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

[a_svirn]

No: HPFGUIDX 179691

> > a_svirn:
> > Is that how you understand tolerance? Funny, I always thought it 
is 
> > something else altogether. I thought it is about showing patience 
and 
> > understanding towards different (!) customs, cultures, religions 
and 
> > opinions. In short, something opposite to bigotry.
> 
> Pippin:
> I don't disagree. 
> But you're talking about the what, I'm talking about the why.

a_svirn:
Not really. Your take is that tolerance is about having patience with 
those who aren't perfect. (And who is? It is either you are tolerant, 
or you can only keep your own company. Always assuming that you 
yourself are perfect.) My take is that tolerance is about having 
patience with someone(s) who isn't like yourself. Who is different. 

> Pippin:
> Most authors use the fantasy genre to make comments on the real
> world. JKR uses it to make comments on the fantasy genre itself, 
IMO.
> Dividing the world into good guys and bad guys is shown to  make 
> good entertainment and bad politics. The way we think about bad
> guys is exactly the way we think when we succumb to prejudice
> in the real world: They can't ever be as good as Us. 

a_svirn:
And again you are talking about tolerating frailties and 
imperfections, rather than otherness. 

> Pippin:
> But right from the beginning, the longing for the perfect is shown 
to 
> be the enemy of the good. "Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, 
> Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, 
> thank you very much."

a_svirn:
Exactly. Right from the beginning we are told that Mr and Mrs. 
Dursley are bigots. Which is a bad thing, and suggests, naturally, 
that the books are very anti-bigot in their outlook. But the more we 
read, the more we see that even the best of the good guys are just as 
bigoted when it comes to Muggles, as the Dursleys when it comes to 
wizards. With the only exception of Arthur Weasley whom even his own 
family think extremely eccentric. 

> Pippin:
 > The Dursleys don't tolerate Dudley's imperfections because as far 
as
> they're concerned he hasn't got any. And, not being able to tolerate
> Dudley, of course they can't tolerate a child as different and 
difficult
> as Harry either.  

a_svirn:
You've lost me there. The Dursleys are able to tolerate just about 
anything about Dudley. As for Harry, they are unable tolerate him 
because he is *different*. Perfection doesn't come into it. 


> Pippin:
> 
> Harry who told the Hat it was wrong to think he would have done 
well in
> Slytherin, tells Albus that Slytherin would make him an excellent 
wizard.
> That's a change. 

a_svirn:
No. He says that Slytherin would get an excellent wizard. Because 
Albus Severus Potter is already a good person, and cannot really be 
anything but a good wizard. And we know, and Harry knows, and Al is 
reassured, that because he's good and, (and also because he's a 
Potter), he won't end up in Slytherin. 

> Pippin:
> How exactly are the Slytherins being culled? They go to the same
> school, work for the same bosses, marry into the same gene pool
> and wind up in the same afterlife. It's not like no one will play
> Quidditch with them. And as they've won the Quidditch cup
> seven times in a row, it's not because they're such patsies either.

a_svirn:
They look much worse for wear than Griffindors in the same afterlife, 
though. And they do not marry into the same gene-pool: they 
intermarry between themselves. Which, of course, serves them right. 
Also, throughout the series they have worked for a very different 
boss. Now that he's gone they will have to find some other situation, 
apparently, but they aren't happy about it. Very tolerant from all 
the other wizards to allow Slytherins into the same school. Then 
again, what else is to be done with them? Send eleven-year-olds to 
Azkaban? That would be genocide, not just intolerance. 
 
> Pippin:
> 
> We have no information at all on the status of House Elves in the 
epilogue.

a_svirn:
Oh, come now. If there had been any changes, they would have been 
mentioned. 

> Pippin:
> Goblins deserve their reputation for cruel deeds and double-dealing.
> So do wizards. C'est la vie. 

a_svirn:
Yeah, that's life alright. It seems that Voltaire got it wrong when 
he named tolerance the first law of nature. 

> Pippin:
> Xenophilia and tolerance aren't the same thing. The xenophile
> can tolerate xenophobia in people of a different culture and be 
> completely intolerant of it in his own.

a_svirn:
A xenophile is someone who is fond of "otherness". Therefore someone 
opposite to a bigot. It would appear, however, that from Rowling's 
point of view a complete lack of bigotry is not much better than the 
surfeit of it. 

> Pippin:
> I agree Harry did not display tolerance. 
> 
> But Harry is not the moral arbiter of the Potterverse and by DH we
> are no longer supposed to think he is, IMO. Of course he has his
> uncritical admirers, just as Dumbledore did. But  He is not a saint
> by his author's own admission and his way is not necessarily the 
> right one. Harry did not get his own way in any event -- his
> plan to keep the sword did not work. That's significant. 

a_svirn:
And in the end the sword found its way to a worthy Gryffindor. That's 
also significant. And there is another thing of no small 
significance: the sword is the only heirloom that has survived. Both 
the Hat and the sword belonged to Gryffindor, all the other houses' 
artefacts have not survived. That says us something about the 
symbolic hierarchy in Hogwarts. 

> Pippin:
> Since when is it  unorthodox that  property can be commandeered in
> an emergency?  

a_svirn:
Oh, so that's what the Gryffindors have been doing throughout the 
centuries? Commandeered it in emergences? Naturally only ignorant and 
fanatical Golblins can't tell the difference 
between `stealing', `seizing' or `pinching' and `commandeering'. Any 
sensitive reader would know that a Gryffindor doesn't steal. 
Therefore he commandeers. 

> Pippin:
But I agree that the sword determines who can use it. 
> 
> Arthur's comment is a sort of shorthand, I think --the issue is not 
> where the brains are kept but that if you can't see where the brains
> are kept you probably don't know where they came from either. 
> I suppose that the brains in the sword came from Gryffindor, and
> unless you are alleging that *they* belong to Goblins, I don't see
> how we can call the sword entirely goblin-made.

a_svirn:
I don't allege anything. That's what it's said in canon. The sword 
was forged by Goblins – that's how we know that it got straightened 
with the Basilisk's venom. And why do you think that the brains come 
from Gryffindor? Gryffindors can be irresistible for non-Gryffindors 
as well.