Being Good and Evil (was:Re: Harry's arrogance (was Evil Snape)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 154570

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Peggy Richter" <richter at ...> wrote:
>
> Pippin wrote: In the Potterverse, facial disfigurement is associated 
> with  Harry's scar,  Mad-eye Moody's injuries, and Bill's mauling by 
> Fenrir, all inflicted by Death Eaters. Hermione is in bad company here.
> 
> PAR: I think that somewhere in all this the issue of free will, which 
> JKR said was important to her has been lost.
> Dudly CHOSE to greedily eat HARRY's Birthday cake before Hagrid gave 
> him a pig's tail. (he chose to be a pig).

Pippin:
Movie contamination! In the book Dudley is cowering against
the wall, and gets a pig's tail because Hagrid is angry with 
Vernon. Maybe Hagrid winding up in Azkaban in Book Two is 
poetic justice for that, and maybe Sirius went to Azkaban as
poetic justice for trying to kill Snape, and maybe Crouch Sr 
deserved to be murdered because he imprisoned Sirius unjustly, 
except that if Sirius deserved it then why should Crouch have 
been punished?  It must have been because
he was a bad father, yeah, that's it.

So what did little Crouch do to deserve having a lousy dad? 
If you believed in Karma in the literal sense, you'd say it was 
because he'd been evil in a previous life, but I don't think JKR
is going there. What she's telling us, is, I think, that this kind of 
thinking  is one  of the reasons flagrant injustice is ignored. 
Especially when it's being  perpetrated by someone
we would like to think is entirely admirable.

PAR:
> Dudly chose again to disregard his diet and eat the ton toffee. The 
> twins put the tempation in front of him but they didn't MAKE him eat 
> it.

Pippin:
The Twins knew that Dudley was on a diet and would be tempted 
more than normally by the candy -- what they did was, at
least according to the ethical system I know best, wrong. 
 Arthur agrees. 

PAR:
> 
> Marietta CHOSE to betray the DA group. She could have told HHP that 
> she didn't feel they were doing the right thing and should quit, she 
> could have decided not to continue going.  She agreed to abide by the 
> groups' rules and then didn't.  Nor has she ever approached Hermione 
> to ask for help (theoretically she "forgot" based on an obliviate at 
> DD's office but I'm not sure it wasn't actually an imperious)-- and in 
> that she again CHOSE to continue helping Umbrige.  

Pippin:
Huh? How does Marietta continuing to bear her punishment help
Umbridge? And Marietta was not choosing to help DE's. She kept
faith with the DA until they started studying how to defeat dementors.
Even Arthur believed the dementors were  loyal to the ministry.
It would be the equivalent in RL of taking a self-defense course
that suddenly morphs into learning how to disrupt the police. 

If you feared you'd gotten mixed up with a paramilitary anti-
government group, would you try to explain that, gee, this
wasn't what you had in mind when you joined? I'm not so sure the 
Twins wouldn't have stuffed her into the cabinet. Maybe Marietta
was smart to go to Umbridge instead. 

PAR: 
>  Compare to the child Imperio'd into attempting to kill his parents.  
> Or the DE's toying with the muggles.  Or Cedric. or those hit by 
> the "giant" hurricane, the bridge falling, even those killed by 
> the "gas explosion" of PP's escape.  These people did nothing to incur 
> the suffering or death they went thru. There is a difference.  Draco 
> has CHOSEN to support the DEs.  

Pippin:
But the curse on the parchment doesn't care about extenuating
circumstances -- that's one of the things that's wrong with it. 
Umbridge could have fed Marietta veritaserum or used Imperius 
and forced her to talk, and the result would have been just the same.

Pippin