On Children and the "Other" (was:Re: On the perfection of moral virtues)

[hickengruendler]

No: HPFGUIDX 169588

   
> Hickengruendler:
> 
> Dumbledore said pretty much the same after Harry saved Wormtail in 
> PoA. And while Gandalf was indeed that generous to Gollum, that 
> didn't stop him to find it totally okay, that countless Orcs are 
> slaughtered. Harry Potter might have it's problems, but at least it 
> isn't deeply rassistic, like LoTR, where the Orcs are defined as 
> irredeemably evil, simply because they are Orcs. That doesn't 
happen 
> in Harry Potter, that a group as a whole is so completely 
demonized. 
> And before anyone starts mentioning the Slytherins, no, they are 
not. 
> While the background Slytherins are very broadly characterised as 
> simply bad and stupid, the portrayal of the more important ones, 
> Snape, Draco, Slughorn, Regulus and possibly even Narcissa, makes 
up 
> for that, maybe not totally, but definitely somewhat. They are not 
> simply portrayed as rotten to the core, like the Orcs. Therefore 
> using quotes from LoTR, doesn't help much, IMO, since one can 
easily 
> argue, that these books as well don't always do, what they preach.
>

Hickengruendler:

Reading this through, I just realised how this sounded. I won't to 
emphasize, that I definitely do not want to compare the Slytherin 
with the Orcs. I am aware of the differences, most notably that the 
Orcs are fictional creatures, while the Slytherins are human, and if 
the morale of her books is meant to be worth something, JKR simply ha 
sto show, that becoming a Slytherin at the age of 11 doesn't show 
that you are evil, evil, evil for the rest of your life, while 
Tolkien can do with the Orcs whatever he wants. I only used them as 
comparison, because the Slytherins are mostly used as an example for 
JKR treating a whole group badly, and I wanted to make clear where I 
saw the differences between my two examples. Because the Orcs in LoTR 
*are" the stereotypical other, and they are totally dehumanized. They 
are born bad, become only worse and it's totally okay to slaughter 
them all. That basically was, what children in Nazi Germany were 
taught about some "lesser races". In Harry Potter, this is not the 
case, all of Rowling's groups still contain of different individuals 
(Dobby and Kreacher, Firenze and Bane, Grawp and Golgomath and 
several creatures between those extremes etc.). The only group in 
harry Potter, thata re described as totally evil, are the Dementors, 
and they are more an allegory for Fear and Depression, just like the 
Ringwraiths in LoTR. The Orcs are not an allegory. They are simply 
brutal and "the enemy".