Mothers (was Depression (was Re: DH reread CH 31

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 187497

> Pippin:
<SNIP>
>  I think Lupin gives us a little insight into Merope and helps us see her as something more than a "bad" mom who abandoned her child. 
> 
> If Lupin could think that his child would have a better life without him, then imagine what Merope might have thought of herself: broke, friendless, uneducated, abandoned by the husband she'd forced into marriage, and the only family she knew in jail.

Alla:

Seriously, if JKR thought (and I don't know that she did think that) that she needed to work hard to make me feel pity for Merope who died and "left" Tom alone, the effort was not needed really.

I do not know how one can not feel pity for new mom who is penniless, broke, hungry and dying not knowing what is going to happen to her child.

I would not have ever called her a "bad" mother. Now, the fact is of course that I cannot feel much pity for Merope due to what I perceive her forcing herself on a guy, basically raping himself and ruining his life. However if the only thing that I had known about her were the circumstances of her death, I would not have ever said that she did anything bad or called her a "bad" mother. I still do not call her a bad mother, just a human being around whom I would not have wanted to be around.

I understand Lupin's fears, unjustified as they were and I can totally understand Merope's despair leaving her child alone in the world, I just think that maybe carma caught up with her after all.

JMO,

Alla