DH reread CH 12 -- Cracking a Few Eggs.

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 186447

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "montavilla47" <montavilla47 at ...> wrote:
>
> > ---  "dumbledore11214" <dumbledore11214@> wrote:
> > 
>> > But here? Hermione dear just made the person violently 
>> >sick by force feeding him candy he wanted no part of ..., 
>> >of course with Ron and Harry's approval, do not think that
>> > I am letting them off the hook here, they discussed the 
>> >plan together....
> > 
> > Pippin:
> > As with the cruciatus curse, the moral argument is not in DH
> > because it was given already. 
> > 
> > Hermione is the one who made such a fuss in OOP over Fred 
> > and George testing the pastilles on first years, ...
> > 
> 
> Montavilla47:
> I would say she's more wrong, since Fred and George did at 
> least obtain consent from their victims.  (Although, of 
> course, consent from an eleven year old victim would not hold
> up in court.)
> 
> 
> ...edited...

bboyminn:

You've heard the expression, if you want to make an omelet, 
you've got to crack a few eggs. 

People keep looking at these acts in isolation, but you much
view the context in which they are done. Actions are never
isolated from context. 

First, the Ministry person in question didn't get 'violently
sick', he was made to vomit, but he health was in no way 
compromised, and he wasn't harmed. Though admittedly he did
experience some unpleasantness. But to what end? 

Was this done as a mean spirited prank? Was this done with
casual disregard for other people? I don't think so, this 
was an action the very much had a purpose, a purpose that
served to counter the oppression and tyranny that was growing
in the Ministry and in the wizard world as the Death Eaters
gained more and more power.

This was the literal and moral equivalent of war. 

I suggest we go back and ask that wizard who was made to 
vomit if he thought his sufffering was worth the ultimate
and eventual removal of the Death Eaters from power. I
suspect, he is OK with it. 

As to Harry and McGonagall using Unforgivables, again we have
a context. The first context is WAR. The rules of conduct 
become less stringent in war time. After the Victory is
anyone clamoring for Harry and McGonagall to be convicted of
war crimes? No, because the understand the necessity in the
moment, and they understand the context and the extent to
which the curses were used. 

For the second framework of context, let us look at the 
underlying reason for the Unforgivables being unforgivable.
With the Cruciatus curse you can cause unbearable and somewhat
unlimited pain. Is that what Harry did? With the Imperious
curse you can force people to do unspeakable things against
their will. Is that what McGonagall did? No, in both cases.

Harry did not sustain the pain in a brutal and sadistic way.
It was one quick shot to save the people around him and himself.

McGonagall didn't force Amucus to do anything terrible, she 
simply convinced him to comply until she could get him 
immoblized and neutralize. 

Yes, these were technically Unforgivables, but they were done
in unusual circumstances and done with great restraint. 

In our society, shooting someone is unforgivable, it will 
earn you life in prison or worse, the death penalty. Yet,
unforgivable as shooting someone is, our society makes 
exceptions based on circumstances. It is unforgivable to
kill someone, except under this long list of mitigating 
circumstances and contexts. 

While in the case of Unforgivable Curse, we don't know that
mitigating are written into the law, nor do we know that it
is not. But we do know that the Wizard World has a somewhat
fast and loose frontier mentality when it comes to selective
interpretation of the law.

So, if the sick wizard isn't too fussed about it, and the
wizard world in general isn't too fussed about it, it would
seem that our outrage is somewhat misplaced. 

I'm reminded of how the media reacted when Joseph Biden 
referred to Obama as 'clean' (It was Biden, right?). The press
and the public, spurred on by media hype, were outraged. But 
the one and only person who mattered, Obama, wasn't offended,
upset, or outraged at all, because he rationally understood the
intent and context of Biden's comments.

So, my point is, if the wizard world is OK with it, then why 
are we still outraged?

Steve/bboyminn