Ministry and Dementors/

[Jen Reese]

No: HPFGUIDX 176710

> Magpie:
> Yes, because Dementors are monsters, basically, while Werewolves
> are supposed to be like people instead of monsters. (Dementors 
> are "Dark Magic"--worse than just animals going after their natural
> prey somehow, so that association with them says something hinky 
> about you--magic *isn't* always neutral.) It's not that I don't 
> *see* the difference. 

Jen: Oh!  I've always read them as natural predators.  Lupin does a 
little anthropomorphizing of them when he says they 'glory in decay 
and despair,' but they're not really presented as having or 
expressing feelings.  There's some limited training that can take 
place such as not Kissing someone unless commanded, but there can be 
breakdown in the training like when the Dementor pounces on Crouch 
Jr. before Fudge can interview him or the group of Dementors goes 
after the Trio along with Sirius.  Lupin gave a description of them 
acting as predators here:  "They're getting hungry...Dumbledore won't 
let them into the school, so their supply of human prey has dried 
up...I don't think they could resist the large crowd around the 
Quidditch field.  All that excitement...emotions running hight...it 
was their idea of a feast." (POA, chap, 10, p. 188, Am. ed.)

It makes sense to me a wizard would think of a Dementor as evil 
because it preys on human emotions and souls.  

Magpie:
> But it's still just arbitrary, imo, that the use of this kind of
> punishment is supposed to be so ghoulish as to suggest that the
> ministry has an *underlying corruption* rather than just that 
> they did something dangerous. 
<snip>
> My point is just that yes, I see the same differences you do, but 
> it still seems like one of those places where there's this 
> artificial superiority marking those idiots at the Ministry as 
> needing a lesson rather than a really thought-through moral idea. I
> get it because I get it, not because I really feel like these guys
> are good authorities on how to read signs that you're going to the
> Dark Side.  They are supposed to be that, I just don't think they 
> earn it. It's one of the places I'm aware of the deck being stacked.

Jen:  The punishment is only part of it since a majority of the WW 
seems to be tacitly agreeing with the use of them in Azkaban.  
They've been around since at least Lily's and Severus' youth.  I see 
Dumbledore and indirectly, Lupin, representing a minority opinion.  

The other part of the corruption in my view is the MOM working with 
the Dementors instead of offering rights and freedoms to other groups 
of creatures.  The whole fight between Fudge and Dumbledore, and the 
later work of the Order, is about forming a coalition to defeat 
Voldemort.  I see them as representatives for two philosophically 
opposed groups in the WW:  Fudge chooses the Dementors instead of 
sending an envoy to the giants (werewolves, goblins, centaurs...the 
giants are stand-ins for all the groups the Order contacts in OOTP.)  
Fudge is basically saying he'll cast his lot with the Dementors 
because it might be the end of his job (the world as he knows it) to 
form alliances with creatures who can become a legitimate part of the 
WW.