[HPforGrownups] Re: Hermione and Marietta

[rebecca]

No: HPFGUIDX 155005


"Marion Ros" said:


>"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a 
>monster. And if you gaze for long into >an abyss, the abyss gazes also into 
>you" (Friedrich Nietzsche)
>
<snip>

> This is where my objection to the whole Marietta thing comes from. I don't 
> care if Marietta *deserved* to be punished. I don't care what the 
> consequenses would be or if she was aware of them. I care about the fact 
> that civilized people should not act as uncivilized people. If you are 
> civilized, you do not torture, rape or disfigure people. If you want to be 
> a Hero, on the side of Light, One of the Good Guys, you do not hex 
> *anybody* with a permanent disfiguring hex for *any* reason. Civilized 
> society might make rules and laws to protect society, and anyone within 
> that society who would break those laws might be punished, but that is 
> where the law comes in, and justice. If you go and lynch somebody because 
> they've made you upset or broke an unwritten rule of conduct you are no 
> longer entitled to the epithet 'civilised person'.

> <snip>

> The question should be, what separates the inmates from the guards if the 
> guards are allowed to behave as beastly, as cruelly, as immoral as the 
> inmates?
> What separates civilized justice from barbaric revenge or even sadistic 
> pleasure from domination?
> What separates the Side of the Light from the Forces of Dark if the 
> posterchildren of the Light are allowed to dole out disfigurement with 
> impunity?
>

Rebecca:

WRT to your sig line - actually Marion, you were just as eloquent as they 
are.

While I can accept, understand, and respect your point of view, I'm not sure 
I'd use this particular Nietzsche quote to make my point not because it 
wasn't good, but because Nietzsche believed in master/slave morality, and 
that quote can go either way, on either side on the good vs bad equasion. He 
was focused on the individual, and his social theories almost mirror those 
defined as Social Darwinism.  He didn't believe in causes, sympathy or 
pity - and maintained a strong dislike for the state (society.)  Personally, 
I don't feel that Hermoine "looked into the abyss", I just think like all 
teenagers, even James Potter and his ego at 15 (which is canon), Hermione's 
actions reflect some flawed judgement.

A better quote, in my mind, might have been from the same piece the quote 
above was taken, Beyond Good and Evil: "The noble type of man experiences 
itself as determining values; it does not need approval; it judges, 'what is 
harmful to me is harmful in itself'; it knows itself to be that which first 
accords honor to things; it is value-creating." Noble man, to Nietzche, is 
on the "good" side of his master morality theory. IMO, that's what I would 
equate with what everyone who has a problem with what Hermoine did is really 
saying and it follows what his philosophical theories were at the time. But 
again, that's just the way I see it.

Also, Nietzsche's most famous quote, "what does not destroy me, makes me 
stronger" (which is better known as "what does not kill me, makes me 
stronger") could have been applied to your post WRT Marietta herself. 
Overcoming what Hermione did, for good or for bad, might be a plot point in 
the next book if she isn't the red herring that some think she is.

Please, please...I have looked all over, but I have been unable to find 
where I'd interpret that it's canon that Hermoine's hex on Marietta is 
permanent. Does anyone have current canon to share that will help?  And you 
folks have my permission to iron my hands if it proves to be so in canon or 
Book 7....

Regards,
Rebecca