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

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 154601


> aussie: (answering the last thing first)
> 
> Who says that Marietta has to go to Flitwick, Bill, St Mungo's or 
> anyone else except back to Hermione and appologise. Then the cure 
> would be less than a week if Marietta just trusted Harry, et al. 
> Especially after LV was confirmed being sighted in MOM, she should 
> have sent an owl to Harry straight away. Forgiveness needs an 
> appology to start with. Hermione had already shown a willingness 
to 
> forgive with Rita.

Magpie:
Marietta's been memory charmed so wouldn't be able to make an honest 
apologize if she tried.  I haven't seen any hint in canon that 
anyone's waiting for an apology from her.  It seems like it's just a 
done deal.  I think it's a bit odd to describe Hermione as showing a 
willingness to forgive with Rita.  More like a willingness to punish 
and make a person to pay for their crimes. Cho shows a willingness 
to forgive Marietta.  Hermione I don't think ever even shows any 
response to her disfigurement.  

aussie:
> 
> For Hermione, this was not school kid rivally, but war with LV 
> returned which Umbridge violently (dementors and detentions) 
refused 
> to accept. In Qudditch terms, she was a good seeker to catch that 
> snitch.

Magpie:
But why does Hermione define what this was?  Hermione set up a 
secret DA class because the current teacher wasn't teaching.  If she 
actually meant to set up a cult requiring absolute loyalty she 
really should have been stricter about membership.  I would never 
have suspected, had I been Marietta, that I was cursing myself for 
life when I reluctantly signed a parchment written by a girl in my 
class I'd never met before--a girl who herself had moments before 
referred to the DA as a "study group."  Hermione's hex is amazingly 
pointless when you think about it.  It doesn't stop anyone from 
talking, it doesn't alert anyone in the DA that they've been outed.  
She doesn't warn anyone that they've been hexed so that she can use 
it as a deterrant.  One might say her own priorities hurt her.  It's 
interesting to wonder just how cohesive a group the DA would be with 
that level of trust as well.

I can't help but suspect that Marietta's disfigurement was mentioned 
again in HBP for the same reason Montague's condition continued to 
be mentioned in OotP, because it was one of those things that was 
going to turn around and bite Harry's side on the butt.  This series 
has proved it knows very well how handing out casual justice can 
have consequences further down the line.  I can't believe JKR 
thought it was just satisfying to show that Marietta was still hexed-
-she has too few lines for readers to really want to see her 
punished, imo, like Montague did.  So I lean towards thinking it's a 
set up.

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).

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.

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.

Magpie:
This is something that seems to happen a lot, that when people talk 
about free choice, and a character CHOOSING to do something, they so 
often mean that the character is responsible not only for what s/he 
did but for what other people did to him/her in response.

I mean, the implication here in saying that Dudley CHOSE to eat the 
toffee is that he is then responsible for his tongue swelling, 
neatly side-stepping the fact that Dudley's tongue in fact swells 
because the twins CHOSE to create a Potion to swell the tongue and 
put it in candy.  Tongue-swelling is not a foreseeable consequence 
of eating a piece of candy.  Even if the movie scene had happened 
and Dudley was given a pig's tail for eating birthday cake, saying 
that he "chose to be a pig" is twisting the words the way a bully 
would, as if Hagrid's action is just a passive consequence of 
Dudley's.  Even in the movie Dudley didn't choose to assume the 
physical form of a pig. He ate birthday cake and Hagrid decided to 
punish him in a way that made it clear he, Hagrid, considered this 
child a pig.

Likewise Marietta is not scarred because her actions passively led 
to disfigurement, she's scarred because Hermione intentionally 
created a disfigurement hex and placed it on her without her 
knowing, ready to go if Marietta told anyone about her (Hermione's) 
secret study group/army.  It's not only a case of just the natural 
consequence of Marietta's actions even if Marietta activated the hex 
by telling about the DA (something I can easily imagining Hermione 
herself doing under different circumstances with different people 
leading the DA).  (By this line of reasoning had Slughorn drunk the 
mead he bought for Dumbledore and died of it in HBP, it wouldn't be 
because Draco intentionally poisoned it and got it inside the 
school, but because Slughorn was greedy and drank a bottle of mead 
meant for Dumbledore.) 

There are plenty of times in canon when, imo, characters wind up 
suffering the bad consequences of their own actions, but I don't 
think that applies to situations when one character decides to hurt 
another for whatever reason.  When that happens the choice lies with 
them for introducing the violence/poison whatever.  "This person did 
this bad thing so I had to punish him!"  I think that kind of 
thinking gets into worse ethical territory than the things they're 
punishing. When the person is really just suffering the consequences 
of his/her own actions, or feels like they are, I think it's usually 
cause for more reflection on their part and the readers.

-m