Marietta/Luna and the Quibbler

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 169613

> > Pippin:
> > Oh, I agree. But his actions show that Harry doesn't. 
> > 
> > ... In his eyes, Hagrid is a well-meaning person who 
> > made a mistake. That's much the way Cho thinks of 
> > Marietta. Harry's the one with the double standard, 
> > IMO. There's one set of rules for his friends, and 
> > another for people he doesn't know very well. 

> bboyminn:
> 
> But Hagrid is a well-meaning person who made a mistake.
> Marietta, on the other hand, is an ill-meaning person who
> made a mistake. There is no way Marietta can claim she 
> didn't know her actions would be harmful to the people
> involved. She had enough knowledge and evidence to know
> that Umbridge would not be kind to people who broke her
> petty rules.

Magpie:
But this to me seems too much to come back to special rules for 
people we personally think are good, though. Hagrid had every reason 
in the world to know his actions could be harmful--on more than one 
occasion. It was just as obvious as it was with Marietta--more so, 
sometimes. He just doesn't base his decisions on that kind of logic. 
One can be well-meaning while not care about hurting others.

Marietta's situation, imo, actually is set up in a way that hints 
that she could think she was somehow doing the right thing or at 
least something she "had" to do regardless of the possible harm to 
some students. Because it's not like she has any personal grudge 
that we're told about. She doesn't gain from the DA stopping or 
starting except in that the DA stops. That doesn't make Marietta 
right, but I just honestly could believe that there was an element 
of guilt driving her actions.

Steve:
> I have to wonder when Marietta was weighing her 
> loyalties if she ever asked herself what harm the DA 
> Club was doing? Yes, it was against Umbridge's rules, 
> but she should have been able to see, smart girl that 
> she is, that Umbridge's rules were pretty petty and 
> pointless; as well as restrictive and counterproductive.

Magpie:
Actually, it's hard for me to imagine what she should have seen. It 
seems to me that in reality people often *don't* look at rules like 
these and necessarily find them petty, pointless, restrictive or 
counterproductive. Sometimes they find them comforting. It actually 
reminds me a bit of Hermione's hex in itself. I've said that if I 
were in the DA I would have had a very strong emotional reaction to 
finding out that Hermione tricked me into signing a hexed parchment 
that was a booby trap with that result. The alternative view of 
being grateful that Hermione was trying to "protect me" with it 
strikes me much the way you're describing Umbridge's rules here. It 
seems like giving up freedom and dignity and allowing someone else 
total power over you because you need protecting--which goes along 
with Umbridge's general nanny-like mentality. But I can believe that 
people can think that these types of measures are necessary. That's 
why I think I would have been opposed to Umbridge but also Hermione 
in that context.

I can't speak for Marietta, but as I said, it just seems to me that 
we are talking about her feeling like there was some reason she 
should tell Umbridge. I don't know whether it would have to just be 
personal loyalty to her mother, because I don't know if she'd feel 
like she was betraying her personally by not telling about the club. 
I can imagine her coming to believe this had to be done due to her 
mother. And I *do* think she could look at the DA and see them as 
subversive--in the real world all too often organizations are 
considered subversive by one person and not by another. Sometimes 
these things are very subtle. Think, for instance, of groups that 
aren't open about but seem to have a subtext of being a white 
supremist movement, for instance. Or people who think 
liberals=terrorist sympathizers. 

I don't know what Marietta thought about the club, but I don't find 
it at all impossible to believe that the meetings were not something 
that proved the club was harmless. I can easily imagine many things 
said at DA meetings sounding subversive to someone.

bboyminn:

But, Magpie, that is exactly what makes Rita's writing
so insidious. She takes a grain of truth and completely
distorts it into what is clearly an untruth. I've
always said the best lie was the truth selectively
told and selectively analyzed.

Magpie:
Of course it is. What I was disagreeing with was that what was wrong 
about Rita was that she told *lies*. I pointed out that Rita often 
makes the Trio more angry when she tells *the truth* in a way that 
leads to conclusions they think are false. If it was just a case of 
presenting false things as true in the press obviously the Quibbler 
does that too. They just don't do it in a way that frightens Harry 
or Hermione because it sounds like it could be true. Rita's better 
at it. (Accusing Fudge of baking goblins in pies is a pretty serious 
accusation, for instance, and if people actually believed it that 
would be pretty wicked of the Quibbler to print.)

Steve:
Rita could write her typically twisted false story
based on a grain of truth about the Malfoys, and
Harry and Ron would have no way of know how distorted
the story was. The same is true about the stories about
Harry, Hermione, and Hagrid. 

Magpie:
Yes, I understand that. My only other point was that I don't think, 
based on what I have seen of the Trio, that they would have a 
problem with Rita doing that in a story about Hagrid if it went more 
along the lines of the way they want him to be seen. That's why I 
used the House Elf example. Hermione interprets the Crouch's and 
Winky's story according to the story she wants to arrive at. It 
makes Winky angry. But if Rita wrote that story with that particular 
spin, the way Hermione thinks gets to the "real truth" of the 
matter, I don't think she'd have a problem. Likewise I don't think 
Harry would have had a problem with an article about Hagrid that put 
out the view of Hagrid he thought people should have--what he 
considers the more important "truth."

