The Trio's Morality

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 162519

Kathryn:
> > Well, I've gotten in some hot water for posting this opinion 
> before, but I'm going to do it again, since we're all talking about 
> it again. 
> 
> Magpie:
> I find it very hard to believe you've gotten into hot water for 
> posting that Harry and his friends are good kids. *checks own water-
> feels lukewarm*

Carol responds:
LOL, Magpie! I've been attacked occasionally for my opinions, as you
know, but most of the time we don't do that on this list. But I would
ask Kathryn to extend the same courtesy she expects from others to the
other members of this list. If we want to analyze a scene or a
character, in essence examining the component parts to find what
appears to us to be its meaning or significance, we have the right to
do so. We also have the right to express and support our opinions
(preferably with canon, given the rules of his list) and to counter
the arguments presented by others, as long as we do it civilly and
courteously. You, of course, have the same right.
> 
> Kathryn:
> 
> >   First - It's fiction. Fiction has different rules than real 
> life, and I think that the kids who read these books are intelligent 
> enough to realize that.
> 
> Magpie:
> Absolutely.  But I don't think the discussions about these scenes 
> are quite about what you're describing.  It's not, imo, that people 
> who criticize them in these scenes are only thinking that it would 
> be bad to do this to a person in reality.  They're also reacting to 
> it as fiction and getting a different idea about what the author is 
> saying. They are trying to judge it by the standards of the 
> fictional world.
> 
Carol:
And yet kids *don't* necessarily make the distinction between fiction
and RL to the extent that adults do, which is why so many of them
identify so intensely with Harry and his friends and why, IMO, it's
important for parents to discuss thes books with their kids if they're
reading them together. I, for one (I may be alone in this opinion)
shaudder to think what would happen in RL if a group of kids with as
little adult supervision as the Hogwarts students have, especially on
the Hogwarts Express, actually carried the technological equivalent of
magic wands to school. Fortunately, no comparable situation exists in
the RW, or if it does, I'm not aware of it. But kids are confronted by
bullies and by those whose opinions differ radically from their own,
and they need to know how to deal with those situations. At the very
least, the child readers should think about how Harry and his friends
react to provocation here and how they treat the opponents when
they're unconscious and arrive at some sort of conclusion as to the
rightness or wrongness of it. Whether JKR is intending her
protagonists as role models or not, they fall into that category for
many young readers. They're the heroes, the good guys, so their
behavior is necessarily right, right? Wrong. we see Harry making
mistakes (for example, going to the DoM to "save" his godfather), and
mistakes have consequences in these books as in RL. Are HRH making a
mistake in the GoF train scene? If so, what's their mistake? What, if
any, are the consequences? If there arent't any consequences,
shouldn't there be? And so on. 

And for us as adult readers, it's not just a matter of making moral
judgments (on which we tend to disagree, whether we're discussing HRH
or Dumbledore or Snape or Molly Weasley or Merope Gaunt). It's a
matter of trying to determine JKR's intention with this scene. Where
is she going with these characters? Are the parallels between the GoF
and HBP train scenes intentional? I'm betting they are, just as the
parallel between Harry's reaction to forcefeeding poison to Dumbledore
and Snape's to "Severus, please" is no accident.




> Kathryn:
>  I personally, get a little thrill of "Ha, ha!" when the Cronies are 
> turned into slugs in GOF and JKR describes the Trio and the Twins 
> stepping over them. They deserve it. They're crappy people, who on a 
> continuing basis do nasty and violent things to people. They're 
> bullies, and they deserve to get bullied back once in a while. 
> 
> Magpie:
> You're kind of eliding together your emotional reaction (you 
> personally get satisfaction out of seeing crappy people who deserve 
> it get beaten on) with a statement about correct ethics (this is the 
> way bullies deserve to be treated and therefore it is right to feel 
> this way). I think the reason this makes for an interesting 
> discussion is that it doesn't only come down to personal reactions 
> to the scene, but genuine different possibilities for what the 
> author is going for--is there supposed to be an element of darkness 
> in the kids' characters?  Is it an intentional parallel to similar 
> scenes with a bad guy? This is a bildungsroman about a kid growing 
> up, about good and evil. Isn't this the kind of thing we're supposed 
> to be thinking about?

Carol:
Exactly. One of the many genres that JKR is using to structure her
books is the Bildungsroman, the novel about growing up, in which we
expect to see the protagonist learning from his experiences, including
his suffering and his mistakes. So there must be a lesson *for him* in
this scene, even if he doesn't learn it immediately. Again, analyzing
the text enables us to explore our ideas about exactly what he and the
others are or aren't learning here and how far they have yet to go
before they reach pub--erm, adulthood, not as measured by their
seventeenth birthday but by the maturity of their actions. (The Twins,
IMO, have a long way to go.) 

As for personal reactions, I, personally, *don't* get "a little thrill
of ha!ha!" when any character is smacked around, whether they deserve
it or not. I do sometimes get angry with a character for his or her
actions (Umbridge's cruel detentions, for example). More often, I'm
annoyed at Harry's or Ron's obliviousness. And Draco doesn't bother me
at all, possibly because he's exactly what I'd expect a kid with his
upbringing to be. But my feelings as a reader aren't what matter. What
matters is the behavior of the characters on the page. Why do they do
it? What will be the consequences, if any? How does this scene fit
into the overall picture? If the character is Harry, how will this or
that action or reaction help or hinder him in defeating Voldemort?
Like it or not, if Harry's weapon is Love, he's not going to defeat
Voldemort by hexing him or stepping on his hands. And he's not going
to get anywhere if, like Mad-Eye Moody, he can't tell the difference
between an attack and a handshake (or between provocation and a threat
to his life). He needs to think about appropriate responses, and to
act and react in appropriate ways, in terms of both morality and
common sense. How can he judge Draco as "bad" if his own behavior is
no better? How can he survive to defeat Voldemort if he behaves as
rashly as sirius Black?

