muggle baiting vs. muggle torture

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 155378

>
> Alla:
>
> I am so very puzzled. We discussed it for several days and I am
> puzzled all over again.
>
> Where do you find vengeance in what Hermione did? I see protection
> of DA members from horrible fate as the only reason for Hermione's
> actions.
>
> I can see the argument of them being cruel, but **vengeance** as
> motive?

Pippin:
"Believe me, if anyone's run off and told Umbridge, we'll know exactly
who they are and they will really regret it."
"What'll happen to them?" asked Ron eagerly.
"Well, put it this way," said Hermione, "it'll make Eloise Midgen's
acne look like a couple of cute freckles." -OOP ch 17

I don't see how making the traitor look worse than Eloise
protects the DA.  Ron's eagerness makes it clear that *he* reads 
vengeance as Hermione's motive. He can hardly be eager for 
someone to betray the DA. 

> Alla:
>
> Yes, of course. Just a bit of vicarious retribution for Montague for
> sigting with monster.
>
> To me Twins are not even fully developed characters - to me they are
> funny and tools of justice, that is why I evaluate his actions
> differently from the way I evaluate Trio and some other characters.
> Does it make sense?
>
> As I mentioned earlier - I think JKR uses them often when she cannot
> punish bad guys in any other ways and for humor of course.
>

Pippin:
For me, that would undermine the moral lesson, because it says we
are supposed to see some people as more human than others. If
only fully developed characters are responsible for their actions, then
why shouldn't we let Crabbe and Goyle off the hook? Or Marietta for
that matter? <g>

How is a Potterverse character supposed to tell which characters
don't have 'real' thoughts and feelings, so it doesn't matter if they're
treated badly?  How is Snape, for example, supposed to know
that it would be okay for him to kick Montague around but not Harry?


> Alla:
>
> Yes, I think it was not supposed to help anybody. I think it was
> supposed to show us that bad guys in one way or another will get
> from fate what they deserved.
>
> Of course it backfired  too.]

Pippin:
I just can't think that way, because then I would have to 
think that  the good guys got what they deserved for letting 
Fred and George run wild.
 
Greyback is Montague's avenging angel?!! I don't think we're going
there. I think what JKR is doing is a bit more complicated than
that. 

She shows us that it's normal to feel gratified when
the guilty suffer. The Twins are not depicted as cruel people 
because of that. We never see their eyes lighting up at the 
thought of hurting those they know to be innocent.

But  by letting their  satisfaction with punishing Montague make 
them indifferent to his fate they literally created an opening for evil.
Metaphorically, they put Montague in the cabinet but they got 
Greyback out.

I think this is what Dumbledore was trying to explain
when he talked about the price of Sirius's indifference to 
Kreacher, which Harry misunderstood as saying Sirius 
deserved what he got. Sirius did not do evil and get evil in 
return any more than the Twins did. But his indifference exposed
him to an evil which did not care whether he deserved to die or not.

Indifference breeds cruelty, not only metaphorically but literally,
because it makes it easier for some people to be cruel.
That's what JKR is trying to tell us IMO. 

We see in canon that people respond to cruelty and neglect in 
different ways.
 
Some get the saving people thing. Others, through no fault of their
own, are  altered so that they are gratified when anyone suffers, 
guilty or not. This, I think, is the appalling damage that 
Dumbledore saw in Dudley. 

JKR makes it easy to confuse this condition with wickedness. But
nowhere are we told that this is a choice.   Nowhere in canon 
do we have a moment where Dudley, Draco, Snape or even 
Voldemort sat down and said, I want to like it when I hurt people,
any more than Harry ever said to himself, I want to like it when
I save people.
 
Voldemort may have been born with this damage already done. 
Dudley probably wasn't. But no one decided to be damaged in
this way. And characters who are damaged in this way can still
be on the side of good, because they can still choose to risk
their lives in order to protect the innocent and they can still
fight to  keep evil from power, and they can still resist the 
temptation to hurt others just because it feels good when they 
do it.

The choices the undamaged characters have to make, more
important  for them because  they are harder, are  not 
to be indifferent, not to let the pleasure of punishing 
those who deserve it be their excuse for being too severe,
and not to let bias influence their judgement.

The Twins and a great many other characters have not yet learned to
be mindful of the damage they can cause, not by being cruel, but by 
being indifferent to cruelty. Fortunately there's a book left.

Hermione is not deliberately cruel even to her worst enemies. She
would never dream of tattooing 'racist' in purple pustles on Draco's
face. But she thinks because her intentions are good, though 
a better word might be undamaged, her actions are going to be
good too. But causing needless suffering is not good, and she
does not weigh her actions in terms of how much needless suffering
they might cause. That's what I'd like to see her start doing.

Pippin