[HPforGrownups] Re: Dumbledore's Plan/Deaths in DH/Catharsis

[terrianking at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 177541

lizzyben writes:

And  we're told to judge her & feel contempt for her because she
"chose" to  die & wasn't "strong enough" to stay alive for her child.
She just  wasn't as courageous as Lily, who... uh, chose to die. Where
is it that  Merope "chose" to die in childbirth? Would we say that most mothers who die  an hour after giving birth "chose" to die, because they were so morally  "weak"? That's so twisted. 


 
Robert:
 
 
I wouldn't say she was unskilled or uneducated. She knew how to use a wand and she could read and think for herself. She was able to make a darn good love potion to use on Tom, Sr. Her choice was made when she stopped giving it to him and gave HIM the choice to stay or leave. He left and that is where her downward spiral began. Knowing she was pregnant, he abandoned her -  after she thought he might at  least show concern for his child. 

She gave birth to her baby and left it where he/she would be safe - a  Muggle orphanage in case the child was nonmagical.  She felt her life was already over. She had left her home, taking a  precious keepsake with her, and run off with someone she believed to be a good  man.  When he turned out not  to be, it was too late. 

She had cut her ties  to her family and couldn't go back, or so she was probably thinking.  The baby was born healthy, so Merope was able to eat. She wasn't starving.  She was wearing rags so she could use what money she had for shelter and to eat and keep the baby healthy.

She had no husband, no family to fall back on, especially after selling the Slytherin locket which her father and brother held more dear to them than her, but she was giving her child what she considered to be a good start. He was left in a well run orphanage which she must have known had a good reputation for  caring for it's charges. She went there intending to leave him  whether she  lived or died. She could have gone to St Mungo's after all and been taken 
care  of by the magical world, but no, she chose to give birth at a Muggle ORPHANAGE.
 
Merope gave up way back when Riddle, Sr. showed no concern for their  child. Whether she walked away or gave up and let herself die, she was giving  her child a chance without the mother who made so many bad choices she felt she wasn't good enough for him or her to know.
 
There is nothing twisted about it. 
 
Robert