  
> 
> Kathryn:
>    
> >   Second - In that fictionalized world, there is a lot more at 
> stake than just some bullies on a train. Harry knows about 
> Voldemort, and so do all his friends. They know what's at stake in 
> this fight, and they suspect by GOF that the Malfoys are followers 
> of Voldemort. So, why wouldn't they suspect that Draco and Cronies 
> are going to attack them, even if they didn't have wands drawn yet? 
> I suspect Malfoy at every turn, and always expect him to do 
> something awful. Harry and his friends haven't saved the WW at least 
> four times by being cautious and forgiving. They're fighting a war 
> with evil! They have to be suspicious and aggressive, or they'll die.
> 
> Magpie:
> But this is another thing that's being debated on the thread. 
> They're not actually acting like they're threatened at all, they're 
> just acting like they're angry. <snip>
> 
Carol:
Right. We can agree or disagree on this point. I agree with Magpie.
Let me just say for, I think, the third time, Draco isn't threatening
to hurt HRH or kill them himself. He's hinting rather darkly at what
he thinks their fate will be under a Voldemort regime. That's
provocation, and he succeeds in provoking them--a little too well. If
he'd really wanted to hurt them, he'd have come in with his wand out
and not wasted his time with words that weren't spells.

> Kathryn:    
> >   Third - They are children. And children need guidance. ... These 
> kids seem very much on their own, and have to make their own 
> decisions, which are not always the most wise, since they are 
> children. 
> 
> Magpie:
> So why object to adults reading the books and saying they need 
> guidance?  <snip>

Carol:
Exactly. They do need guidance and they're not getting it and
consequently, they make mistakes. Why should we not discuss that?
> 
> Kathryn:    
> >   Lastly, I would like to say that I believe the Trio is very 
> moral, even when making poor decisions. These kids are trying to 
> save everyone from a great evil. They are, in comparison to other 
> tweens and teens, incredibly unselfish, kind, and intelligent. When 
> they occasionally act like real teens, people act like they've just 
> had some sort of moral downfall. 
> 
> Magpie:
> Now you seem to again be mounting a moral defense that says the 
> Gryffindors are fundamentally good and they have done X good things 
> (I disagree they're particularly kind--that's one virtue I'm not 
> going to give them) so presumably should not be spoken of in this 
> manner--and also the things they are doing here are not bad, but 
> normal (as opposed to the usual super good). In fact, saying they've 
> done something bad here is claiming they've had a moral downfall. I 
> don't think that's all accurate. <snip>

> This just seems to be defending them from every angle, even when 
> it's contradictory: <snip>

Carol responds:
Unselfishness I'll grant you most of the time, but I can think of
times (for example, Harry's short-lived jealousy of Ron's appointment
as Prefect or Ron's reaction when Hermione thought he had drunk the
Felix Felicis) when one of them placed his or her feelings before
those of his friends. I agree with Magpie that the kindness of the
Gryffindors, including HRH, leaves something to be desired, as Luna
points out with regard to Ron, who often makes thoughtless remarks
without regard for other people's feelings (particularly if the person
happens to be a ghost like Moaning Myrtle or NHN). We've discussed
what some of us perceive to be Hermione's desire for vengeance on
people who have crossed her. And Harry isn't always kind, either,
particularly when he thinks he's right and comes very near to bullying
the other two into following him. It's not really to his credit that
Hermione seems afraid to say what she thinks about the improbablilty
of Sirius Black's being kidnapped in broad daylight and held captive
in the MoM. But Harry has no premium on self-righteousness; Hermione
is certain that she's right three-quarters of the time. The Trio
aren't unintelligent, granted, but Ron and Harry are not scholars and
all three make their share of mistakes. Harry takes credit for the
potions improvements of the HBP, an example of intellectual
dishonesty, as Hermione points out. 

Just because we point out the characters' imperfections (and no two
list members agree as to what they are) doesn't mean that we dislike
the protagonists and their friends or that we think JKR is a bad
writer. Quite the contrary--most of us think she's brilliant to have
created such an intriguing secondary world with characters that we
care about enough to take that we probably should be spending in some
other way (blushes guiltily) to discuss them. Most of us want Harry to
live. I think that all of us want him to defeat Voldemort. And in
order to do that, he's going to have to learn from his mistakes.

I read the HP books because I care about the characters and find some
of them, particularly Snape, so fascinating that it's hard to think
about more important things (like political issues and editing
assignments). I'm not saying that JKR's writing is perfect, either in
terms of consistency or style, and I'm pretty sure we wouldn't see eye
to eye on politics or education. But I'm compelled to analyze them
*because* I enjoy them and because I want to understand them better. i
like exchanging ideas with others about them because their ideas help
to shape and clarify mine whether I agree or disagree with them. That,
to me, is what this list is about.

Character analysis is not character bashing any more than plot
analysis is plot bashing--which is not to say that we don't sometimes
see character bashing on this list, but it's not encouraged.

Carol, hoping that she doesn't sound too Hermioneish in this post