DH Thoughts

[littleleahstill]

No: HPFGUIDX 172838

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "horridporrid03" 
<horridporrid03 at ...> wrote:
>
> 
> Betsy Hp:
> Right, here's my very first helping of crow.  You're absolutely 
> right, Lupinlore.  This is exactly what the books were saying and 
I 
> assume what JKR believes herself. Justice is the smiting of those 
> less pure.  And yes, pain is a large part of it.  I said the books 
> were not built on that particular message and I was wrong, wrong, 
> wrong.
> 
> It's not my personal definition of justice, of course.  I'd even 
go 
> so far to say it's an anathema to me.  But it is JKR's and I was 
> seeing something that wasn't there when I suggested that there was 
> deeper meaning to Marietta's facial scars than a good laugh at 
some 
> righteous comeuppance.

Leah:  I thought there was more to it than that as well (spitting 
out a few feathers).  In fact I recently re-read Harry's conversation
with Cho about Marietta, where Harry is speaking coldly and smirks, 
and I thought these words suggest we're going to have to come back 
and revisit Marietta, but we didn't.   That brings me to another 
disappointment.  I hoped that Harry would need people from other 
houses to destroy the horcruxes, and that Marietta might be needed 
for Ravenclaw.  After all we had Zacharias Smith in Hufflepuff and 
Hepzibah Smith and her cup, it made sense and it would help bring 
about house unity. No to both of those.  Apart from Crabbe's 
accidental destruction of the diadem,(he can't pronounce diadem, but 
boy can he conjure fyendfire), it's a Gryffindor job all along, 
(sometimes brilliant as with Neville, sometimes a bit lame- Ron and 
Hermione with the basilisk fang, been there, done that.)    

> Betsy Hp:

(snip)

>> I kind of realized I was in for some crow eating when Hermione 
made 
> that crack about not being a lawyer because she wanted to actually 
> help people.  She, and her fellow heroes, go for a more personal 
> brand of "justice" wherein they determine who deserves pain for 
wrong 
> doing and who deserves a pat on the back.
>

As with the House-Elves, it's not just the black hats who suffer 
from Hermione's personal interpretation of doing the right thing. 
When I first read about her protection of her parents, I got misty 
over the fact that they no longer knew they had a daughter. But now 
I'm thinking, hang on, who is Hermione to do this to them?  I have 
daughters, one of the reasons I misted up.  If I think about 
anything happening to them, I crawl around on the floor.  However, 
if one was going to die doing something valiant against evil, I 
think I'd want to know that. I think I'd want to hold that in my 
heart with all my memories of her, whatever it cost me. If I was 
going to be murdered by Deatheaters, I think I'd like to have 
memories of her in my last agonies.   I think deep down that would 
be better than a barbie on Bondi Beach.  I want that 
past, all of my past, good and bad, I don't want to become Mildred 
Watkins or whoever.  Why couldn't Hermione just have 'encouraged' 
the move to Australia, or simply told them the truth?  However good 
her motives she has no right to do this, anymore than Bellatrix 
Lestrange had to take away the Longbottoms' identities.


> 
> I like neither this philosophy nor stories that promote it.  I, 
> unfortunately, saw something in the Potter series that simply 
wasn't 
> there.  My cold comfort is that others made the same mistake.  
I'll 
> be a more careful reader in the future. 
> 
> Betsy Hp (finding the crow a bit of a palate cleanser after the 
giant 
> poo-cake JKR served up)
>


I still see things in the Potter series.  I still find them powerful 
when they deal with the symbolic/allegorical, mysterious aspects of 
the story.  I enjoyed so much of DH.  I just wish JKR had stayed 
away from 'social justice'.
  
Leah