Vicarious Retribution (long)

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 128835

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "nrenka" <nrenka at y...> wrote:
 

> 
> 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.
> 


I take it you mean, among others, our beloved Potions Master?  
Chuckle.  Just calling a spade a spade.  

I tend to agree with you.  Rowling DOES care a great deal about 
character and virtue, and I suspect that is going to become clearer as 
we move on.

To introduce another concept into this, let me bring up the idea karma 
(not in the formal sense but simply in the sense that people's fates 
in literature are often revealed in their character).  Rowling tends 
to be big into karmic justice.  Given that, fate is predicted in the 
large by character, although not in detail.

Now, and I think we will find this very important for Rowling, how is 
character itself revealed?  In choices, true, but in what kind of 
choices?  Just the big ones?  No, I suspect it is revealed as much, if 
not more, in the everyday choices, especially the hundreds of 
interactions we have on a routine basis.  Thus Draco's racist remarks, 
Snape's classroom snarkiness, and Hagrid's small kindnesses are going 
to matter, I think, more than a lot of people think they will -- or 
want them to.  

Lots of readers like to say that Rowling draws a distinction between 
nice and good.  I'm not at all sure she does.  Often I suspect that is 
a distinction the reader draws and then reads into the story.  Whether 
Rowling sees things that way or not will be revealed in the final two 
books.

Lupinlore