Real child abuse/ JKR intentions/ Snape again/Draco

[Miles]

No: HPFGUIDX 145766

Alla wrote:
> Since we do know who gets punished, I won't cry foul for poor Draco.
> Sorry!

 Potioncat:
> So, it isn't abuse if the child mishaved? No matter how severe the
> action is?
>
> OK, OK, I laughed too. But it is a slippery slope. It gets back to the
> fact that this is fiction and it's OK to feel good about the bad guy
> getting it. In real life, the bad good deserves the same treatment as
> the good guy.

Miles:
Maybe this is a lesson JKR teaches us? Seeing Draco punished that way is a
YES-moment (it was for me and many other readers), but rereading it, knowing
that the "Moody" is not the Auror we then thought he is, but a lunatic
murderer, we really should read this scene very different.
I agree with Magpie, that the moral of the scene PLUS the background
information we get later is to show us a moral dilemma. Rules that protect
people from maltreatment can only be effective, if they are used on all
people regardless of their deeds. These rules protect Draco, Ron, Crabbe,
Harry, and Goyle.
So, abusing Draco this way is as inacceptable as abusing Harry by let him
cut words into his own hand.

The world is not divided into nice people and DEs, and, yes, human rights
are not divided into rights of nasty teenaged sons of DEs and DA- and
OotP-members.
This is not only the moral in the Potterverse, we are struggling with this
problem in our world as well.

Miles