[HPforGrownups] Vicarious Retribution (long)

[Magda Grantwich]

No: HPFGUIDX 128805


--- quigonginger <quigonginger at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I feel that JKR has combined elements of these two concepts and 
> merged them into what I will call "vicarious retribution".
> [SNIP] 
> I think that when all is said and done, that Harry will not "pay 
> back" any of the wrongs done to him, either through circumstance of
> by his own choice.  I think that JKR doesn't want the readers to
> feel 
> that Draco, Snape, and Dudley have "gotten away with it", so she 
> takes matters into her own hands.  Justice is served, but in a 
> roundabout way.  
>
> Ginger, whose company is due to arrive at any minute.  Gaah!


I don't buy it.  I think she sticks the episodes in there so the
reader enjoys it at the time (Dudley's pigtail, Dudley's ten-ton
tongue, Draco's ferrethood) but later on after some time of
reflection we realize what we should have seen at the time.  Namely
that it's wrong to inflict pigtails and mutant tongues on people and
that even ferrets can be hurt.

There's a lot of that kind of second-thoughtism in OOTP.  In the
first couple of books, we've seen the ghosts as comic and sympathetic
figures.  Man, wouldn't it be cool to be a ghost?  Come on, how many
people envied Myrtle her opportunities to haunt others?  But then
Harry talks to Nick about Sirius being a ghost and Nick explains and
suddenly being a ghost isn't cool, it's kind of....sad...and
pathetic.  We feel sorry for Nick.  

Ditto with the VR Ginger describes.  We're not supposed to cheer for
the acts of violence/humiliation; JKR makes that clear.  Arthur
Weasley is enraged and shouts at the twins over the tongue toffee,
listing real reasons why it was wrong.  McGonagall is horrified by
the treatment of Draco as a ferret.  And Harry is properly shocked by
what he sees in the pensieve.

I realize that everyone wants to see unpopular characters punished
but the big lesson I take from JKR is that being good or bad isn't
like Quidditch teams: you don't pick one side and you're that side as
long as you wear the team colours.  Your goodness or badness depends
on your actions and you're constantly affirming or repudiating your
goodness or badness with the actions you take every day.  There's no
one so bad (except Voldemort) who can't be redeemed someday - if they
take the right actions for good.  Similiarly being a good guy doesn't
give you a free ticket to hurt or attack others, even people you
don't like or who go after you.  

Probably the most moral thing JKR affirms in this series is that
actions and choices have consequences.  You don't get by on good
intentions or extenuating circumstances.  You make a bad choice, you
have to pay sometime down the road.

Magda


		
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