Dark Magic (+ a little Marietta)

[Renee]

No: HPFGUIDX 176819

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "muscatel1988" <cottell at ...> wrote:
>
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214" 
> <dumbledore11214@> wrote:
> > I had argued in the past that JKR intended Marietta to be mini 
> > Pettigrew of the sort - not AS serious, but in essense the same. I 
> > happen to think that it is so. Do I think Pettigrew deserved what 
> he 
> > got? Most definitely. Same with Marietta for me. I do not buy that 
> > JKR intended for DA to be kids' game.
> 
> Mus responds: 
> 
> But Pettigrew was an adult.  Marietta, in OotP, was not.  

<snip> 

> I'm not saying that Marietta was right.  I'm saying that we're given 
> a portrait of a teenager who makes the wrong choice - albeit one her 
> mother would have wanted her to make - and gets scarred for life by 
> Hermione.  It's a pretty mean way to treat a child.

Renee:
In fact, Marietta is older than Hermione, being in the year above her.
That means she was sixteen at the start of OotP and could very well
have turned seventeen before the incident took place (it was some time
after Christmas). Hardly a child, in terms of the Wizarding World. And
even if she was a child at the time - well, she gets a very much
better treatment than Pettigrew.  

And scarred for life? JKR says she had a few scars left at the end. I
know several people in RL with visible acne scars. They don't look
particularly bad and lead perfectly normal lives. Some people seem to
be suggesting that Marietta was doomed to live unhappily ever after,
which IMO is really overdone. (She doesn't even have to cope with a
bad conscience, as she was obliviated.) I think the scars she was left
with are no big deal.

Renee