Debatable ethical issues in OotP and HBP

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 142362

> > lucianam:
> >
> > On to more OotP disagreement. 
> > 
> > Why was it okay to leave Sirius to his own devices, if it was 
> > clear even to Harry ... that he was depressed? It struck me as 
an 
> > ugly case of abandonment. ... I don't even know if JKR noticed 
she 
> > wrote it! 
> > 
> 
> bboyminn:
> <SNIP>
> So, Sirius is depressed. Here are his choices; he can live 
depressed
> or he can die depressed. He is an escaped criminal, the most 
notorious
> murderer and escapee in the wizard world. Ten thousand Galleon 
reward
> on his head. He is being hunted across continents. He is believe 
to be
> so dangerous that it seems obvious that any law enforcement that
> encounters him, will shoot first and ask questions later. 
> 
> So, which is worse, being depressed or being shot dead in the 
streets?




Alla:

Steve, I am in agreement with many parts of your reply to Lucianam's 
post, but not about Sirius' situation.

See, I did not buy that there was nothing that could be done about 
Sirius, except stucking him in the home, which he left behind at 
sixteen, I did not buy it at all.

Oh, and when I say that something could be done, I do NOT mean that 
Dumbledore had to do something special for Sirius, not at all, I 
only mean that he could have come up with SOMETHING for Sirius to 
do, any task would have been better than doing nothing.

Sirius' safety is important? Sure, it is, but we do NOT know for 
sure that every DE knows about his animagus form, otherwise he could 
have been hunted down after he escaped from Azkaban and was on the 
Islands ( or in whatever place he was hiding). He could have gone on 
the missions as Padfoot, any kind of mission, IMO.


I might have found the excuse of "keeping Sirius safe" to be more 
convincing, IF we did not see that at the end of GoF Dumbledore 
sends Sirius off to alert "old crowd".

Erm... what exactly changed so significantly in what two, three 
months that Sirius is not allowed out of the house anymore? I mean, 
the war started sure, but it seems to me that somebody could spot 
Sirius on this mission too, no?

And of course, Sirius could have walked out of the house, but he was 
being a good soldier and did what general ordered, IMO. Does not 
excuse the poor orders of the general, IMO.


Again, I am simply not buying that the choices for Sirius were to 
live depressed or to die depressed. It seems to me that if 
Dumbledore would simply pay more attention then Sirius' choices 
could have been to live or die of course, but not necessarily 
depressed. 

Oh, and of course Harry has invisibility cloak. I think he would not 
have minded giving it to Sirius if he needed to go on a mission 
undiscovered.

I think I agree with Lealess in that Sirius' situation was simply 
plot dictated.

IMO, Dumbledore had reasons to ask for Harry's forgiveness in how he 
handled Sirius'. I think that Harry summed it up in " people do not 
like to be locked up" really well.



Lucianam73 wrote:
> Now, HBP. It got a little worse.
><SNIP of the quote that could be read UPTHREAD>
> (from Chapter 4, `Horace Slughorn')
<SNIP> 
> What I'm saying is: I very much object to how little_ or even none 
_ 
> room to debate JKR left in those two paragraphs. She left 
absolutely 
> no question of how great it is that Harry wants to kill Death 
> Eaters. She very specifically says Dumbledore enthusiastically 
> approves of this plan. 


Alla:

I interpret this quote differently. Harry says that he would take as 
many DE with him as he could IF he could be taken out and Dumbledore 
approves of it, IMO, because it is absolute self defense, IMO, 
nothing more , nothing less.

Others commented on heroic aspect of Harry' speech, it did not quite 
work that well for me, because it sounded to me as if Harry tried to 
push his grief for Sirius out of his mind and puts on brave front, 
even if he really does not feel that bravado ( I was extremely 
pleased how JKR handled Harry's grief in general in HBP, but THIS 
part I did find a bit annoying)

But nowhere in this quote have I noticed Harry's desire to go out 
and kill DE, UNLESS they would want to kill him. 

JMO of course,

Alla