Debatable ethical issues in OotP and HBP

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 142426

Carol earlier:
> > Black has made the bed that he's lying in.

<big snip of SSS's responses to individual points>

SiriuslySnapeySusan:
> Wow.  That seems a rather heartless assessment to me.  Sirius is a
DOer.  Sirius is frustrated, forced into inactivity.  His only other
choice, as you pointed out, is to go back to his tropical hideaway.
How does this represent much of a choice for a man who's both a doer 
by nature and who loves and wants to protect his godson?  No, I'm
convinced of the depression at work here.  I'm convinced JKR wants us
 to think about what 12 YEARS of being surrounded & haunted by
Dementors, followed by a "freedom" marred by inability to prove one's
 innocence, does to a person:  it causes depression.  And depression,
as others have noted, ain't just "snap-out-able." 

Carol responds:
My apologies if I sounded heartless. (You know I'm not.) I was just
trying to state what I perceive to be facts without any attached
emotion. I wasn't considering depression (of course he was depressed
staying in 12 GP, and not exactly sane after his stay in Azkaban, but
if we're looking at motives, his motive in escaping Azkaban was murder
and revenge--not exactly commendable, right?). All I'm saying is that
 after Black chose to go after Wormtail instead of going to DD for
help, and everything that happened to him after that, from his
imprisonment in Azkaban and other people's perception of him as a
murderer to his later entrapment in his own home, is the result of
that extremely rash decision, whether he intended to kill Wormtail or
merely to confront him. One choice, one serious misjudgment, limited
his future choices and in essence, ruined his life. (The same can be
said of Snape's decision to join the Death Eaters. In many respects,
they're parallel characters or foils--more on that later.)

Carol earlier:
> > The responsibility for that wasted life, like the decision to go
to the MoM, is primarily or entirely his own.
> 
> SSSusan:
> Again, this strikes me as harsh.

Carol responds:
Why harsh? If it wasn't his own choice, whose choice was it? I'm not
excusing Bellatrix for killing him or Voldemort for sending the DEs to
the MoM or Kreacher for tricking him. I'm not blaming poor Harry, who
thought he was doing the right thing. But Sirius *chose* to go to the
MoM and *chose* to behave recklessly while fighting Bellatrix. Had he
chosen to wait for Dumbledore as Snape told him to do, he would be
alive. I'm not saying it was the "wrong" thing to do; it was certainly
in character for him to join the others rather than sitting around
wishing he could join them. I'm just asking how his motivation for
going to the MoM, whether to help Harry or just to get out of the
house and *do* something, changes the fact that if he hadn't gone to
the MoM, he wouldn't have died.

SSS:
> Sirius made CHOICES.  He chose to escape from Azkaban and go after
Wormtail.  He chose to return to London when Harry began exhibiting
disturbing signs of Voldy's influence/presence.  He chose to galavant
about as Padfoot when it wasn't wise.  He chose to remain in his 
family home, which he despised, so that he could be near Harry and
hopefully be useful to the Order somehow.  He chose to be uncivil to 
Snape & to threaten him when provoked.  He chose to go to the MoM 
when the rest of the available Order members took off to help the DA
kids.  These *were* all choices... 

Carol responds:
Exactly. That was my point.

SSS:
but why were they made?  They  were, imo, choices influenced by
situation, personality characteristics, hatred for the Dark Arts and
concern for Harry.

Carol responds:
Okay. But they nevertheless shaped his circumstances. That's one of
the main themes of the book. Choices and actions have consequences,
and good intentions often backfire, as do bad ones. I agree that
personality characteristics affected his choices, including reckless
courage, a desire for action, and a rash disregard for consequences. I
think we all agree that he never fully grew up. JKR says as much
herself. And he can't endure boredom. As a boy, he wanted James to
entertain him by hexing Severus and entertained himself by arranging
for Severus to encounter a werewolf. As a man, having endured twelve
years in Azkaban, he first seeks vengeance on Wormtail and then tries
to help Harry, both (IMO) out of loyalty to James, the one person who
was ever really important to him. But in the end, just as Barty Jr.
chose his own circumstances ("Look what that man chose to make of his
life," as DD says), Sirius Black shaped his own fate through exactly
the choices you outline above.

SSS:
<snip> My point?  That if we're going to judge one character as having
"made the bed in which he lies," then we ought to judge others the
same way.  And while it's *easier* to judge Sirius because the picture
is clearer and his life is over, hasn't Snape made the bed in which he
lies just as much as – perhaps more than? – Sirius did? <snip>

Carol responds:
Of course! I never said that he didn't. It's just that, as you said in
the portion of your response that I snipped, Snape's motivations are
mysterious whereas Black's really aren't. Snape's (bad) decisions to
join the DEs and report the Prophecy to Voldemort, as well as his
(good) decisions to spy for Dumbledore and remain at Hogwarts, have
shaped his circumstances. And now, with the decisions he made in HBP
(to teach DADA and face the curse, to take the UV for whatever reason,
to kill Dumbledore but save Draco), he's facing the consequences of
*all* those cumulative choices. He's lying on the bed of nails that he
made for himself, in a position roughly comparable to Sirius Black's
after Black's escape from Azkaban but without the consolation of being
innocent. Defending either man's choices doesn't undo the fact that he
made those choices or that choices have consequences.

Carol, who never wanted to make SSS angry and apologizes again for any
feelings she may have stepped on in posting her opinions about SB