Why Tom left Merope /Draco and Harry

[rlai1977]

No: HPFGUIDX 147026

Carol responds:
> Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but I have difficulty conceiving of 
the
> seduction of a man by a woman as rape. The sex wasn't forced. He 
had
> to have wanted it or it could not have happened. 

IMO what Merope did to Tom Sr was not significantly different from 
men putting women on rape drugs (like R2) and have sex with them 
while they were under the drug's influence. Merope did NOT 
just "seduce" Tom- you described how unattractive she was yourself- 
so what qualities of hers drew Tom to WILLINGLY have sex with her?

If Merope were a man, putting some muggle girl on love potion and 
made her have sex with him without a struggle because her brain was 
totally messed up and she had this artificial/induced idea that 
she "loved" him, it would have been painfully obvious that it was 
RAPE.

I have sympathy for Merope for who she was, she *was* abused by both 
her father and her brother. But what she did was still inexcusable, 
and I totally do not believe Tom Sr did anything unreasonable by 
ditching her, pregnant or not. I pity Tom even more to have not even 
the option of abortion! 

Also, my idea of *loving* someone is to treat that person with 
kindness, NOT to abuse/manipulate them. So while Merope gets my 
sympathy for being born/raised into thinking to love someone is to 
rape them using drug, Tom Sr was totally faultless in my book for 
not taking this "love" into consideration when he chose to leave- he 
was the *victim* of this "love", after all.

RP