Right vs. Easy (Ron WAS: Re: DH reread CH 4-5)

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 186343

> Magpie:
> That's choosing the life you want over the life you don't want. Living for what you want for yourself rather than sacrificing for others. It wasn't going to be easy to find the hallows or subjugate all those Muggles. The challenge was part of the appeal.

Zara:
And the appeal is what makes it *easy*. I am sorry, but I still find your interpretation of what it means for a choice to be "Easy, not right", amazingly strained.

> Magpie:
> Snape didn't become a DE because it was too hard to say no to his friends. He became a DE because it offered power and validation. 

Zara:
Which validation he got from those friends. Making ditching them a hard choice, and sticking with them, the opposite (easy). 

> Magpie:
> That one's a lot closer. And Lupin does seem to regret it because it was wrong. Though Snape's learning Lupin's secret had no bad consequences for Lupin since Lupin wasn't outed and his friends didn't get in trouble. However, I would still more naturally chalk this up to an example of *cowardice* rather than easy. Which I think the books are far more interested in thematically anyway.

Zara:
Snape outs Lupin, eventually. Very delayed bad consequences? Also, I suspect Lupin would have suffered some in school, knowing Snape knew and wondering whether Albus's prohibition would truly hold.

Cowardice generally *is* the easy choice. It prevents the difficulty of having to face whatever it is that one fears. Albus goes on about right vs. easy, lauds Harry's Gryffindorness, and tells Snape "we Sort too soon" because in my opinion, he sees himself as delivering the same message in all three places.

> Magpie:
> Harry certainly not try at Occlumency, but I wouldn't describe him as "blowing it off" as if it's just too much trouble and he can get away with it. He wants to see what's in the MoM and doesn't realize why he shouldn't know.

Zara:
Snape tells him. In the very first lesson. And while I can see how Snape is a suboptimal teacher, Harry is also being a suboptimal student.
 
> Magpie:
> I just think it's a very specific thing to lay out in a story. If somebody tells me the premise they're putting across is right vs. easy, you bet I'm going to define those things clearly and expect the person to show that and not something else that could maybe fit under the umbrella. 

Zara:
I see. I guess where we disagree is that I do not think Rowling, in giving Albus that phrase, was having him talk about some sort of very specific type of moral dilemma (one I confess I still do not understand) that she would then never again bring up in the remaining 5 novels of her series.

I thought what she was saying is explaining, psychologically, how nearly all poor moral decisions are made by most people, at least those people who see themselves as generally ethical and well-intentioned people. (I mean people *not* like young Tom, Mr. "there is only power and those too weak to use it"). If one allows oneself to label the options available as right and "wrong", then one is very consciously choosing to do something evil/bad/immoral when doing the "wrong" thing. One might sometimes, and justify it in some way (the ends justify the means, e. g.). 

But I think she is suggesting that more generally, people will not label the "easier" choices they want to adopt as "wrong". They will frame their desired actions to themselves as also right. "I can bring Ariana along when I go!", "Lily is very magical, no one will mess with *her*", (I have trouble with Lupin; I relate less than the others I picked for my examples), "Snape is just evil and never explains anything in a way I can understand, so why should I listen to him or bother with his homework?"

Likewise, Ron separated from Harry and Hermione could have recognized, quite rationally, that his presence there was very unlikely to make a difference, because who can expect a 17 year old to destroy the Horcruxes of the most evil Dark Wizard of all time?! And that therefore, Hermione's insane determination to continue doomed her, and Ron could not save her, so he might as well go back to Hogwarts, eat regular, large, delicious meals, and cease exposing his family to the danger of their ruse with the ghoul being discovered. Not a wrong choice, not at all, just a good deal easier than finding a way back and resuming the lovely life of camping out without food and with a malignant Horcrux, while the Ministry is seeking your companion in a serious manhunt.