Please explain.

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 144304

eggplant 

> Yes, Snape thinks Harry deserves to be treated badly and Snape has
> made a mistake. People need to take responsibility for their 
mistakes.
> And I'm sure Snape does not see himself as a villain, but he's 
wrong
> about that too.

eggplant:

> This is fiction so I don't care about "the law of ethics". 

Magpie:

Sorry--I said "the law OR ethics."  I don't think there is any law 
of ethics, just what we hammer out ourselves.  It seems like you do 
care about ethics and that's why Snape is supposed to be punished or 
Harry should be treated well.  Talking about right and wrong, and 
how punishment should be meted out, suggests some kind of law or 
formula to me--a character did this so deserves that.  

eggplant:

We're
> talking about how emotions are actually generated, not how they 
should
> come about in some ideal world. 

Magpie:

Yes, but we're also disagreeing about what people deserve or need to 
have happen.  I agree that actions inspire emotions, but that 
doesn't say what a person should do about them or get because of 
them.  People have different emotional reactions to things, and two 
people equally upset by someone's action might have a different idea 
about what must be done about it or how the person should be treated 
in response.

eggplant:
We're talking about a work of fiction
> and how we feel about one character who treats another character
> badly; if that second character is a SOB we will feel one way, and 
if
> he is a wonderful human being that we have grown to love even 
though
> he is fictional we will feel a very different way. And like it or 
not
> that's a fact.

Magpie:

Yes, I already agreed that it was a fact--though a character can 
inspire totally different emotions in different readers, and that's 
also a fact.  Plenty of people in fandom say they were happy 
Dumbledore died.  People can feel however they want, especially 
about fictional characters, but how you feel does not always dictate 
what the right thing to do is, or what should happen in the story 
because of it.  I would never tell anyone that they *must* like 
Snape or Dumbledore because, as you said, how can you even make 
somebody feel something they don't?  But to argue that it will be 
wrong if X doesn't happen because of what Y did you're talking about 
something beyond how we feel about stuff, imo.

eggplant:
> 
> > Compassion is not something that someone earns. 
> 
> And compassion is not something you can intellectually decide you 
> have or not do not have, it is something you ether feel or you 
don't,
> and I feel none for Snape. 

Magpie:

No, you can't--and that's absolutely fine, but to argue that 
Snape "deserves" certain treatment objectively it has to go beyond 
that.  Snape seems to have no compassion for Harry, but you feel 
that he should, or at least behave as if he does, because it's wrong 
for him to torment Harry.  The author may feel the same way about 
that and also other characters and think her heroes should/do as 
well, making it important when characters choose not to murder or to 
prevent murder, like Harry with Peter for instance. 

We can all have ideas of what we'd like to have happen, but it seems 
like that's a slightly different thing.  Once we talk about what 
*should* happen based on what came before we're getting into 
something that can be discussed and argued.

-m