Sympathy for the bad guys (Was: Harry and Charlie)

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 183200

Montavilla47 wrote:
<huge snip>
> it would be easy for JKR to have made her "bad" characters so
unsympathetic that I wouldn't even notice.  So, kudos to her for
creating sympathetic bad guys.

Carol responds:
I remember feeling very uneasy when the apparent good guy we thought
was Professor Moody turned Draco into a bouncing ferret, and even more
bothered by Ron's reaction, savoring the excessive and cruel
punishment as a favorite moment. I think now that the scene was a hint
that "Moody" *wasn't* a good guy but it's left to the reader to figure
that out.

Draco himself, however, doesn't become sympathetic until HBP, when we
see him struggling with a dark and dangerous mission that's too big
for him and in danger of being killed along with his family if he
doesn't complete it. 

But what struck me even more with HBP was "Spinner's End." Snape is as
ambiguous as ever, but we see him being a proper host to Narcissa and
Bellatrix and a gentleman to Narcissa. We see haughty, arrogant
Narcissa reduced to tears by her fears for the son she loves. And even
Bellatrix, who remains an unshakeably loyal DE devoted to Voldemort,
has some affection for the younger sister she calls "Cissy."

So, yes. Kudos to JKR for granting her bad guys (and the seeming bad
guy, Snape) some humanity in HBP. The closest we come before that is
Aunt Petunia in OoP not only concerned, as always, about Dudley
(nothing new there--they coddle him to death) but actually on the same
wavelength as Harry regarding Death Eaters and Voldemort.

I'd have liked to see more scenes that showed the DEs as human beings
rather than mindless thugs (or rich bullies and snobs like the
Malfoys). I suppose that JKR was limited as much by her own lack of
sympathy for the bad guys as by Harry's point of view, which keeps the
reader out of the DE's minds and, for the most part, out of their
lives. (Some of my favorite chapters deviate from that pov.)

Carol, who can't stand Roald Dahl-style children's books