Harry getting cut some Slack WAS: Harry using Crucio.

[Katie]

No: HPFGUIDX 174398

>  "Marion Ros" <mros@> wrote:
 
 > Amazing how some people can write post 
 > after post about how dreadful, how dastardly,
 > how *crool* certain fictional schoolteachers
 > can be ("a teacher who treated a very nice boy
 > - and all his friends - like shit for 6 years
 > because he didn't like the boy's father. Is
 > that man evil? I tend to think he is, not Hitler
 > level evil of course, but evil nevertheless" 
 > as by your post nr 172925) , but are somehow 
 > totally okay with a fictional schoolboy's gleeful torturing.
 
>Eggplant:
 Yes, I'm totally OK with Harry making an astronomically evil man
> miserable, I am not OK with Snape making a very nice boy miserable
> because he didn't like the boy's father. 
>  
>Marion: > Ah well, it's a matter of taste, I suppose,
> > but *I* wouldn't call such a boy 'very nice' :-)
> 
> Eggplant:
I can see that book 7 didn't change one thing, Snape still gets miles
> of slack and Harry doesn't get an inch. Not one inch, not even in a 
war! 
> 
> Eggplant Gellert Grindelwald

****
KATIE:

I agree with Eggplant so much, I don't even know where to begin! I 
might stutter a little bit in my anxiety to get my point made, so 
bearwith me! LOL.

As much as I want to bring the Trio in, I will stick to Harry alone. 

Harry, as I have been saying for years, is a good kid.  He has flaws 
and makes bad decisions...much like most good normal people I know. I 
am a good person, for example, yet I occasionally curse at a stranger 
in traffic, or I'm not very nice to my son when I have a headache and 
I'm tired and he's been begging me to go the zoo for 7 hours, or I 
forget to feed my dog...You get my point. I'm a good person, but I 
ain't no saint. Neither is Harry, and he isn't supposed to be. 

However, he has a core of goodness that *does* make his bad deeds 
less bad. When a good person does a seemingly bad thing, one has to 
take into account their entire lifetime of behavior, not one singular 
snapshot moment. Could any of us be asked to define our lives by a 
singular moment, picked arbitrarily by someone else? No way! 

Over the years, Harry has been a good person. He has been brave, 
empathatic, kind, and incredibly selfless. Do I have a problem with a 
person like that losing his temper because a despicable person did 
something rude after tormenting small children for a year? NO WAY. 

And do any of us believe for a moment that Harry would have stood 
there for hours on end, laughing and torturing him? Absolutely not. 
Harry lost his temper, used crucio as a means of getting out his own 
anger on this vile person, and then he stopped. And I have no problem 
with that at all. 

As for Snape, I have always had a soft (inexplicable) spot for Snape. 
I think I hated him momentarily when he was cruel to Hermione and 
Neville at various times, but I never hated him altogether. However, 
that being said, Eggplant's point is well taken. Snape was never nice 
to Harry or any of his friends, for childish and selfish reasons. His 
behavior was entirely unacceptable, especially as he was in a 
position of authority, and he should have been held at least to the 
standard of treating Harry and his friends with civility. 

While I certainly find Snape fascinating and more than a little bit 
pitiable, it does confuse me that Harry is held to a higher standard 
of behavior than an adult. It also confuses me because Harry is so 
normally kind and good, and Snape is normally bitter and cruel...

Hope I didn't put words in your mouth, Eggplant! Correct me if I'm 
wrong! 

Cheers, Katie