Philosophy of Dumbledore (was:Moody's death...)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 179542

> 
> Betsy Hp:
> As an author though, building a world where good and evil are going 
> to battle for ultimate victory, it's probably a good idea to have 
> some sense of what differentiates your good guys from your bad guys.  


Pippin:
Is it necessary to have good guys and bad guys in order to tell of heroism
and villainy or good and evil?  Can't there be stories about heroes where 
it's not guaranteed that they'll make the right choice, or even that 
they'll always want to?  Heroes, in short, less like the characters in a 
TV serial and more like you and me?

When Moody tells Harry, "I have to disillusion you" at the beginning of OOP,
he states what is going to happen in the next three books, IMO. Harry will
lose most of his illusions about the WW, and a lot  of his illusions about 
himself. He doesn't lose them all; who could bear that? But unless we 
willingly blind ourselves, we can only be disillusioned too.

Harry escaped into a world of wonder and magic, but he did not escape 
into a world where moral choices are made easier by the presence of 
infallible role models or simple formulas for discerning dark deeds from
light.  The Potterverse is not, it turns out, constructed like a Mega-man 
cartoon with the moral summed up at the end for those who weren't
paying attention and villains whose only penalty for refusing to learn 
that crime does not pay is to be foiled again in the next episode. 

I wept when I realized Voldemort's fate, (and I never thought JKR could 
make that happen) but it was his choice and that is more than he granted to 
his victims.  I don't understand why some readers seem to think it's unjust
that there's no healing for the undead remnant of Voldemort's soul 
when he never wished to heal the souls he maimed or the families
he tore asunder. Not even his own.


As for Dumbledore, he did enough questionable things that only 
someone as besotted  as Elphias Doge could approve of them all, but
there are many times when he did uphold justice and mercy. Who
else would have maintained Hagrid's innocence, or admitted Lupin to 
Hogwarts, or given Snape a second chance, or hired a werewolf
to teach,  or offered help to the Giants or risked so much to teach
Draco that he was not a killer at heart? 

Even when characters were involved with the Plan, he helped them
in ways that were not  needful for it. There was no plan as yet when 
Snape defected. There were obvious ways to make sure Draco didn't 
kill Dumbledore without the bother of having him learn that he could 
choose not to do it.

Betsy_HP
> And I don't think JKR bothered with that.  I don't see where our good 
> guys faced any consequences for "moral confusion".  Hermione brands a 
> girl and she's cool.

Pippin:
If she's so cool, how come nobody but Luna, Neville and Ginny would
come  when she tried to summon the DA at the end of OOP and 
once more at the end of HBP? 

OTOH, even Cho turns up when Neville calls.  It's not an obvious
moral, but any kid who nees an obvious moral to tell them that  
branding a girl's face is a lousy way to win friends and influence 
people has got way bigger problems than reading the wrong books. 

Betsy_HP:
  Harry refuses to think things through, someone 
> dies because of it, and he's grand.

Pippin:
If you're talking about Sirius, Harry is hardly grand about that.
He's not grand with losing Snape either. He pays his debts forward,
by doing all that Sirius and Snape would have wanted him to do,
and that *is* grand, IMO. It's a far greater tribute to those men and
to the gravity of their loss than anger and despair could ever be. 


Betsy_Hp:
  The twins...  well, one of them died but it was played as a tragedy, 
not the outcome of their own  mistakes or a consequence.

Pippin:
Um,  tragedy in literature *is* the outcome of one's own
mistakes or a consequence. Otherwise it's melodrama, IIRC. There's
no Greek chorus to tell us that  Fred's murderers were no more
concerned for his fate than he was for Montagues', or to remind us
that the Twins were just as willing to sell dangerous devices to 
dubious wizards as Borgin and Burkes were. But do we need one?  
Does JKR have to insult our intelligence in order to prove that she 
knows  that careless disregard for human life is wrong?

For me the characters live and breathe precisely because they
refuse to be good guys or bad guys. They're people: complicated,
ornery, frustrating, little lower than the angels,  little better than
the worms. 

Pippin