Ron WAS: Re: DH reread CH 4-5

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 186317

> > Magpie:
> > Actually, I think there's already zero challenge to do that because that's never really an issue for anybody. (Although I can think of some cases where they face right vs. easy and choose easy with no bad effects.)
> 
> Pippin:
> Do you think it was easy for Ron to resist the horcrux? 
> 
> He doesn't perceive it as an issue of right vs easy because no one actually in the process of a moral decision can frame it that way. 

Magpie:
I don't perceive it that way either and I'm a reader. "Right vs. easy" translates into a paticularly type of choice and no, I don't see Ron facing that choice in facing the Horcrux. Just because it's a hard thing to do and also the right thing to do does not make it right vs. easy. I'd have to stretch the term to be completely generic to apply it to this scene. 

Pippin: 
> When the consequences of choosing easy over right are immediate, obvious and dire, there's no chance of falling into evil habits or turning a blind eye. Crabbe will never use fiendfyre again. But  bad consequences  aren't always immediately apparent to the perpetrator or the witnesses, which is IMO why Dumbledore offered us another way to judge between good and evil. 

Magpie:
I don't think the phrase applies with much relevance to situations where using fiendfyre might wind up setting you on fire. 

Pippin: 
> Harry's crucio and many of his other actions are condemned by the excuses he made for them. He doesn't make excuses when he's done something to be proud of.

Magpie:
Harry doesn't make excuses for the Crucio that I remember--quite the opposite--and his author defends it as not that problematic--and that is a situation I would say works much better as right vs. easy. Harry's choice of easy and wrong was just fine, with no bad consequences for him on any level in canon. Even if had made excuses, as he sometimes does when he's done something he's not proud of, it doesn't come to much. Choosing wrong and easy, for Harry, is little more than a forgivable offense (since he never does so very wrong by the judgment of the story). Often those moments are described as "making him human."

Ron certainly faces a challenge with the Horcrux, and many other characters also face hard challenges, especially Harry, but I just still think Dumbledore's line is one that sounds nice in the moment and looks great on a movie poster but isn't something we see played out in the story.

-m