Hermione's parents.

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 175186

>  "sistermagpie" <sistermagpie@> wrote:
> 
> > this makes Hermione's dealings with her
> > parents unsurprising, it doesn't make it right.
> 
> Yet another example of "Eggplant's Third Law of Unequal Moral
> Responsibility": Among fans Snape and Ron get 10 miles of slack, 
Harry
> and Hermione don't get one inch of it.
>  
> Hermione intended to restore her parents memories if she survived, 
and
> if she didn't they could still have a happy life in Australia; the
> only alternative was to watch her parents get tortured to death for
> information. And in my book that DOES make it right! 

Magpie:
I find your law confusing, then. What do Snape or Ron (whom I take it 
you have problems with?) have to do with anything? If either of them 
did this I'd say the same thing. I realize that in your book what 
Hermione does is simply right--I don't agree with your book. Your 
book glosses over the free will of other people and just concentrates 
on what Hermione needs or wants--even to the point of creating a 
completely false binary, as if it's either do what she did or she 
watches her parents gets tortured to death for information, so that 
disagreement = saying you want the Grangers tortured. That's a 
dishonest choice you've created. There are many more than just those 
two--and her parents being tortured for information doesn't even turn 
out to ever be an issue. Sometimes doing a "wrong" thing is still the 
right thing to do for a greater good. I don't even think teh story is 
reaches that level.

You haven't actually argued against my own issue, which is that grown 
adults are not house cats where the only thing that matters is what's 
convenient for their owner and what their owner decides will spare 
them pain. If as a Muggle you will happily hand over your free will 
to Wizards because they know best that's your choice. I would lean 
more towards the Muggle Liberation Army, myself. Does this make 
things more difficult for the good guys? Sure it does. Morals are a 
lot easier if you're Hermione in canon, and generally the way to be a 
good person is to line up with the right leaders, and a happy ending 
is having the right people in charge of everyone. But it's still 
important, imo. (Even if, as I said, I really just view this as a 
throwaway way of getting rid of Hermione's parents so that we don't 
have to hear about them again. She has essentially just put her pets 
in a kennel for the rest of the book so we don't have to be told 
who's feeding them and know they won't be involved from now on.)  

-m