Ministry and Dementors/Dark Magic

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 176713

> > Magpie:
> > Well, yeah. The spiritual is nebulous. It's worse because it
> > hurts "the soul" which is an important...nebulous thing. The
> trouble
> > is that I see the potential for the same sign of trouble in
other
> > things and don't just draw the line at harming the soul. The
> > very "underlying corruption" JKR says the Dementors point to in
the
> > Ministry has been seen (and described in similar terms) by
various
> > readers as existing in other places, so it's understandable that
to
> > readers like that (like me) this distinction falls flat.
Especially
> > since the stuff we saw earlier and worried about seemed more
> > interesting because it was moral danger to the characters we
cared
> > about and this is just another example of other people falling
> short
> > of their example again.
>
>
> Alla:
>
> You know me, I do not mean it to sound dismissive, but I am afraid
it
> still may come out that way. Truly and honestly, it is just I
simply
> do not know how to phrase it better.
>
> What is whether you draw the line at harming the soul has to do
with
> the original point as I understood it to be?

Magpie:
I was responding to JKR telling us that the use of Dementors was
supposed to to signify the concept of an "underlying moral
corruption" in the Ministry because they used this terrible
punishment, not questioning what was so bad about Dementors. Because
I see plenty of other things in the books that seem to also signify
moral corruption, so saying that only Dementors are supposed to show
that seems arbitrary to me, no matter how obvious the books make it
that the Dementors are far worse than anything anybody else does
because, you know, SOUL. So to me it seems like every opportunity to
actually show the concept of a problematic corruption going on is
said to be a good thing, so it's funny to then be told that actually
the author did intend to deal with that very idea--aren't those
Dementors awful?

Do I need to say a few more times that I get that Dementors are so
bad because whenever something's happening to the soul in canon that
signals that it's really bad? Because I'd like to bow out of saying
that again too. What the Ministry does barely matters to me--they're
consistently wrong, inferior to Dumbledore and our kids, at best
useless and at worse corrupt and helping Voldemort. The idea of this
kind of corruption obviously does interest me--that's why I kept
expecting some turnaround in the last book about that on the good
side. I don't feel like I got it with the Dementors.

What I did say, which perhaps causes the confusion, is that there
are few punishments I would just assume the good guys would be
horrified by if they did it themselves. They've impressed me too
many times in this regard for me to really just assume they would
never do such and such, since if somebody told me to think about the
cruelest moments in the series I wouldn't immediately think of
Dementors or only the bad guys. How much worse it is to have your 
soul eaten is a non-issue for me since it's completely imaginary.

Eggplant:
I'm curious, when members of this and other Potter groups try to
paint Harry or Hermione's (but for some reason never Ron or Snape's)
actions in a sinister light are they just trying to be provocative
or do they sincerely believe that JKR should embrace Saturday
morning cartoon ethics? I'd really like to know.

Magpie:
Well speaking as somebody who sees some of Harry and Hermione's
actions in a sinister light, I paint plenty of Snape's actions in a
sinister light as well. I paint plenty of Ron's in an unflattering
light--since he's not as cool as Harry and Hermione he actually
never gets to do anything much sinister. He's just less than
admirable. If he was marking people's faces I assure you I'd think
he was a psycho too, but as it happens megalomania is more
Hermione's cute little quirk than Ron's.

But as for Saturday Morning cartoon ethics, I would have thought
you'd like that, since when you say the line between good and evil
is a blob of grey it seems like you really just mean that good can
do a lot of bad stuff with no consequences in the defeat of evil,
which is obvious to everyone. I would think a lot of the punishments
you're supporting here would be perfectly at home in a Saturday
morning cartoon. Nobody has a problem when Bugs Bunny gives somebody
a dynamite cigar for annoying him. It seems like any number of times
you've said that the line between good and evil is very clearly
drawn, so much so that you would have shot whatever person you
consider evil in the face and believe any jury of actual people in
the real world would laugh at the idea that you could be punished
for it, so clear is the line.

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.

Magpie:
I don't think Lupin is anthropomorphizing. I think he's a DADA
professor telling us the truth about Dementors and that this is why
they are a sign of underlying corruption in the Ministry and are
considered Dark Creatures. I don't think we're shown Dementors in
enough detail to say that they don't really have feelings and that
Lupin is exaggerating, and I think they're going to Voldemort
indicates that as well.

Reading into it that Lupin is exaggerating and they're really
neutral, etc., just seems to me less straightforward when they
author seems to me to be putting this stuff in to show something
else. I mean, that's a pretty intense image there of the glorying in
stuff--did the author really expect it to be dismissed? There seems
to me to be an obvious difference between Dementors and natural
predators who are scary but friends of Hagrid. Hagrid's not bothered
by giant man-eating spiders or dragons or Thestrals. Those he can
train and get along with, even if he can't train them to really be
safe around others. Hagrid would never have a pet Dementor, imo.
They are truly Dark Creatures.

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.

Magpie:
Well, yeah. Dumbledore's fabulous all around when it comes to what
he says--too good for this flawed world, really. Of course
Dumbledore can see that Dementors are horrible creatures while all
these other creatures should be treated equally (even though as far
as I can see the view of the right Wizards seems to be superior
throughout canon). It will still always just be ridiculous to me
that in this series the place where I'm supposed to be seeing an
underlying moral corruption is the Ministry (who are always wrong
anyway) using Dementors and not any moment where I actually see a
character we care about do something and think wtf? That'll come
back on you! (Even the Prank, the one thing I always thought was all
about this sort of thing, turned out to validate Sirius' view of the
whole thing.) JKR says that Kingsley would never allow Dementors to
be used as guards because that was wrong, didn't she? I don't think
she qualified it by saying that it was really more that Fudge didn't
make deals with centaurs and giants etc. I think again her point was
far more straightforward: using these horrible creatures as guards
indicated an underlying corruption in the Ministry, which is why
Kingsley would definitely not do it. (Whether he is making treaties
with giants we're not told.)

-m