Debatable ethical issues in OotP and HBP

[lucianam73]

No: HPFGUIDX 142389

>bboyminn:
>(snip) 
.. I've agreed very much with your
>positions and enjoyed reading your opinions. HOWEVER, in this case, 
>I think you are, ...please, no offense intended..., either overly
>...gasp... Politically Correct, or your position is
>hyper-rationalized. (Sorry)

Lucianam:

First, thanks, second, no offense. This kind of questioning never 
has everyone agreeing on everything.

I disagree about my being too rational, I was actually describing my 
emotional responses to the text. Well maybe my explanations were 
hyper-rationalized, but what prompted everything were my gut 
feelings to OotP and HBP.

About Harry's speech to Dumbledore in HBP (the one about killing the 
Death Eaters):
(a lot of people disagreed w/ me on this one!)

>bboyminn:

>(much snipped, sorry for snipping the Churchill quote – if anyone 
would like to read it's in bboyminn's original post)

>He will fight against all odds against those who are
>bent on killing him, and when they finally do kill him, he will 
>simply not lay down and die, but he will take as many of his enemy 
>down with him as he can.

>You find that immoral, but I find it very inspiring, and I suspect
>many kids are also inspired by Harry's fearless never-give-up
>never-give-in attitude. In fact, I think Harry sounds very much like
>the much admired Windson Churchill.

Lucianam;

Sure it's a war situation. Sure I understand why you (and other 
people who commented in this thread) interpreted Harry's words the 
way you did. But for me, they sounded very different. I still think 
Harry's `I'll make sure I take as many Death Eaters with me as I 
can,' line is horrifying. I don't think he's saying he'll defend 
himself, I think he's saying if he's killed, in exchange he'll kill 
as many enemies as he can. For me, there's a difference. I noticed a 
violent, vindictive, bloddy note that I definitely don't like.

>Bookworm:

(snip snip snip)
>As far as lucianam's comment that JKR "demolishes centuries of
>religious, ethical and moral debate", I would argue that she is
>highlighting the centuries of debate.

Lucianam:

Maybe she's highlighting it in the sense she takes a position, and 
of course she's rising up debate - I'm evidence of it, here I am 
posting!

She takes her position so strongly and leaving no room for questions 
(in her text), and in Harry's and Dumbledore's words there's no 
debate, that's what I meant.  

Funny how in the rest of her books, except for these paragraphs, 
killing is a big, questionable issue, always addressed in a 
practical situstion, not in a dialogue.

>zgirnius:
(snip snip)

>And I think the kids old enough to be reading the series grasp the
>difference between dealing with a Dark Lord, and their own
>schoolyard 'enemies'.

>I recently reread Chapter 24 (Sectumsempra) of HBP, and I think this
>chapter does a great job of illustrating this, in a way. Draco is
>Harry's biggest 'enemy' at school. And Harry is absolutely horrified
>by what he does to Draco. 

Lucianam:

I think the biggest difference is not to whom the violence is aimed 
(child x adult), but if the one who commits it is a child or an 
adult.

The adults are (almost) always purposeful, but the children's acts 
of violence in the series, for example Harry Crucio-ing Bella, the 
Sectumsempra, the curses they cast, seem to always happen because 
they didn't think properly, or were hot-headed. 

That changed in Draco's case, in HBP, when he planned Dumbledore's 
death. He did that in cold-blood. Well, Voldemort was making him do 
it, but still it was something planned. Only in the end he couldn't 
kill Dumbledore, which in this line of thought could mean `he can't 
carry on his plans, he's still a child' or `he can plan like an 
adult, but he's not a murderer'.

Which brings me back to Harry `kill Death Eaters' speech (sorry): 
he's talking about killing a lot of enemies with a lot 
of `fierceness' and he seems very sure of his own words, but will he 
do it? Will he feel so sure? 


>Christina:
(snip)

>Yes, but look at the ultimate "conventional" family in HP- the 
>Dursley's! *shudder* Hermione has two parents, but it seems as 
>though they don't really understand her; while I'm sure they love 
>her, she seems to spend an awful lot of time away from them. Draco 
>Malfoy has a conventional family as well, and we all know how much 
>hugging must go on in *that* household.

Lucianam:

Good point! But concerning Harry's future, we all know he wouldn't 
want to stay with the Dursleys anyway. He dreamed of living with 
Sirius, who offered him a home and was his godfather. So of course 
the change in Sirius's behavior in OotP, plus Mrs. Weasley's 
attacks, affected that dream. 

Harry's real possibility of a home was a single-parent home. The 
Dursleys (or even the Weasleys) never counted, if you're thinking of 
where would Harry live after he graduated from Hogwarts. In OotP, 
that future home gradually is revealed to be an impossible dream, as 
we read page after page of Sirius's character deteriorating. And if 
the descriptions weren't enough, Mrs. Weasley is always there to 
remind us of how bad a parent he would be. Molly is the center of 
the family Harry considers his ideal one, so everything she says 
weights a lot. It was very sad that JKR decided that Harry's chance 
of a family of his own, his godfather, should be so imperfect. 

Lucianam