Vicarious Retribution (long)

[nrenka]

No: HPFGUIDX 128831

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Magda Grantwich 
<mgrantwich at y...> wrote:

> 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.  

I'd add a qualifier: I think it's not only your actions, but your 
character that matter for JKR.  Character includes the immediate 
intentions and motivations behind actions, but also the more abstract 
ones (is something done out of duty, to obey a law, or because it 
corresponds to a virtue--those are the three main threads in modern 
ethics).

Take Draco.  Draco has done mostly petty schoolboy things, although 
as Alla points out downthread (and has been discussed in the past), 
the execution of Buckbeak is more major than we might give it credit 
for.  Some have argued that the Twins have done more overt damage 
than Draco.  Why do they get a comparatively free pass from the 
author?

They aren't motivated by malice and an ideology of hatred in the way 
that Draco is.  Draco's character is not a good one, and he has so 
far evinced a lack of interest in cultivating virtues.  Hagrid screws 
up, but his intentions and thus his character are solid--and 
Dumbledore trusts in him because of his character.  Choices show 
character in the Potterverse; choices don't make it.  (Alas).

How this works out with our more contentious characters remains to be 
seen; but I suspect that those who act for the wrong reasons, 
whatever the results of the actions, are going to end up getting the 
short end of the stick in authorial treatment.

-Nora had this insight the other day about Rowling as a virtue 
ethicist, and finds it discomforting but if the shoe fits...