muggle baiting vs. muggle torture

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 155348

> >>Random832:
> It's not clear from canon that magic in terms of the magic a wizard
> uses is _required_ for potions - all Snape says, if you read      
> closely, is that magic is _involved_.

Betsy Hp:
Well, this certainly is an interesting way to get the twins out of 
the muggle baiting charge. <g>  Potions aren't really magic so magic 
wasn't used?  It doesn't make any sense to me, personally.  You'll 
have to explain to me why Potions is taught at Hogwarts (a required 
class, no less) and explain to me why it *isn't* taught in Muggle 
schools if you hope to win me over to that particular point of view.

But it is fascinating, IMO, the way people bend over backwards (and 
are actually *required* to do that sort of bending) to try and show 
the difference between the good guys and the bad guys within the 
Potterverse.

> >>a_svirn:
> <snip>
> What the twins did is muggle-baiting in every possible sense,     
> including the most literal one. After all, Dudley did swallow a   
> bait that was, to quote the Bard, "on purpose laid to make the    
> taker mad".

Betsy Hp:
Absolutely.  Arthur (whose job it is to identify such behavior) 
makes that *very* clear.  Of course, the twins have such little 
respect for their father (which they also make very clear in the 
very next scene) they completely ignore him.  But it doesn't change 
the fact that they abused a muggle child using magic.  They did so 
for a joke, yes, but it was a malicious form of humor.  Lucius 
Malfoy would have been very amused.

But the thing that's been bothering me is that if the muggle family 
attacked by Death Eaters a few days later had been the Dursleys, 
Harry would have been amused at that point too.  Yes, the Death 
Eaters were more sinister in their attack on the muggle family than 
the twins were in their attack on Dudley.  But the fact remains, the 
twins did something fairly similar and for a very weak reason.

I just...  I wish I could see some measure of nobility and goodness 
expressed by the good guys.  I mean, yes it's wonderful that our 
heroes are "real", but shouldn't they be a bit more than that?  
Harry is fighting Voldemort because Voldemort killed his parents.  
That's what brought him into the arena.  But shouldn't there be 
something deeper?  Some higher reason for Harry to contemplate 
becoming a killer?  Must it all boil down to vengeance?

Unfortunately, the discussions I've read seem to suggest that 
vengeance is all it is.  Dudley deserved to suffer because he was 
mean to Harry a few years back.  Vengeance.  Hermione was right to 
disfigure Marietta because Marietta snitched.  Vengeance.  Montague 
deserved to die of thirst because he took points away from 
Gryffindor. Vengeance.

So, why was Draco's attempted murder of Dumbledore wrong?  
Seriously.  If vengeance is where it's at (as Harry and his friends 
and their RL supporters seem to imply), shouldn't Draco have gone 
full speed ahead?  Doesn't it mean that his Hamlet-like hesitations 
are signs of weakness on his part not improvement?

And doesn't it mean that DDM!Snape is actually a fool?  That ESE!
Snape is actually the better man, per the rules of this universe, 
because ESE!Snape manages to achieve proper vengeance on those who 
wronged him?  Of course this would also mean that Grayback is a hero 
as well, visiting mighty karmic justice on all who've done him and 
his wrong.  Gosh, why on earth are children allowed to read these 
books?

The only reason I've not given up on the books yet is that the fat 
lady hasn't sung.  There's still a chance that vengeance and doling 
out of karmic justice is *not* the actual theme of the books.  Harry 
may actually figure out that there *are* basic rules that should 
*not* be broken.  That blind loyalty is not always a good thing.  
That Arthur was right and the twins were wrong.  That Hermione needs 
to treat other people as, well, people and not little puppets in her 
great machine.  That no matter how much they annoy you, the strong 
should *never* beat up the weak.

Betsy Hp (trying to remember why she liked these books in the first 
place)