Snape and moral courage WAS: Re: The Houses, Finally

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 184623

> 
> Alla:
> 
> I was operating under a little but more general definition of moral 
> courage, I went to Wiki and found the one which is close enough to 
> the one I had in mind:
> 
> "moral courage" is the courage to act rightly in the face of popular
 opposition, shame, scandal, or discouragement.
> 
> To me, moral courage is not just not doing things that your friends 
> tell you to do. To me moral courage is doing the **right thing**
even if your friends or family or whoever tell you to do the wrong thing.
 
Pippin:
First of all,   I agree Sirius showed  moral courage in defying his
parents and still more in not giving into despair while he was in
Azkaban. But his moral courage was based, as he himself says, on his
belief that he was innocent. 

When challenged to bear guilt, he did not do so well. He acknowledged
that as a teen, Lupin sometimes made him ashamed of the way he and
James treated Snape, and as a grown man he admits that he is not proud
of it. But did he ever  tell Snape that?  He can barely admit it to
Harry, and even so, he and Lupin are full of excuses.


Alla opened my eyes to Dumbledore's endless self-justifications.   But
it's not just him. 

Even Neville, bless him, can't say "I'b sorry" without adding, "I
didn't bean to--"

In the epilogue, Ron  makes an excuse for confunding a Muggle,
James makes an excuse for teasing his brother, and Ron, though he
apologizes for setting Rosie against Scorpius, can't stop himself from
going on to say that she shouldn't get too friendly with him. 

Gryffindors, IMO, do the right thing in the face of shame and
discouragement only when they are sure that they are innocent. When
they feel guilty, they  put  more energy into being defensive and
avoiding their guilty feelings  than into changing their behavior or
making amends to those they have wronged. 

I think Percy is the only Gryffindor who ever makes a whole-hearted
apology -- but look how long it took him to do it. He says that his
disillusionment with the Ministry had been coming on for a while. IIf
Snape had waited as long as Percy did, the Potters would probably have
died along with Harry and Dumbledore might never have known why. 

Alla's definition leaves no room for someone with poor  judgment to
show moral courage, and yet this is a major theme in the books from
the moment when Neville gets the winning points for attacking the
Trio. He wasn't doing the right thing. But he thought he was, and
that's what mattered.

In the epilogue, Draco remains loyal to his family and to his beliefs,
though surely it would, as his father told him long ago, make his life
a lot easier if he at least pretended to like Harry. He does, in his
own way, choose what he thinks is right over what is easy. He shows a
lot more integrity on the platform than Harry did when he was
pretending to like  Slughorn.

The Slytherins have their own kind  of courage  even though, as JKR
hinted, they don't see it in themselves, and  in the general prejudice
that Gryffindors have against Slytherins, it is widely overlooked.

Certainly it's easy for the reader to overlook. I missed it myself for
more than a year.  But that, IMO, is JKR's point. If you want to fight
prejudice, you have to do more than be aware that prejudice is wrong,
you have to be understand how people can be blinded by it even when
they don't want to be.

Pippin