[HPforGrownups] Re: Words have consequences/Snape as Infidel

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 150400

>> Amiable Dorsai
>> Interestingly, in the actual event, the Malfoys do not appear to
>> agree with you.
>>
>> Pippin:
>> That might be because they don't want the subject of the quarrel
>> discussed.
>
> Amiable Dorsai:
> We agree.  Even the Malfoys realized Draco's behavior was too heinous
> to be discussed with civilized people.

Magpie:
I wouldn't go that far, especially since Lucius is the one actually doing 
the stuff Draco is mouthing off about.  We don't even know that Draco told 
his parents what happened.  Narcissa does refer to Harry as the boy who 
keeps attacking her son in HBP, but I think it's just a case of their coming 
to the train and finding their kid on the floor in various states of 
distress.  He may have just said he got into a fight.  Lucius, given what we 
see in CoS, seems like he'd probably shame Draco over getting beaten.  If 
Draco told him what he'd said Lucius would probably scold him for talking 
about it--not because it's heinous but because the Dark Lord's plans are 
hush hush.  Bottom line is it's not the kind of issue where even interfering 
parents get involved in canon.

However, I would say that *Draco* appears to not feel particularly in the 
right.  By which I don't mean he's repentent, just that canonically he 
bounces back up and never mentions it again.  It's not something he brings 
up either.

Betsy Hp:
I can't be as laissez-faire, I'm afraid.  If JKR came out and
said, "Yes the Slytherins are the Jews and I'm trying to show that
the Christian Gryffindors have the better morality," that would kill
the series for me.  However, I don't think this is what JKR is doing.

Magpie:
I don't either.  Especially since she's trying to write about how bad it is 
to judge people based on their blood and one's religion is more than 
anything else a consequence of one's family and where one is born.

All the kids in canon seem to be nominally Christian.  The few possible 
exceptions I can think of I think of because of their background--the 
Patil's may be of a faith connected to India (Parvati is a Hindu goddess and 
she's a Gryffindor), perhaps Anthony Goldstein is Jewish, we don't know. 
But JKR seems far too interested in the way peoples' interests clash to 
claim one group is always morally in the right just because of something 
like religion which, despite having a lot to say on morality, does not 
produce uniform morality among its followers.  Cho seems very adamant about 
sticking with Marietta and I don't think Harry's feelings have to be 
considered right to her wrong--he doesn't care about the girl to begin with. 
The DA brought some good things, but it also seemed to curiously highlight 
how difficult it is for our guys to deal with anyone who disagrees with 
them, and given the Sorting Hat's most recent songs it feels like that's 
being set up as a challenge, not a fault of these minor characters.

The Gryffindors don't read to me as examples of some of the most basic ideas 
of Christianity as I think of them.  The fact that they *think* they are is 
just a trick of the perspective.  (For instance, the difference between 
"gloating" and "celebrating" is often a matter of whether your team won or 
lost--just ask HP shippers after HBP.)  They seem fond of the kind of 
chivalry maybe associated in popular imagination with the Crusades, but is 
that something Jesus came up with?  He doesn't Prank non-believers, and he 
turns the other cheek.  He passively allows himself to be sacrificed and 
forgives the people who do it. I wouldn't be so sure a Christian would 
naturally recognize some of the stuff the Gryffs do as not malicious just 
because they weren't literally trying to kill anyone or they thought it was 
funny.  A Christian might find more in Luna to use as examples of good 
Christian thought.

Look at James, after all.  Doesn't the Pensieve seem to lay him out as a boy 
acting out bad impulses and treating his enemy badly?  If he weren't Harry's 
father Harry would have easily written him off as just a bully, which is why 
it's so difficult that this is his father.  He later comes to soften up on 
his thoughts on this scene, but that seems openly due to his own hatred of 
Snape clouding his first, more objective, impressions.  James may have good 
reasons for hating Snape, but that doesn't mean his behavior towards Snape 
can't ever be wrong.

-m