Being Good and Evil /Hermione is Voldemort in making?

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 154865


> Alla:
> 
> But by comparing her action to that of Voldemort that is at least 
> close enough, no? I mean, again, please don't get me wrong, I 
> completely respect everybody's right to compare Hermione to 
> Umrbridge, to Crouch Sr, to Voldemort. I find those comparisons to 
> be very puzzling, but to each their own.

Pippin:
The text invites them, IMO, by dismissing the argument that there
is no good and evil. If there is good and evil, how can any act be
morally neutral? Is an evil act less evil because it's being done by
a schoolgirl instead of a Dark Lord or a dictator? I am not saying 
Hermione should be judged solely by this action, but I do not 
think JKR wants those of us who are capable of critical thinking 
to accept what her heroes and heroines do uncritically.

Furthermore it seems very strange to me that those who don't
want Hermione judged on this one action are okay with 
Marietta being permanently marked by one thing that she did.
(I realize you, Alla,  are not okay with this part of it.)

I am not trying to say that Hermione is pure evil, of course
she isn't, but not everything she does is purely good.  JKR
often says that though Hermione is modelled on her
younger self, she hopes she wasn't quite as bad. JKR at
least sees Hermione as having room for improvement.

Hermione had two purposes in hexing the parchment.
One was to discover the informant. That was laudable. The 
other was to make them sorry. That was an evil purpose, 
an abuse of power, IMO. 

You can't make anyone remorseful, any more than you can make 
them love. All you can do is make your disapproval felt, but
certainly the usual student punishments of ostracism and 
temporary hexing would be sufficient for that. 

Dumbledore himself, for example, inflicts a beard on Miss
Fawcett for crossing the age-line. But she was warned that 
nobody would be able to do it. Though Dumbledore did not
say there was an unusual punishment, he did explain why
he was making an unusual rule. And the result, though
embarrassing, was curable.

Hermione did not tell her friends that she was enchanting the 
parchment and no one would be able to snitch, nor did she
explain why there would be more than the usual need to
keep people from snitching.

It seems to me that Dumbledore keeps secrets in order to 
protect people, where Voldemort does it to make things 
easier for himself. If Hermione's purpose in secrecy
was to protect someone, I don't see it. I agree with you 
that she did it secretly because it would have been hard 
to explain to everyone why there was more than the 
usual need to keep people from snitching.

But that means Hermione was doing it to make things easier
for herself, not to protect others, so her purpose was more
comparable to Voldemort's than to Dumbledore's, IMO.

Hermione tells people that they need to learn to defend
themselves from Voldemort. But she doesn't tell them they're
going to be a secret army, in fact she says that's a mad idea.
So to expect Marietta to grasp that she's joining a secret
underground army to resist either Umbridge or Voldemort
and so she should expect to have her tongue cut out if
she talks or something is just incomprehensible to me.

Pippin