Amortentia and re The morality of love potions/Merope and Tom Sr.

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 152379

Carol earlier:
> > Where is the evidence that she used force or that she "used love
> > potion to make him marry her"? All we know is that she wanted him to
> > love her. The potion, which creates an obsession with a person may
> > have compelled him to propose to her, take his marriage vows, and make
> > love to his lawfully wedded wife, but there's no evidence that Merope
> > had either sex or marriage in mind when she gave it to him. 
> 
Gerry:
> Well, she could have said no. She was under no compulsion and new
> exactly what was going on. Yet they were married.
> 
> Besides, you ignore that it is not canon that she gave him a love
> potion. It is DD's idea that she used this option to compell him
> because to her it would have been more romantic than Imperius. So it
> is equally possible she used Imperius as somebody already pointed out. 

Carol responds:
Is it really "equally possible," or even plausible? It was actually
Harry's suggestion, not Dumbledore's (HBP Am. ed. 213) that she might
have used an Imperius Curse (and given what we've seen of Merope, DD
is certainly right that she would have preferred a "romantic"
alternative). But where would Merope, whose brief lifespan predates
the DEs and whose exposure to the WW seems limited, have learned the
Imperius Curse? (Do we even know that the Unforgiveable Curses existed
at that time? Maybe LV invented them.) For that matter, I'm still
wondering where and how she learned to concoct a love potion.

Gerry: 
> Well, even in the WW both parties have to give consent when they
want to get married. If Tom had been in his right mind he would never
have given consent, nothing postmodern or Muggle there. 

Carol responds:
No one is denying that point, but it's nevertheless possible that he
proposed (under the influence of the potion) and she accepted, the
standard procedure in those days. We have no evidence that she
compelled him to marry her at wandpoint, nor do love potions work that
way. And of course she wouldn't say no. He was the handsome prince,
figuratively speaking, who had come to rescue from her abusive home
and deadend existence. (What girl in her position as combined
Cinderella/ugly stepsister would not have had such fantasies?)
> 
> To quote some canon: 
> 'Can you not think of any measure Merope could have taken to make
Tom Riddle forget his Muggle companion and fall in love wit her instead?'
> HBP Bloomsbury Hardcover edtion p. 201
> 
> Seems pretty clear cut to me. 

Carol:
What seems clear to you? DD says that Merope wanted Tom to fall in
love with her, exactly what I'm saying. But wanting a handsome man to
fall in love with you, and taking measures to make it happen because
you are lonely, desperate, ugly, unloved and without any chance that
such a thing will happen naturally, is not the same as forcing that
handsome man to have sex with you. I'm not condoning Merope's action,
but I think it's perfectly understandable given the circumstances.
Having Marvolo for a father and Morfin for a brother, living in a
hovel with no hope of escape unless she takes some sort of action,
with no example of ethical or responsible behavior, what else could be
expected of her? None of us is perfect, and it's hard to see how
anyone could expect perfection from Merope. (I personally think that
she's meant to parallel the boys of her age who are tempted to join
the Death Eaters and learn the hard way that they've made a serious
mistake, but that's a matter for another post.)
 
Carol earlier:
> > Whom is Merope blaming for her circumstances? It's Tom Sr. who
claims that he's been "hoodwinked."
> 
Gerry:
> Well, what could he have said? That he was enchanted by an evil witch? 

Carol:
You're ignoring the question, which is "whom did Merope blame"? To my
knowledge, we have no canon that she blamed anyone, not even the
abusive Marvolo. She simply lost interest in living because she had
lost the man she loved.
> 
Carol earlier:
> Merope does take responsibility for her actions by telling him that
she's a witch and has been giving him a love potion. Her reward for
her honesty is to be abandoned in London, penniless and pregnant.
>
Gerry: 
> We don't know that. This is all guesswork from DD. We know he got
out and she was left. And I don't see why his running away should
somehow have been wrong. 

Carol:
Yes, guesswork from Dumbledore is *almost* all we have to work on. But
I think we're meant to conclude that he's close to the truth. But we
also have the Pensieve memories that show us what Merope was like, a
forlorn, unloved, "defeated-looking" girl. As for Tom's running away,
it isn't wrong in itself. What is wrong is leaving Merope and her
unborn child with no means of support and making no effort later to
trace his child and see that he or she was decently treated. He could
have done so anonymously. In fact, if he had, he'd have discovered
that he was free to marry. Sadly and ironically for all concerned, he
just abandoned them to their fate.
> > 
Carol:
>  You cannot conjure money or food even if you're a witch. She has
> > no means of earning a living, and Tom Sr. knows that. 
> 
Gerry:
> First, how should he? Second, thats is her problem. He was in fact
> kidnapped and raped by her. He was USED. 

Carol:
He knows perfectly well that she lived in filth and poverty. Second,
how is the welfare of the child they both created "her problem"? Would
you say that about a female rape victim? Nor is it a "fact" that she
"kidnapped and raped" him, as I have taken pains to point out. You are
taking your own position for granted.
<snip>
Gerry:
> I don't see him having any parental responsibilities at all
actually. If a woman is raped and gets pregnant and cannot get an
abortion I don't see she has any parental responsibilities either.

Carol:
We're talking about the 1930s. Merope does not have the option of
abortion, nor the resources to take care of her child. Tom Sr. is the
legal father; therefore it is both his legal and moral responsibility
to pay his fair share of the expenses. He has no right to leave her
penniless. Of course Merope shares that responsibility, along with the
burden of pregnancy as I pointed out earlier. But she has no
resources. To quote my own post, "She is frightened, desperate, and
demoralized. Tom, however angry and humiliated he may be, does not
have to carry the child or give birth to it. He merely needs to
provide for its welfare so that it won't be born in the street or
taken to an orphanage. However he may feel about Merope, he is the
child's father and is as responsible as she is for its welfare, both
morally and legally, and in a much better position to do something
about it.
> 
Gerry:
> Legally he is because of the forced marriage. But morally not at
all. He is not so much the father as the forced deliverer of the sperm.
> Merope did all of this to herself. Now I do agree that she probably
> had no idea things would turn out like this, that her intentions
were not evil. But her actions were. 

Carol:
And so she should be condemned to starve to death in the streets of
London, along with her unborn child? Why not just shoot her and put
her out of her misery? If Muggle Tom was raised a Christian, he would
have been taught to forgive those who trespass against him and even to
do good unto them that hate you. Merope didn't hate him. She loved
him. But she was poor, ugly, dirty, uneducated and wholly unsuitable
as a wife. Yes, she tricked him into taking the potion because she
wanted to be loved, but she also confessed what she had done. And what
she got was not Christian forgiveness but utter rejection and a broken
heart. For her, it was a death sentence. That may be your idea of
mercy and right conduct. I assure you, it is not mine.

Carol, with apologies for returning to a topic she is trying to abandon