Being Good and Evil ( Draco and a bit of Ron)/

[juli17 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 154740

 


Hermione  marked a traitor, Umbridge hurt an innocent. Lots of 
difference to  me.

JMO,

Alla 





Julie:
Hermione marked a 15 YEAR OLD girl. Let's try not to forget that.
She's still a child. The more this incident gets discussed the more
I'm bothered by it. To leave Marietta with purple pustules all over  her
face for months on end, perhaps forever (assuming Hermione has
no intention of removing them, which she hasn't shown to date), is
not a nice thing, certainly not the act of a truly "good" person. I
mean, would you do that, even if a girl betrayed your secret and
almost got you expelled? And would you leave her that way for
months, passing her in the hallway and seeing her disfiguring
purple pustules--all the while knowing she doesn't even remember
how or why it was done!--and feel not the slightest twinge of
guilt or the impulse to remove the curse, thinking perhaps she's
suffered enough? Or would you be like Hermione and not give it a
second thought when passing her, feeling perhaps nothing but 
satisfaction at her mortification and pain (aren't pustules open  sores?)
 
Jeez, I'm really starting to dislike Hermione when I focus on the
reality of what she's done (again, not just the jinx itself, but the 
permanence of it and her apparent disinterest in reversing it). But
JKR referring to this incident in HBP does give me hope she will 
address it in the next book. Perhaps Hermione will get her come-
uppance, and Ravenclaw their day, when Marietta saves Hermione's
butt during battle!
 
Oh, and while there is a difference in intent--Hermione marking  Marietta
for betraying her and her friends, and Umbridge marking Harry because
she's a vile sadist--that doesn't make one action right and the other 
wrong. It just makes one wrong and one even more wrong. Same 
with some of the twins' pranks. Perhaps their intent isn't the same
as the Dursley's, yet their "pranks" still hurt others at times. 
 
JKR is all about the grey, IMO. The bad guys can have noble impulses
and the good guys can give into their worst impulses. That was the  whole
purpose of the pensieve scene. We like to imagine we are far removed 
from those who practice evil, but it's just not so. It's not that far a  fall 
once
you start down that slope.
 
Julie 


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