Nice vs. Good, honesty, and Snape: Was Snape, Apologies, and Redemption

[lanval1015]

No: HPFGUIDX 152951

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "houyhnhnm102" <celizwh at ...> 
wrote:
>
> Lanval:
> 
> > Or from a simple, basic feeling of goodwill towards 
> > others -- and likewise a reluctance to hurt others. 
> > Anything wrong with that?
> 
> houyhnhnm:
> 
> I would certainly agree that anyone fitting that description is a 
good
> person.  Who would you say fits that description in the 
Potterverse? 

Lanval:
I'm really, really reluctant to put such labels on any of the 
young'uns. There are so many factors playing into kids' and 
teenagers' decisions and actions -- lack of experience, lack of 
independent thinking, peer pressure, hormones... I can see some of 
them going in the right direction (and I would agree that Luna, God 
love her, is one of them. Probably my favorite among the 'minor' kid 
characters).


> houyhnhnm:
> Among the adults, who qualifies for your definition of nice=good?  

Lanval:
Arthur, Remus, Tonks, Hagrid, to name just a few. They're 
all on the right side, so they qualify as 'good', right?

Mind, I don't think for a minute ANY of them is always 
nice/kind/polite. But on my personal Gray-Scale of Niceness, they all 
score somewhere in the ash/driftwood/pale pewter range. Snape's more 
of a charcoal. :)

Molly and Sirius are a bit harder to define. Molly has too much of a 
Mother-Bear-thing going to be called 'nice', I think (though 
personally I'm very fond of her). But she gets a bit too riled up 
when she perceives an insult to any of her cubs (including Harry), 
and has then a habit of attacking before thinking.

Sirius -- again, I can't find any hint of him being a Real Meanie, 
once he left school. He's rather sweet with the kids, and I greatly 
admire his self-control when one of the twins gets nasty 
with him in OotP (same when Molly slams him with what is probably THE 
ugliest remark of her career). Both times he realizes that they are 
under terrible stress, and he puts away his personal sentiments.  But 
altogether he's so screwed in the head by the time he gets out of 
Azkaban, I'm loath to pass judgment on him.

Dumbledore? Unfailingly polite and kind to people, most of the time, 
even if his actions aren't always. But JKR has called him the epitome 
of goodness, and I'm inclined to trust her.


houyhnhnm:
> On the other hand, the "nicest" person in the six books, and it is 
the
> kind of "nice" that causes people to recoil from the word, is 
Dolores
> Umbridge.  She speaks with a "fluttery, girlish, high-pitched 
voice".
>  She gives "silvery" laughs. She never barges into the conversation,
> but rather coughs delicately to signal her intention to speak 
("/Hem,
> hem/")  She is unfailingly polite and pleasant.  She smiles and 
speaks
> sweetly, even when she is forcing Harry to carve sentences into the
> back of his own hand. (Was anyone else reminded of Kafka's "In the
> Penal Colony"?) I have no doubt she considers herself "nice".


Lanval:
Ah. Umbridge. She perfectly embodies the Superficially-Nice-but-Nasty-
Inside type, doesn't she?

Dear Dolores is a special case for me. I recall cries of woe 
following the release of OotP, about what a shallow two-dimensional 
villain she was. How boring! How lame of JKR! There must be another 
side of Umbridge, we never get to know her to see what makes her so 
nasty!

I don't think Dolores Umbridge the Person matters at all, to JKR or 
the story. I see her as an allegory. For instance, in Thomas 
Mann's "The Magic Mountain", the character of Lodovico Settembrini 
represents Humanism, while his constant sparring partner Leo Naphta 
represents what might be called Religious Radicalism. To me, Umbrigde 
represents Fascism/Totalitarianism, in all its creeping menace, made 
all the more dangerous because of the banality of her appearance. 
Every child knows that when one encounters a monstrous slitty-
nostrilled, red-eyed, madly cackling chap in a graveyard, it's time 
to be Very Afraid. But Umbridge, who looks "like someone's maiden 
aunt"? Who collects pictures of kittens?

I grit my teeth every time I read one of her decrees. 

We see the very worst of her before we even encounter her as a 
character. Then we perk up a little at Hermione's unease at the 
introductory speech. And then it begins, slowly, but surely, a little 
freedom taken away here, a new rule in effect there. Soon it's too 
late. Umbridge has too much power, And then, once she's in total 
control, open revolution is the only way.


Not sure if JKR intended this story arc as a Lesson to Remember. But 
if she did, she did it brilliantly, IMO.


>houyhnhnm: 
> Lupin is also nice.  His many sins of omission have been catalogued
> elsewhere so I won't go into them here.  While he may turn out to be
> on the side of good, I have difficulty seeing him as an exemplar of
> goodness.

Lanval:
Then you will do the same for Snape, right? On the good side, but 
certainly not 'a good person'?
> 
> So I guess I am trying to say that I agree that nice can equal good
> the way you define it, but I don't see too many characters in the
> Potterverse who meet the criteria.  Maybe the argument could be made
> for Arthur Weasley.
> 
Lanval:
Well, I see quite a few, all flawed, but generally both nice and good.

I do like your posting ID, btw. :) I had a very McGonagall-ish 
English professor in college, who threatened to take a whole grade 
off our essays every time we misspelled "Houyhnhnms'.