Marietta and Hermione (and Percy) (and C.S. Lewis) and Tonks and Molly, oh my

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 121023


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "eggplant9998" wrote:

> In Marietta's case motives would matter to me only if due to some 
> astounding plot twist she was the only one who believed (and 
> believed correctly, that's very important!) 

IIRC, C.S. Lewis made it very clear, both in Narnia and in The
Screwtape Letters, that (in his religion), it is not at all morally
important whether a person's belief is correct; the only moral
importance is if the belief is sincere and the person acts according
to his belief even at such costs as being courageous and self-
sacrificing.

I seem to recall a person who fought on behalf of the evil god against
the defenders of the good Aslan, and killed some of the good guys
before himself being killed in battle, and awoke in Aslan's heaven
because he gave his life for his sincere belief that the evil god was
really good.

Which is kind of awkward to think about for real life, when torturers
and terrorists and other operatives of the bad guys might sincerely
believe that they are doing the right thing to advance goodness. Then
we should think that they are stupid rather than evil. (The usual word
is 'misguided', but I jump to the conclusion that anyone who believes
something so totally opposed to what I know to be true must be stupid.)

But no matter how sincere the bad guys are, we can't let them win and
impose an incompetent dictatorship on people, because it would cause
so much suffering to people for so many generations. 

But I imagine that C.S. Lewis would say we have to fight against them
in order to be true to our beliefs, but it isn't really morally
important whether we win or not, because this world is just a testing
ground where people can earn the right to go to heaven, and the people
suffering under the incompetent dictatorship have so much opportunity
to be courageous and self-sacrificing for their beliefs....

I think a lot about the pre-Christian Roman notion that part of
Goodness is to serve and advance the State that you were born into --
in their case, go around conquering other States to increase the size
of their empire -- in the case of people born into those neighboring
States, to fight against the Roman conquerors until totally defeated.
It seems to me they were inconsistent in judging that rebels in their
conquered territories were not merely inconvenient, but evil. But
having a moral system that approves of wars of conquest, killing,
enslaving, etc, does make many decisions simpler.

Siriusly Snapey Susan wrote:

<< Hmmm. What does this do to a Percy? He's certainly following a set
of principles & values, *extremely* consistently, but he's not
likely to be labeled "innately good" by either JKR or a reader or a
character w/in the story who knows him well. He's chosen the not-
quite-right set of principles & values, then? >>

And Meriaugust wrote in 
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/121016 :

<< Percy, OTOH, puts his career and personal ambitions ahead
of his family. He insults his father, ignores his mother and all
because, like Fudge, holding on to his job is most important to him.
I applaud Percy for sticking to his guns and doing what he thought
was right. But what he did was for his own personal gain. >>

Yes, I believe that JKR presented Percy as following the principle of
self-interest and careerism, rather than any system of morality. She
had Percy laughing at Fudge's bad jokes and being a general sycophant,
and there is no clue that he was doing it because of hero-worshipping
Fudge. It would be different if Percy chose Fudge over his family
because he had a principle that the government is always right or he
thought Fudge was so wise and competent or he really believed that
Harry had gone mad and Dumbledore was using him to make trouble for
some selfish no-good reason. 

Paul wrote in http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/121012 :

<<Has there been a thread on the possibility of a Harry/Tonks SHIP? >>

I don't remember if there's been a thread about it, but back in 2003
when I used to attend the weekly chats, there were certainly chatters
in favor of it. Well, depending what 'it' is. No one thought Harry was
ready to marry at age 15 or 16, but many, thinking he will die in
volume seven, thought it tragic that he would die without ever having
had sex. My opinion is that having sex once is probably worse than
never at all, because the first couple of times are so extremely
stressful and nervous as the beginner worries whether he/she is doing
it right... Other chatters said that's why he should get together with
an experienced, good-humored, slightly older woman who could act as a
teacher: that is, Tonks. 

IIRC some said that Tonks, as a newly introduced character, could be
killed off by bad guys as a blow at Harry, thus giving him more motive
to fight the bad guys, without hurting any readers' feelings by
harming Hermione or Ron. 

Charme wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/121009 :

<< I got this weird, strange and lingering impression that Molly
wasn't too happy with the possibility of Hermoine being Harry's
girlfriend:

"Harry looked between them, then said, "Mrs.Weasley, you didn't
believe that rubbish Rita Skeeter wrote in Witch Weekly, did you?
Because Hermoine's not my girlfriend."
"Oh," said Mrs. Weasley, "No - of course I didn't." But she became
considerably warmer toward Hermoine after that." (GoF/US)

Now, before I get Stunned repeatedly by those Molly fans, let me say
this: earlier in the same chapter only a couple pages before, Molly
angrily admonishes Amos Diggory for believing anything Rita Skeeter
writes. So I'm either left with Molly:

- As the "do as I say not as I do" sort of person with Amos, yet she
believes the worst of Hermoine per that article (if that makes sense)
- If the Ron/Hermoine shippers are right, how she'd take having a
Muggle daughter-in-law like Hermoine :) >>

I read that *entirely* as Molly, ferocious to the point of
irrationality in defense of her family members, believed Rita
Skeeter's accusations because they presented Harry (an unofficially
adopted family member) as a victim for her to defend. And Harry's
statement comforted her because it meant Hermione hadn't cheated on
him, not because she didn't think Hermione otherwise was good enough
for him. I do think she might be a bit disappointed by Harry/Hermione
ship because she is a Harry/Ginny shipper. But I think she'd be
pleased with Ron/Hermione ship, at least until she realized that
Hermione's SPEW and/or career activities kept her from making dinner
for Ron on most weekdays.

Here is a bit of forbidden fanfic about Bill Weasley coming out to his
family. It starts with Molly nagging him to marry some nice young
witch, even Fleur, and give her grandchildren. Bill replies that he
has already found the person with whom he wants to spend his life, and
it's not a witch. Molly jumps to a conclusion and berates him for
thinking she wouldn't welcome a Muggle girl into the family if she was
his choice, "Don't your father and I always stand up for Muggles are
people too?!"