The wages of gluttony.

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 145414


> Magpie: 
> 
> "One of my off-the-wall and off-the-cuff analogies, that I hope 
makes
> sense and doesn't offend anyone: Let's say I'm a white explorer 
and I
> encounter indigenous Americans for the first time and give them
> alcohol.  They drink it and fall down drunk or get sick and think 
they
> are going to die.  Well, I know they aren't going to die.  I think
> it's a great practical joke, all my friends laugh at it. Look at 
the
> funny Indians."

Bruce:
> 
> Not a good analogy. 

Magpie:
Not my analogy.  I didn't write that.

However, I will still reply to this idea:

Bruce:

 The Indians had no idea that the White Man was not to be
> trusted.  Dudley knows that wizards are not to be trusted--he's 
had that dinned
> into him since he was old enough to understand anything.  Even if 
he didn't know
> what the toffee would do for him, he knew, or should have known, 
that SOMETHING
> unpleasant would happen; the last time he ran afoul of a wizard, 
he got stuck
> with a pig's tail.  No, he had nothing to blame the engorgement of 
his tongue
> than his own gluttony.

Magpie:

What did say on this subject was that it doesn't matter whether 
someone should know better, that doesn't make the aggressor any less 
responsible for his own actions.  If a child told not to take candy 
from strangers takes candy from a stranger and winds up poisoned or 
abducted, the candy-giver is the one responsible, not the child.  If 
a woman walks down a dark street she's been told to a avoid and is 
attacked, the attacker can not blame her for what he did.  The twins 
made candy, intentionally left it and wanted someone to eat it.  
Dudley's falling for it does not make that okay.  They are far more 
to blame for the engorgement of his tongue, since they created the 
engorging thing and left it out for him to eat.  Dudley's gluttony 
does not give them the right to do anything to him at all. Someone 
could, in fact, say that the Indians shouldn't have trusted the 
white man either.  Plenty of people do.

Bruce:
> 
> And besides, considering how mean he's been to Harry all these 
years, it is high
> time that something nasty should happen to him.


Magpie:

Well, sure.  But there are a lot of people who have been mean in the 
world and that does not give me the right to do something mean to 
them.  I could do that, but I would just be being mean.  

-m