Ron WAS: Re: DH reread CH 4-5

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 186321

> Magpie wrote:
> > I know I'm taking a very narrow, strict view of that phrase, but I think that's necessary to really say we're illustrating it. Especially if Ron had been in his right mind, there would be a lot of things to make leaving Harry and Hermione a difficult choice. The way this story is set up there's not really a lot of places JKR can set that kind of choice up for the good guys to have to choose easy over right since so much is at stake for them.
> 
> Carol responds:
> Interesting perspective, Magpie. I wonder if we've been taking "right vs. easy" beyond its original context and applying it when JKR was thinking in more conventional terms (right vs. wrong or hard vs. easy). It seems to me, off the top of my head, that Harry and Ron both choose to do what's easy rather than what's right when it comes to homework, whether it's inventing dreams for Trelawney or using the Prince's potions hints and letting Slughorn think that Harry is the Potions genius. 

Magpie:
Yup, those choices to me are examples of right vs. easy, because it really is easy. Where as even in cases like Harry rescuing Ginny or the hostages or the stone or Sirius, I don't see the alternative as easy because it would drive Harry crazy. He'd be (in his mind) letting people die or handing over something to the bad guys. So it's just a clear choice of right and wrong, imo. Sometimes Harry even by-passes an easier but equally (or more) right choice because he's dealing with his own personal need to save people himself.

Like I said, it's not that I'm putting down any of these choices as not being as good as they would be if I saw them as right vs. easy. I just don't think that given the situation JKR created and the characters she created, that we see it very often. Except in some of these smaller moments like cheating on tests, where choosing "easy" is really no big deal. I see those choices as actually being easy because they really are, both to do them and to live with them.

-m