Whose side are we on?? :was: Arthur right or not?

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 156006

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Ceridwen" <ceridwennight at ...>
wrote:
>

>
> I don't particularly like 'for the children' arguments, so I feel
> very compromised posting this.  But as a parent and grandparent, I am
> worried about the message that these things send to kids.  Show the
> Bad Guys in all their horrible glory!  Show the kids that they don't
> want to be like them, see the comeuppance the bad guys get!  But
> don't show the Good Guys, the guys  who should be the role models for
> juvenile readers, *getting away with* questionable behavior.
>
>


And who is supposed to provide the bad guys with their comeuppance if
not the heroes?  And how are they supposed to do so without engaging in
questionable behavior?  Rely on the adults around them?  That's a rip,
snort, and laugh in the Potterverse, populated as it is by contemptible
and morally deaf adults, most of whom aren't competent to run a
lemonade stand.  Note for instance that Harry is physically tortured by
Umbridge, a fact that seems to be common knowledge and that he even
deliberately exhibits at the Weasleys in his confrontation with
Scrimgeour, but not one of the adults can be bothered to say so much as
a word to him about it.  Why?  Are their tongues tied?  Are they really
that incompetent and morally deaf (I'd say the answer is yes).  So that
means the heroes have to take matters in their own hands, and the
adults around them would be contemptible hypocrites to suddenly try to
exert whatever vestige of pseudo-parental authority they have left
considering their manifest failures over the last few years.

Lupinlore