Importance of Audience (was Re: Dumbledore or Snape)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 141452

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "lupinlore" <bob.oliver at c...> wrote:

> Like you a cannot imagine JKR trying to tell twelve-year-olds that 
> it's okay that Snape killed DD because of X or Y.  This is especially 
> the case considering her repeated statements that she is NOT out to 
> teach any specific moral lessons, and trying to convince her readers 
> that killing DD is okay because of X or Y is by definition trying to 
> argue very strongly for a specific moral lesson.
> 

Pippin:
I want to make it clear that I was citing triage as the reason Snape
did not try to heal Dumbledore, not as the reason Snape tried to kill
him. Personally, I don't believe Snape tried to murder Dumbledore, I 
think he pretended to, and Dumbledore died, either accidentally as a 
result of the unintended consequence of being blasted off the tower, 
like a stage stunt gone wrong, or as a result of the potion.  I understand 
that some think that would be cheesy-- okay. 

But unless they can prove that JKR thinks it would be cheesy, although she
had Dumbledore offer to create fake deaths for Draco and
Narcissa, had Slughorn attempt to fake his death, and had Peter Pettigrew
do so successfully for twelve years, that is merely a matter of personal
taste.

I do think that twelve year olds can understand the morality of triage,
and also that under British law, the soldier who shot a 
mortally wounded officer in order to convince the enemy that he was
a turncoat was not guilty of murder.

Those are difficult choices, not the sort of simplistic explications of
morality some expect to find in children's literature. But children are
routinely presented with some very problematic and complex morality 
tales  in our culture --  any child being educated in one of the Abrahamic 
religions will know about the sacrifice of Isaac, for example.

I think the overall moral point being presented is not, "When is it
okay to kill" which is not a choice most children face day to day,
thank goodness, but the more general point that sometimes even 
the right choice may have dreadful consequences, and you mustn't 
let your fear of those  dissuade you from making it. We can see that in 
Dumbledore's decision to leave Harry at the Dursleys, in his praise 
of Harry's decision to save Peter from being lynched, and in his
decision to keep what he heard from Mrs. Cole to himself.

To those with a situational view of morality, the consequences of
these actions would prove they were mistakes, but it is not at all clear 
that Rowling has such a view. 
 
Pippin