed with the Dark Arts* and EVERYONE had 
> suffered some loss to his cause and by his practice of Dark Arts.  
> 
> In hindsight, look at two boys living in the age of WWII. 
> If one of those boys believed that the Third Reich was a bunch of 
> crock and made fun of the other boy, who read it at school...... 
> does it matter if the Reich boy practiced any anti Judaism?
> If the first boy thought in his own mind he was somewhat superior
> to the boy reading the Third Reich. 
> You would probably say he was right, yes? 

Magda:
What do you mean "read it at school"?  I really don't understand this
analogy. It sounds (and I'm sure you don't mean it that way) that
reading a book somehow constitutes a crime-like activity and is a
sign of a potential criminal in the making.  

I would just like to point out that the Dark Arts, unlike Nazi-ism,
are not illegal.  DA books can be found in the restricted section of
Hogwarts' library, and people pursuing a career as an Auror or other
legal professional would no doubt study them.  So the comparison is
not completely accurate.
 
> And even if this first boy was a bully and a fool so as to taunt
> the second one endlessly through his days in school..... 
> openly deride the principles of the Third Reich in public to 
> him...... and behave like an absolute prat. 
> You would yet see now, knowing the atrocities that the Reich 
> incited, that it is the first boy who is the one of the two who was
> fighting the *good* cause. Would you not?

Magda:
Well, I think a prat is a prat no matter what.  Wouldn't it have made
more sense for James (let's drop the nameless boy stuff, shall we?)
to befriend Snape like he befriended Sirius and Remus and get him
away from the Dark Arts?  How is bullying someone supposed to change
their minds?

And I really don't think we want to get into the claim that because
someone is on "the good side" that they're somehow excused for not
acting like it.  You are a good person if you do good things and
bullying is not a good thing.
 
> In GOF and OOtP we are furnished that Snape was a young boy who 
> liked,  probably practiced (fly killer),and was reputed to be knee 
> deep in Dark Arts. This is as much as saying Snape is that boy, 
> wether or not he supported Voldemort/Hitler, he was entrenched in 
> the Warlords fundamental principles. 
> And hence my analogy sticks like a crazy glue.

Magda:
Well, I'm worried now because I've killed insects in my home and I
would again if they were in my bedroom.  I don't know too many people
who LIKE sleeping in a room with flies.  But I don't think they (or
I) are potential mass murderers because of it.
 
> So James and Sirius thought they were superior to Snape, they even 
> made him cry.  Is that *really* such a bad thing given the context 
> of the story? I am still not saying that their actions were right. 
> But are they entitled to their delusion of superiority, after all?
> 
> Valky

Magda:
The problem with "delusions of superiority" is that people are the
worst judges of their own personal superiority or whatever.  They're
not exactly unbiased, are they?   And it's very convenient to be able
to do not-nice things because you're superior to the person you're
doing it to - which, by the way, was one of the "principles" unlying
the Third Reich.

Magda


		
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