Marietta/On Children and the Other/Malfoy

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 169535

>  > Magpie:
> > Probably I'll always think Ginny is the awful person I think she 
is-
> -
> > but I would still think she deserves a certain level of respect 
as 
> a 
> > human being (more, it seems, than many people think some other 
> > characters deserve that they don't like). But I don't give her 
that 
> > respect or compassion because she helped against Voldemort. 
> 
> Alla:
> 
> Well, I guess we differ then, if I understand you correctly. Sorry 
if 
> I do not.  I mean, my **default mode** of existence is obviously 
to 
> give respect and compassion to human beings, or at least try to. 
But 
> if I learn that person did awful things, the fact that person is a 
> human being does nothing really to increase my respect. I need to 
see 
> that person to try and mitigate the awful things he/she did and 
then 
> such person will get my respect. 
> 
> I respect Ginny as character sort of by default because I think 
she 
> has plenty good qualities and did good things, although she did 
some 
> bad things too. I do *not* respect Malfoy as a character yet at 
all, 
> because I think he did plenty awful things and nothing to mitigate 
> them. I **may** respect some of his actions in book 7 or not, we 
> shall see.

Magpie:
I guess we might. I already respect Malfoy as a character more since 
I like the character, of course. Though it also probably just comes 
down to things we enjoy reading even if we "shouldn't." I don't 
enjoy Marietta's hexing, though at this point I'd probably get great 
satisfaction if Hermione woke up with her own purple pustules and a 
note that said they would disappear the moment she made Marietta's 
disappear. Because even if I disagree about what Marietta did, I 
also disagree with Hermione giving herself that much power--and 
would think that twice as much if I had signed her paper. Though to 
be honest I still *wouldn't* enjoy it if the things had a chance of 
being permenant, because I wouldn't want Hermione marked that way 
forever either. Likewise just as you see no reason for Hagrid to 
have any respect for Draco, I see no reason for Draco to have any 
respect for Hagrid. But I wouldn't want to see either of them maim 
the other permenantly. There's lines I wouldn't cross for both of 
them, and different characters seem like they can take more or 
different types of punishments.


I also think for me Draco just demonstrates more interesting and 
important things because he's forced to face more consequences in 
the series. I think that's why Snape has even more people interested 
in him as well. When Snape treats others badly it's both seen as 
Snape treating them badly and (usually--I know seen people defend 
everything he does or blame it on someone else etc.) as a character 
flaw on Snape's part that's got to do with his issues. Ginny seems 
to embody exactly the trouble I have with the whole question, which 
reads more like just treating others with casual contempt as long as 
you don't consider them innocent because you're awesome, obviously. 
I don't like feeling like there's a consistent subtext about the 
general worthlessness of some people in canon beyond what I feel 
myself, and I also sometimes find it unrealistic that this doesn't 
always bring its own punishment on the good guys the way it does 
with other characters. So for instance, Hermione can carry out 
extreme revenge schemes and get away with it, imo because at least 
so far Rowling isn't interested in writing the other person getting 
revenge back. I don't think there's any character in canon I react 
to in exactly the same way as another. Everybody brings a whole list 
of incidents to pick apart and figure out how I felt about it and 
why.

But on the other hand, JKR doesn't always do that.  It's hard for me 
to completely separate the Marauders' arrogance from their failures 
and with Snape she does show that casual cruelty can lead to 
problems later on because the people on the receiving end have their 
own point of view. Not only might they not fall on their knees and 
ask forgiveness, they might be able to accurately list the faults of 
the other person as quickly as could be done for them. Other people 
do seem to get how they're thought of by others.

-m