Vicarious Retribution (long)

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 128853

Alla wrote:
JKT does not give good guys FREE ticket to hurt people, IMO, but 
the fact that they punish characters who are so obviously guilty of
wrongdoings ( IMO only) allows them to remain good guys.
 

Magda:
How convenient for the good guys - but what if they happen to be
wrong about whether someone is "so obviously guilty of wrongdoings"? 
Does it somehow not count?  
 
After all Barty Crouch Sr. - who was "power mad" (according to JKR's
new website update) but still risked a lot fighting DE's - thought
Sirius was "so obviously guilty of wrongdoings".  Is it really enough
just to say "Oooops!  My bad!"?
 
There has to be some kind of mechanism to determine guilt/innocence
beyond the subjective and possibly incorrect one of common
perception.



Alla:

I am saying that what matters in this theory, if I am not 
misunderstanding Guinger is whether JKR and/or reader is sure that 
character is guilty, not other characters.

Sirius' example is actually an interesting one. He obviously was not 
guilty in betraying the Potters and suffered in Azkaban unjustly. 

But as Snape fan ( I am not making assumptions here, right? :-))won't 
you say that some carmic justice was served by Sirius being in 
Azkaban and that in indirect way he was punished for whatever wrongs 
he committed towards Snape?

Would it be better if he was punished for what he was guilty of? Of 
course ( I happen to think that somehow he was punished in school, 
just not expelled), BUT if JKR for whatever purposes chose indirect 
punishment, it is fine with me. Am I making sense? I am not happy 
that Sirius was sent to Azkaban because he WAS innocent of betraying 
Potters, but BECAUSE of that event even if it will turn out that 
Sirius was always always a villain and Snape was always always a 
victim in their relationship, I won't like Sirius any less simply 
because in my mind he paid tenfold for whatever sins he committed 
against Snape, even if indirectly.

Catkind:  

Kind of Potterverse meta-morals as opposed to actual Potterverse
morals? So you're allowed to punish someone if the all-seeing reader
knows they deserve it, with no reference to what the character knows
or internal due process or whatever. 

Alla:

Well, no, I think of it more like when the plot won't allow the 
writer to do proper punishment, but when the character needs to be 
punished nevertheless. ( I hope I am not misstating what Ginger 
thinks here).It does not mean that all proper punishments are 
forgotten, when they could be fit in the story.

Catkind: 
Maybe it's kind of cheating though, if we have to revert to
meta-thinking to explain things.  It sends all sorts of confused
messages to people who don't understand these rules.  Or perhaps
children have an intuitive grasp of Vicarious Retribution - they don't
think so much about what exactly which characters know as us
over-analysing Grown-Ups.

Alla:

I think I agree with your last sentence - I don't think that 
overanalysing is bad, but sometimes children indeed have intuitive 
grasp of those ideas. I cannot offer statistics, but couple of kids I 
know had no problem whatsoever with Dudley pigtail for example


Catkind: 
The one scene I can't subsume here is the pensieve scene.  I don't
think the authorial voice is trying to pass that off as Vicarious
Retribution, at least to judge by Harry's reaction. Yet it does fit
the pattern of doing nasty things to nasty people.  Is JKR asking us
to question the earlier incidents by making this one so blatant?


Alla:

I also said upthread that I don't think that Pensieve scene fits for 
many reasons, the main one being that Harry was not born yet, so 
nobody to inflict retribution for.

The other thing is that IMO quite a few vicarious retribution 
punishments are funny ( not all of them of course).


Just my opinion of course,

Alla