Choice and Essentialism (was:Re: Understanding Snape)

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 153933

Alla:
*(snip)*
> What I am saying is that who the characters are plays the 
> huge role. I am not quite sure that who they are equals their 
blood, 
> so probably genes was the wrong example, although on the other hand 
> Gaunts behaviour, ugliness ( abuse, etc) is coming from somewhere. 
> Not sure. Have to think on it.

Ceridwen:
I think the Gaunts are a good example of our choices showing who we 
are, or at least *their* choices showing who *they* are, or even 
making who they are.  Their attitude about being heirs of Slytherin, 
the idea that everyone else was beneath them (and the feud between GG 
and SS probably fed into that more isolationist outlook, imo) caused 
the inbreeding (or other more politically correct term) Dumbledore 
referred to, since they probably thought no one else was good enough 
for their status.  This was a choice made by some former generation, 
and each time it was made, the choice did not lay with the people 
most affected, who would of course be the children of these 
increasing unions through time, and the couples if the parents made 
the choice for them.

Slight tangent: Reading about the Gaunts, I would not be surprised if 
Marvolo intended Merope for Morfin.  This would have been Marvolo's 
choice, not necessarily Merope's or Morfin's, but if things hadn't 
worked out the way they did, I could see it happening at a later 
date.  And being related, they would have had more chance of passing 
on undesirable traits (the children would probably have been wall-
eyed like the parents) as well as desirable traits (I do think 
Parseltongue is desirable, it's only the uses it's been put to are 
sometimes undesirable).

Alla:
> 
> But again I am not saying that Dudley never makes any choices. What 
> I am saying that at the very young age we see the possibility that 
> Dudley is going to be not a good person and indeed he is NOT a good 
> person, IMO.
> He has a large part of himself of who he is, that is all. It does 
> not prevent him from making choices?

Ceridwen:
Dudley's behavior as a toddler is more Vernon's and Petunia's choices 
coming out, not Dudley's.  As he grows older and learns more about 
the world, he makes more and more choices on his own which are his 
own culpability.  Unlike the Gaunt children, who seem to have been 
raised in near-isolation and with apparently a strong adversarial 
regard for the MoM and the rest of the WW (not to mention pure 
contempt for the Muggle world), Dudley goes out into the world, he 
attends school, he has friends, he sees that there are different 
approaches to things than what he sees at home and so forth, so he is 
probably more culpable than either Gaunt child, or Marvolo if he was 
raised the same way as he raises his kids.

When Dudley becomes an adult at, I presume, age 18, he will be fully 
responsible for the things he does, which of course will come from 
his choices.  If he continues to beat people up and intimidate them, 
steal their money and so forth, he, and not Vernon or Petunia, will 
be dragged into court, tried, and possibly sentenced.

Of course, he's been given the wrong idea by his parents, which is 
what Dumbledore meant when he said the Dursleys have harmed him.  He 
doesn't have a balanced idea of what is right and wrong.  Still, he 
sees the world, he watches enough TV to know, that people who behave 
the way he does get into trouble.  At his majority, he will be 
responsible for his actions no matter what.

I think even Marvolo Gaunt, if he was raised the same way he raised 
his kids, still had the ability at 17 to go out into the WW, meet 
people, experience life, and so forth, and so is responsible for his 
actions, too.  He doesn't seem to be mentally diminished, just 
fanatical.  He's had encounters with the MoM, he's been informed of 
the laws, he chooses to ignore them and to teach his children to 
ignore them.  It would have been a lot more work for him to change, 
as it will be a lot more work for Dudley to change.  But at a certain 
point, there is personal responsibility.

At least, that's how this all plays for me, anyway.

Ceridwen.