: Moody -- "Types"--Where Are the Bleeding Hearts? by Elkins'

[antoshachekhonte]

No: HPFGUIDX 125394


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" <dumbledore11214 at y...> 
wrote:
> 
> Elkins in post 33990:
> This is germaine because -- given that you admit that you pretty
> much agree with the *content* of my post, even down to its
> political elements -- what I suspect you must have read that 
> angered you so much was: "Moody's a law-and-order type, and I just
> don't *like* people like that, so I don't like Moody."  
> 
> And so (being perhaps a law-and-order type yourself?), you quite
> reasonably took personal offense at this and retaliated with: 
> "Oh yeah?  Well, I don't like you bleeding-heart jerk-offs either.  
> So there!"
>  
> <SNIP>
> 
> But getting back to the Potterverse, where *are* the bleeding
> heart liberals in canon?  Have we actually seen any at all?  
>  
> Fudge is certainly a head-in-the-sand appeaser -- but he also
> allows his dementors to perform summary executions on accused
> criminals, which absolutely disqualifies him for the Bleeding 
> Heart Club.
> 
> Then we have the Pensieve mob who let off Ludo Bagman -- but their 
> behavior is motivated more by a starry-eyed worship of sports
> heroes than by any bleeding-heart tendencies; we later see
> that they are more than capable of turning hard-line, even
> when faced with a screaming pleading teenager in the dock.
> 
> Now, Lupin would initially seem to fit the profile well enough 
> (he's so *sensitive,* don't you know, so...well, so pale and 
> interesting) -- but when push comes to shove in the Shrieking 
> Shack, he is revealed to be no bleeding-heart.  And the same 
> goes for Hermione, who otherwise would seem to be the primary
> candidate.
>  
> Really, so far in the series, Dumbledore seems to me to be the
> closest thing we've got to the stereotypical bleeding-heart 
> liberal -- and he's still not all that close.  Dumbledore may
> not like the dementors, and he may approve of giving people
> second chances, but he's hardly a _softie_.
>  
> So where *are* the Bleeding Hearts of the wizarding world?  If
> they exist (and surely they do), then Rowling has not yet chosen
> to depict them within the books.
>  
> Bobby wrote in message 34004:
> 
> Quote by Elkins:
> "I don't like Moody.
> I really don't care for him at all. He strikes me as the
> sort of person who would happily strip away all of my civil
> liberties, given half the chance, and I consider such men a
> serious threat to civilized society."
> 
> 
> Bobby:
> 
> "This is the part that really set the tone for the entire post. I
> don't want to come across as attacking you, so let's just say that a
> writer for the Daily Prophet wrote the above quotation. Crouch is
> definitely the type of person who would rejoice in stripping away
> civil liberties and is a threat to civilized society, as JKR means
> him to be. However, Moody has spent his life fighting the bad guys
> for all the right reasons. He has lost his leg, his eye, and a large
> chunk of his nose. He never asks for thanks, or power, or riches.
> And what does he have to show for it? A writer for the Daily
> Prophet, who has never actually fought anyone from the Dark Side,
> believes Moody to be a threat to civilized society. Is that fair?
> In a perfect world Moody would be able to catch all the Death Eaters
> in totally legitimate way, but frankly speaking this is not a perfect
> world and to expect him to do that is completely out of touch with
> the reality of evil. This, then, goes back to my previous point
> about looking at motives, rather than actions, which is easier to do
> in Potter's world than in the real world. When I said that criminals
> are granted more benefit of the doubt than law-enforcement, what I
> meant was that criminals are always, always presumed innocent until
> proven guilty (which they obviously should be). However, there is no
> mechanism to acknowledge the fact that law-enforcement have their
> hands tied behind there back 99% of the time while criminals/Death
> Eaters do not, and if a well-meaning Auror uses questionable means to
> procure a Death Eater, then he is the bad guy."
> 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> I have been reading Elkins writings again and I  again have a couple 
> of questions. :o)
> 
> Now, from reading this post  and  the replies I figured that Elkins 
> does NOT think that there are many characters in canon, whose 
> political views are liberal  enough or as close to RL liberals as 
> possible.
> 
> I also realise that Elkins does NOT like Moody after GoF. I would 
> love to know how she feels about Moody after OOP, but I guess this 
> is not possible, so I will take what I can get. :)
> 
> Now, what we saw in GoF was fake Moody and I tend to agree with some 
> replies to Elkins' post - we could not figure much of real Moody 
> based on GoF.
> 
> I am more interested in your views on real Moody behaviour during 
> the first war. From what I gather  Elkins is not very happy with his 
> behaviour during that times and during Pensieve trials. Are you?
> 
> I don't know. I happen to think that  the mentioning that Moody 
> always tried to bring prisoners alive is a shorthand  for the fact 
> that Moody tried to behave more or less decently even during a war. 
> 
> Any thoughts?
> 
> Alla,
> 
> who apologises if she misinterpreted any views of Elkins.

It's hard to guess Moody's politics, since we see so little of the actual Moody. And what we 
see betrays more about his attitude than his political leanings.

BUT! We do in fact have one very clear example of a bleeding heart liberal (a label that I 
myself proudly bear): Hermione. If bleeding-heart liberalism is characterized by rooting 
for the underdog, support of rights, opposition of oppression that is based on mere 
tradition--the tradition that conservatives are trying to conserve--then SPEW seems like a 
BHL movement to me!

Antosha