ESE!Fudge

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 113737

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
<justcarol67 at y...> wrote:

> My point is simply that we're abusing the word "evil," which 
should stand for conduct and character so morally 
reprehensible, so wicked and cruel that no redemption is 
possible.<

Erm, but  wouldn't Dumbledore offer a second chance, 
redemption, to anyone who sincerely repents?  No matter how 
morally reprehensible, wicked and cruel their conduct was? 

I use 'evil' when the damage is lasting and serious, and the 
action that caused it was, in the view of the books,  morally 
reprehensible. I don't think there is any question that Rowling 
considers Fudge's conduct in OOP morally reprehensible.  While 
it was not immoral for Fudge to believe that Dumbledore was 
trying to seize power from him, it was immoral  and manipulative 
for him to mislead the public to think that he opposed 
Dumbledore because the old man was past it. 

So I would say that Fudge was evil in OOP, but I wouldn't use the 
ESE! tag, since to me that means he was consciously 
conspiring with Voldemort. I don't think that will prove to be the 
case.

I think what  Rowling wants us to understand with 
Fudge is that though most of us want to be good,  we are all 
capable of evil, and it is when we don't recognize it, and call it by 
its true name, that we are  most in its power. 


Pippin
who finds this a very appropriate topic for the eve of Yom Kippur