Malum blah blah blah was Re: Harry using Crucio.

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 174446


> Alla:
> 
> I am sorry it makes your skin crawl, but while you are saying that 
> you are much more compassionate  than Harry ever was, I was 
bringing 
> up examples before where I am having incredibly hard time to ever 
> show compassion to killer of my parents AND to the guy who almost 
> killed DD. It is a proof of Harry's humanity to me that this 
> compassionw as short lived, well actually not so short lived as to 
> Draco, but the fact that it was there, I find incredible.
> 
> And no, I personally do not see proof that Harry is not 
> compassionate since he was not agonising over cutting Draco.
> 
> And an aside, of the sort. Do you feel compassion towards Harry?  
Do 
> you think he is worthy of compassion?

Magpie:
Is Harry worthy of compassion? Absolutely! I can't imagine why he 
wouldn't be--the very word "deserving" surprised me. I don't think of 
it as exactly something that people deserve or don't. 

I should clarify, that when I say I'm ahead of Harry, I don't mean 
I'm better than he is, or that I would necessarily be better than he 
is if I were in his shoes. It's that as a reader, I'm ahead of him 
that way--it's one of the reasons the whole ending winds up to me 
feeling like just a big missed opportunity, almost as if Harry forgot 
to get rid of a Horcrux.

To give an example where Harry is ahead of me, Harry seems to me to 
be very just. He's always quick to respond where he sees what he 
thinks is an innocent being mistreated. For instance, when Draco 
takes Neville's Rememberall and Harry jumps in, "Give it back!" and 
all that, even with Neville not there, I say: this is a thing for 
this kid. This injustice bothers him more than it bothers me. Harry's 
more demanding about justice than I am.

With regards to Sectumsempra, for instance--and correct me if I'm 
wrong because I don't mean to speak for you, but just from the way 
you've described it here--it seems like you're more like Harry in 
this way. It's impressive that Harry feels compassion because of who 
Draco is and what he's done. It seems like Justice is a big factor 
there. 

I think if Harry was a character that was about compassion as I 
understand it (and given JKR described Ginny in HBP as warm and 
compassionate it seems like she may also be also thinking about what 
I'm calling justice more than what I think of as compassion too) it 
seems like the whole story would just be different because he's react 
to things so differently.  I admit I imagine there'd be a lot more 
connection with some of the bad characters. I don't think it's 
surprising that the word "bleeding heart" has come up sometimes in 
response to criticism. 

I mean, remember, I'm responding to the idea that he's *incredibly 
compassionate* as if this is an area where he's really exceptional, 
but even your own post says that his "humanity" makes his compassion 
short-lived. That kind of reminded me of Lupinlore's post about how 
Harry forgives Snape because he's "Christ-like" as if again, being a 
human would make that a lot more difficult. But humans do do things 
like that. People have different temperments and what's difficult for 
one person is more natural to another. 

-m