Steve:
It is not the truth of the matter that matters, it is
the willful willingness to cause harm and total disregard
for the harm caused that separates Rita and Luna's
father. Luna's father's articles may cause harm, but
it is not willful harm. He really believes what he
prints. Rita on the other hand knows perfectly well
that she is distorting the truth to the equivalent of
an outright lie.

Magpie:
Yes, but I think this is an interesting question, because while I 
certainly agree that Rita seems sometimes willfully vindictive (I 
can't assume that every single time she writes an article with a 
spin Harry doesn't like she's being vindictive--she may sometimes be 
giving what she thinks is the accurate take on things) and that as 
far as we know Luna's father isn't, it still occurs to me that if 
you have to demand accuracy from the press in general rather than 
judge the motivations of the people doing the writing. 

I realize that it's complicated and that Rita does far more harm 
than silly old Lovegood. There's a reason she's a villain and 
Lovegood isn't. I don't think the Quibbler needs to be shut down, 
and I understand that it's seen for what it is in the WW, just as 
the Weekly World News is. But being anal about it, if Lovegood is 
honestly trying to get people to believe Fudge cooks people in pies, 
and he has no proof of it because as far as he and Luna are 
concerned you don't need proof...well, he's not living up to the 
idea of a press acting honorably either. Many people know the 
National Enquirer is rubbish; other people read it religiously and 
think that even if it's slightly wrong "where there's smoke there's 
fire." Celebrities know they print total lies, but only sometimes 
sue them, afaik.

I don't really have a conclusion here. I'm just a little uneasy to 
anything always coming down to "But we know that X means well so 
it's totally different!" Sometimes that does make all the 
difference, but not always. If Luna's father is causing harm it 
matters if he's not doing it on purpose, but there's a limit to 
where it doesn't matter.

I don't really know where I'm going with this.:-) I see the same 
differences between the Lovegoods and Rita Skeeter that you do. I 
just also think that everyone in the story plays fast and loose with 
the press, sometimes wanting the truth out there, sometimes happy at 
seeing a false story or a story covered up. The question we always 
come to, not to sound over dramatic, is what is "truth?" There's the 
facts, but then there's the interpretation. The Quibbler makes up 
both. Rita more dangerously uses facts to support her interpretation 
and manipulates the public. That is the way the press works at all 
levels, even in our own world. 

In terms of the story, Hermione does not attack Rita for printing an 
interpretation that is wrong. She brushes that aside as easily as 
she does the stuff in the Quibbler. She attacks her when she sees 
that Rita has attacked her through the press to cause her suffering 
via hate mail and skin ailments. In a showdown between Rita and 
Hermione, Hermione makes it clear that Hermione is the stronger. 
Rita will now write what Hermione tells her to write. 

Charles:
I also believe that
Luna gets humored by her father for believing them, rather than
corrected. I've seen that kind of thing happen in families where a
parent was lost before. The child sinks into a fantasy world 
somewhat, but they are still high functioning and bright so they are 
therefore allowed to remain in their fantasies because their 
remaining parent fears that to try and snap them out of it would 
cause serious harm.

The later repercussions of that are sometimes hard to deal with, but
often the parents who do things like that are unaware of the
psychological damage they are placing their children in danger
of.(Please excuse that unwieldy sentence, I just awoke and have to be
out the door soon.) (I had a friend who went absolutely nuts when his
bubble burst. It took three months for him to come back to reality. 
In some cases that I have read about it takes longer.)

Magpie:
I think you may very well be right, and Luna's father isn't doing 
her any favors. I admit that while I often like Luna fine as a 
character, I sometimes think her fantasizing is romanticized into 
something it isn't, imo. It seems like a defense mechanism that's 
not doing her any good and keeping her from really connecting to 
people.

Charles:
Anyway, my point about the Q is that it is not a fact based paper.
Whether it is based on "whatever will sell" sensationalism like
"Weekly World News," or on parody, like the "Onion" It is not meant 
to be a reliable source of information. 

Magpie:
But wait, wasn't Steve suggesting that the whole reason Mr. Lovegood 
has integrity is because he actually believes this stuff? That he 
believes he's printing a reliable source of information and 
*not* "whatever will sell?" (Which is something I think Rita would 
do herself.) The Weekly World News, as I said, is written by people 
who afaik do not believe this stuff, though I can't honestly say 
whether their reading public is supposed to believe it or not. It's 
hard for me to believe that they stay afloat selling papers to 
people who find them funny. I'd have to look into it. 

If Mr. Lovegood is intentionally selling the paper just as 
entertainment I'd think he'd feel badly for his daughter believing 
it. I don't think The Onion applies. There it seems both the writers 
and their subscribers know it's a joke. Though once in a while 
people do mistake it for real.

This is a confusing subject when you try to pick it apart. I'm sure 
people who have studied the media would understand it better. I 
don't think any of us disagree on the difference between the 
Quibbler and Witch Weekly, or Luna and Rita. We all know why Rita's 
a villain. I just think that also it's understood that reporters--
especially gossip columnists--do what they do. Rita is a problem for 
Harry because her goals as a reporter conflict with his goals. A 
reporter on Harry's side who printed articles to help him would, I 
believe, be a good guy. 

-m