muggle baiting vs. muggle torture

[spookedook]

No: HPFGUIDX 155195

Betsy Hp:
> > This is where you lose me.  It's bad for Lucius to bait muggles
> > and his own son, who loves him very much, should turn his back on
> > his family because he father did such an evil thing.  However,
> > when the twins bait muggles, it's okay.

Shagufta:
> In my opinion you are equating muggle baiting with muggle torture.
> Two very different things, IMO.  Throwing sweets on the floor and
> hoping someone will pick them up may be termed muggle baiting. But
> then Dudley had no business picking and eating things that dont
> belong to him. By that token if a burlglar gets a shock from an
> electric fence, would you blame that home owner of burglar-
> baiting..:D
> But anyways, I'll give you muggle-baiting for Fred and George,
> what Lucius did was Muggle-torture plain and simple.


I think that Fred and George's defence of themselves wraps this up,
they were not baiting Dudley because he was a muggle, merely because
he was a bully. The Death Eaters bait muggles purely because they
are muggles, without knowing or caring about the individual muggle.
The twins were dealing out their own form of retribution for Dudley's
ways. I'm not saying this justifies theire actions but it definitely
puts them in a totally different area to torturing innocent muggles.

Tinktonks