Snape and the "Chosen One" Was: Nice vs. Good - Compassion

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 153598

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "lupinlore" <rdoliver30 at ...> wrote:

> 
> But that is where I emphatically disagree, I think the books are 
> VERY MUCH about the abuse of Harry Potter.  Voldemort?  He is really 
> an incredibly boring character.  Of course he's evil and of course 
> he's going to die.  Where on earth is the interest in that?
> 
> The repeated abuse Harry has suffered while the "epitome of 
> goodness" and greatest wizard in the world (and every other adult in 
> the story) stood by and let it happen -- that is an important 
> issue.  

Pippin:
If Dumbledore could choose good as purely as Voldemort chooses
evil, he'd be just as boring as Voldemort. What makes Dumbledore
interesting, IMO, is that he lives in a difficult world, in which pure 
goodness exists but is inaccessible. It that world it is not possible 
or even desirable to offer a child a life without pain and suffering. 
Pain and suffering may be needed as a corrective, or as a stimulus
to develop resistance  (no pain, no gain may be true for characters
as well as bodies)  but even when they are not, the ultimate evil 
in the Potterverse is not child abuse. It is murder, which is always 
deadly and always mutilates the soul. 

Dumbledore also believes that it is very difficult to see beyond the
immediate consequences of our actions. Murder as an immediate 
consequence of our actions would thus be a greater evil than the 
possibility of murder as a remote consequence. 

Between unwillingly allowing child abuse and unwillingly allowing 
murder, then, Dumbledore would have to allow the abuse. JKR has
turned the moral certainty which is normally one of the attractive 
things about the fantasy genre on its head. In the Potterverse there 
is  often no safety or comfort, for oneself or for others,  in following 
the path of  good. These things can far more easily be gained by 
choosing evil -- until it's time to pay the price. 


One may of course disagree with these ethics, but I think it can or 
will be shown that all of Dumbledore's choices, with the exception 
of the ones he expressed remorse for, were consistent with them,
and this is why Dumbledore is JKR's best example of goodness. 

Dumbledore told Harry why he thought the Dursleys were the
lesser evil.  We may never know why Dumbledore thought that having 
Snape teach Harry and Neville was the lesser evil, but Harry and 
Neville can certainly work it out for themselves.

In any case, silence does not equal approval. Both Harry and Hermione 
have found that in some circumstances, speaking out or other
misguided attempts at intervention have made matters worse. 

Pippin