JKR messed up........ no.

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 178519

Miles wrote:
> If you compare homosexuals to pathological killers, I do not see a
> point in any further discussion.

Del wrote:
I feel that you are jumping to conclusions.

Yes I am comparing homosexuals to pathological killers. However, my
intent in doing so is not to lump them all together. "To compare" is
not the same as "to equate". One can compare two things to show just
how similar they are, or inversely to show just how different they
are, or more generally to figure out in which ways they are different
and in which ways they are similar. So making a comparison between
homosexuals and pathological killers doesn't mean that I actually
intend to equate them.

What I *am* trying to do is figure out what the conditions are in the
principle of "allowing people to act as they were born/made to act".
Lanval gave me one such condition, which I shall address later on in
this post. May I ask, what are *your* conditions, Miles?

Miles:
> I do not like to compare anything to Nazi crimes, but what we read
> about the treatment of muggleborns in DH is very similar to the
> treatment of German Jews before the war. They lost their jobs and
> were forbidden to work in their profession. They were expropriated,
> many had to give up their entire fortune to leave the country.
> Others stayed in Germany, because it was their home. As many
> muggleborns, who stayed in *their* home world, these Jews had
> problems to make their living without a job, there might have been
> situations not too different to the one we saw in Diagon Alley.

I'm French, so believe me, this parallel didn't escape me.

However, even while reading the books, I found that this parallel fell
apart in some parts, and the Muggleborns begging in Diagon Alley was
one of them. It fell apart for me simply because I couldn't imagine
Jews begging in German streets and not being arrested straight away.
Or else beaten away into disappearance. Similarly, it doesn't make
sense to me that the Death Eaters would allow Muggleborns to beg in
Diagon Alley, to "disturb" passers-by and so on. And if that
Muggleborn had had got a hold of the real Bellatrix instead of
Hermione, I think that at best he would have been Crucio'd and at
worst AK'd (or vice versa depending on how you consider torture and
death).

Mind you, I can also imagine that those Muggleborn beggars are allowed
to remain in Diagon Alley as some kind of "exhibit": something like
"Muggleborns in their right place: begging for scraps from wizards".
That would be something LV and the DEs could come up with and enjoy.

But still: that doesn't change the fact that it all felt too contrived
and artificial to me and not in line with what I know of the treatment
of Jews at the hands of the Nazis before and during WWII.

Miles:
> But I must admit that I never expected anyone would blame the
> fictional victims of Lord Voldemorts regime for their fate

I'm not blaming them for being persecuted and having their wands taken
away or anything. I'm just saying that I found that particular group
of Muggleborns pathetic in their apparent utter helplessness. Wizards
have been shown to be resourceful before, and Muggleborns even more so
since they have to adapt to a whole new world to begin with. So to see
them reducing themselves to begging felt extremely jarring, forced,
and out of character to me.

***

Lanval wrote:
> When LV 'acts', he HURTS people.
> When Draco 'acts' the way he was raised, by which I take you mean
> his bigoted worldview, he HURTS people.
> When Wizards 'take over' weaker Muggles, they HURT those Muggles.

Del replies:
This is exactly the kind of reply I was hoping for: a clear naming of
a limitation. "People shouldn't act the way they feel they were
created to act when it hurts other people". Thank you.

My next question would then be: how do you define hurt? It's pretty
clear how people are getting hurt in the examples I mentioned above,
but what about those next examples:

* Muggles being killed, physically harmed, or Obliviated, as a direct
consequence of wizards wanting to live their own way.

* A specific subset of the above category: Muggle families being torn
apart when their child goes to Hogwarts, because of the Statute of
Secrecy.

* Magical races being brought to extinction (Giants), or being
confined to ever tinier "reservations" because wizards don't want to
share space with them on mutually agreeable terms (Centaurs).

Those are all examples of wizards choosing to live the way they feel
they've been created to live. I personally think that they do great
harm to entire categories of other "people" by living so. What do you
think of it?

Lanval:
> Now, please do elaborate how your examples compare to consenting
> adults entering into a relationship based on love and/or mutual
> sexual attraction. Yes? Who's the victim? Where's the crime?

I cannot elaborate since this would be OT, however I do want to point
out that most people who oppose homosexuality *do* see both a crime
and a set of victims, not necessarily in the act or the partners
themselves, but in the more global concept of homosexuality. It's a
matter of different worldviews and entirely different moralities -
something much more akin to the "House-Elf enslavement" problem than
to the Muggleborn problem, IMO.

Del


ELFY NOTE:  The elves appreciate the attempt here to avoid going OT.  If you wish to reply *only* to the final remarks, and those remarks would take you away from the books & story themselves, remember that you will need to take your post to Off-Topic Chatter [ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/ ].  Thank you!