Harry using Crucio -- Code of the Playground

[va32h]

No: HPFGUIDX 174610

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Dennis Grant" <trog at ...> wrote:
> The kid isn't a saint; he a soldier - and those that know soldiers
> know they ain't plaster saints.

va32h: Serious Rant Ahead

Yes, I DO know real soldiers - I sleep next to one every night. Or 
try to. He doesn't get much sleep, you see, because he has these 
really horrible nightmares, in which he remembers the people he saw 
injured and dead, the people to whom he caused injury and death. 

Real soliders frequently suffer from a little thing called PTSD - 
which is the natural result of moral, ethical, people witnessing or 
performing violence. 

My husband is not sorry for what he did in Iraq. He'd be dead himself 
if he hadn't done his job as a soldier. But he isn't proud. He isn't 
happy, he isn't satisified - in short, he isn't Harry "You have to 
mean it" Freaking Potter. 

I have NO PROBLEM with JKR choosing to show Harry USING Crucio. I am 
disgusted with her choice to have him ENJOY it, and not show one iota 
or remorse or reckoning, to wave away any question of the implication 
of her hero being proud of himself for succesfully torturing someone 
with "oh well he's not a saint."

You don't have to be a saint to NOT take pleasure in another person's 
pain - to NOT be proud of yourself for being able to hurt someone in 
a new and more powerful way. You only have to have a scrap of common 
decency and something vaguely resembling a conscience. 

I am so, so SICK of people tossing around the excuse "it's a war and 
he's a soldier, and that's what soldiers do." No, they don't. They 
don't enjoy hurting people. They do their job, and it screws them up 
for years afterward. 

So please - if you want to keep patting Harry on the back for using 
Crucio, fine, but don't drag soldiers into it. They don't deserve the 
comparison. 

va32h