I am about to rant/the hardest part

[littleleahstill]

No: HPFGUIDX 174860

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "kenneth9840" <kennclark at ...> 
wrote:
>> 
> 
> This is the Potterverse we are talking about here, a world where 
> wizards and witches with considerable magical powers exist,

Leah:
We don't have magical powers in our world, but we do have powers 
that only a few can devise and make work, powers for example that 
made one Muggle by the name of Oppenheimer say, "I am become Shiva, 
the destroyer of worlds".  We can eliminate other species, we can 
poison the world, or we can eradicate disease and breed better 
foodstuffs.  There's a lot of power around out there.

 where the 
> school for kids regularly has children in hospital with pretty 
severe 
> complaints, and where occasionally they die, 

Yes,children get fairly serious complaints in our world too, and 
sometimes they die. 

where witches die due to 
> failed magical experiments, 

In our world people die because the machines they invented crash or 
because they've overused the drugs they invented, or because a mine 
or a factory has polluted the ground. 

where sometimes magic is so 
> uncontrollable people end up in St Mungo's or hidden away at home, 

We have Alzheimers and schizophrenia and manic depression, and 
people end up in hospital with those conditions and sometimes they 
are hidden away at home.  We have people with conditions that 
haven't been diagnosed or aren't medicated and they can be 
uncontrollable.  We have belief systems that can be interpreted as 
making it ok to kill others.

> where the aforesaid St Mungos is full of people with permanent 
> magical conditions.

See above
> 
> Dont foist the morality of Little Britain or Middle America on to 
> such an environment. 

No, piety won't do it in the Potterverse or here.  But people have 
thought throughout the centuries that this world, which is so like 
the Potterverse, has needed something to live by.  Do you think the 
morality of eg. The Gospels, or Buddism is easy?.  I'd have far less 
trouble myself with flinging a Crucio than with returning good for 
evil.
  
 Its a tough place, the Potterverse, a place 
> where despite the best intentions of its occupants the 
Unforgivables 
> are regularly threatened and often used and where other spells are 
> used which have effects that in a non-magical world would be 
> unacceptable.  

Whereas building concentration camps or planting landmines, or 
evicting people from their land or making soldiers out of children, 
or blowing yourself up in a crowded building, or bombing cities, 
have effects which are perfectly acceptable.


Harry is a part of that world, not ours, with powers 
> of that world.  Given that I am surprised he didn't use more of 
the 
> Unforgiveables in DH, given the situations he found himself time 
> after time.
> 
> Ask yourself.  Wouldn't you have welcomed the opportunity to 
Crucio 
> Bellatrix, given half a chance?

Yes, I certainly would.  I'd have probably sunk to her level. But I 
haven't been the hero of a series of books which appeared to show 
the possibility of making other choices.

Leah