Words have consequences

[amiabledorsai]

No: HPFGUIDX 150498

Amiable Dorsai:
> Once in a great while, though, you have to fire a
> whiff of grape across the bad guy's bow.

Pippin (neatly hoisting me with my own petard  ;-):
> We agree. The proper next move would have been a warning shot,
> not a broadside amidships.

Amiable Dorsai: 
OK, I'm going to try to explain myself with a minimum of wisecracks,
then I'll shut up for a while on the issue (unless I think of
something really funny to post).  Pippin, Betsy, anyone else, here's
your chance to get in the last word.

Pippin, the thing that makes this so difficult is that, in a larger
sense, we do agree: Most of the time, the vast majority of times, it
is wrong to respond to mere words with violence--even violence as mild
as the Gryffindor's, even words as vicious as Draco's.

This time, I believe, was the rare exception. To understand why I
think so, we need to look well beyond that rail car; with apologies to
Steve, we need to look at the whole elephant.

There's a war on--a trite observation, but a necessary one--and the
Dark's greatest weapon is fear.  I mean real fear, the kind of fear
that stampeded hundreds or thousands of witches and wizards, *each
armed with a deadly weapon*, away from a few dozen people in silly
masks at the Quidditch World Cup; the unreasoning, hollow-belly terror
that panicked Fudge into denial so total that he tried to railroad a
teenage hero rather than admit to himself that Voldemort was back.

It's a fantastic weapon, it will paralyze the Ministry for a year, it
will force the Order underground, and it will hobble their every step.  

If Peter's excuse is to be believed, it put Harry in a cupboard for
much of his life.

And Draco is using it.  Whether he's thought his actions through, or
just absorbed the technique from Lucius, Draco has picked that weapon
up and fired it straight at the Trio.

That's why I object to calling Draco a victim--it trivializes his
actions, it diminishes him.  

Now the way to fight fear is to oppose it, forcefully.  The Gryffs did
just that, and in my opinion, they got it just about right. 
Jelly-legs, Furnunculus--small-time stuff by wizarding standards,
enough to dissuade Draco from using that particular weapon again, not
enough to cause permanent damage, as, say, a Reducto to the head would
have done.  The cumulative effect was large, yes, but no one of the
Gryffs used excessive force--the Slytherins got off lightly.

Betsy suggested that Harry, Ron, and Hermione could simply have forced
Draco and his enforcers out of the car.  Perhaps, though in my opinion
that would have been inadequate--Draco needed to be burned a little,
to warn him from that stove.  There's nothing in Draco's history to
suggest otherwise.

Draco was not a victim here, save of his own miscalculation.

Nor was Harry a victim, a year and a summer later, when he invaded
Draco's compartment, and Draco broke his nose--he was a warrior who
took a calculated risk and lost--a casualty, certainly, but again,
calling Harry a victim here misses the mark, I think.

Are the two cases morally equivalent?  Me, I prefer folks with a
"people saving thing" to wannabe murderers--but that's a call you have
to make for yourself.

This isn't to say that Harry's entitled to beat on Draco whenever he
feels the need--he and Fred were clearly in the wrong when they
attacked Draco on the Quidditch pitch during Harry's fifth year. 
Draco was merely being insulting, not trying to wield Voldemort's best
weapon.  

But Draco's incursion into that compartment was naked aggression; any
less forthright response would have invited more of the same, and much
worse besides.

Amiable Dorsai