Give Credit Where Credit is due

[mrs_weasley2004]

No: HPFGUIDX 150347

> > Julie:
> > I agree that these kids (teenagers) are able to perform on the 
> > same level as adults. Where I would qualify that is whether they 
> > perform with the same *understanding* as adults. <snip>
>
> Jekatiska:
> Children are capable of unbelievable cruelty, as can be seen from 
> for example child soldiers, or the brutal killings committed by 
> children and teenagers you sometimes hear of in the media. Children 
> make very good soldiers: they don't care, because they don't 
> understand. <snip> 
> After all, his father is a Death Eater, they have all sorts of dark 
> stuff at home, and he's been brought up in a DE environment 
> ("Auntie Bellatrix taught you Occlumency?"). And yet he could not 
> bring himself to kill Dumbledore, <snip>. This, I find, is a sign 
> of a kind of maturity. But then, this lot are now of age, or like 
> Harry, very nearly, so you would expect some maturity by now. Can 
> we treat them as kids?


I wasn't trying to go into the realm of rationalizing what the youth 
do. I was just trying to point out that they are capable of it.  You 
don't have to just point to bad stuff either.  Look at the little 
kids who save lives by calling 911 or are super smart etc.  I just 
think we as adults tend to lump them all into the same heap so to 
speak.  I am sure kids can get reformed, perhaps that is what we 
should think about Snape?  But Voldemort has an advantage if he can 
get them on his side as children/young adults. I think the fact that 
so many of his Death Eaters signed up in school tends to support this 
idea.

Michelle