Further Notes on Literary Uses of Magic and Anti-Globalization in Harry Pott

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 168193

tbernhard2000:
> You've removed the only thing that matters here - the DA is working
> for good, not evil. This is not an aside, this is essential.  
<snip>
 She gave
> information to collaborators that endangered the very essential
> mission the DA was on - to show the world the truth. 

Magpie:
I thought part of Betsy's point was that working "for good" was 
important, but that it wasn't all there was to it. People can think 
they are working for good or be working for good and still do things 
wrong--and of course, deciding who's working for good and who's 
working for evil, in the real world, sometimes depends on what side 
you're on. It's probably not a good idea to just decide that 
whatever X says is the right thing is right, especially if you don't 
really know X, and yet there is an element of that here. >From 
Marietta's pov she's probably not doing what you're saying she's 
doing.

Another problem with just saying that they're the good guys and 
therefore what they're doing is good, and what they're doing is for 
good so they are good is that the DA already tends to morph into 
whatever anybody needs it to be at the time in discussion. Even in 
canon it's different things--presented originally as a study group, 
but then it needs a leader and loyalty to Harry, etc. Even here you 
seem to be giving it a goal it doesn't have--a mission to show the 
world the truth. The DA isn't gathered to show anybody anything. How 
can they, when they're secret. Nor did they go to the MoM to out 
Voldemort--they went to save Sirius. (Not that the DA as a body went 
to the MoM--the members that went were probably the most personally 
devoted to Harry.) The point is that it's secret. The DA didn't do 
anything to Marietta either. Hermione did. 

The founders of the DA had plenty of good intentions and also made 
some mistakes. (We see that right from the beginning when Hermione's 
instincts about where to hold a secret meeting are wrong, I think 
tipping us off that she might not be so realistic when it comes to 
this stuff.) This also, imo, links to Betsy's point about Hermione 
and emotions: 

tbernhard2000:
The world is composed of people who are just a "unknowing" of their
emotional world. It indicates that Hermione is human, and is capable
of love at all, not that she's some kind of emotional cripple. Aren't
all teenagers weird that way, and many adults?

Magpie:
I don't quite get where the emotional cripple stuff comes in. Betsy 
was pointing out that a volatile teenager isn't necessarily somebody 
you'd want personally in charge of justice in the world. She wasn't 
saying that there was something wrong with Hermione having emotion. 
Not attacking somebody with birds because they kissed a girl who 
wasn't you wouldn't make you doesn't indicate you're an emotional 
cripple. And also yes, many adults can just lash out out of emotion--
but that's why we want some balance when it comes to the law and not 
raw emotion. We don't have to choose between two extremes. (I also 
wouldn't necessarily say that being emotional means one is "knowing" 
of one's emotional world.)

-m