DH reread CH 12

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 186453

 
> Montavilla47:
> 
> But.. the same is true in Star Wars and LotR.  People who make mistakes in those stories can also choose to return to the Light, or the Hobbits or the good side whenever they like.

Pippin:
I'm not talking about free will, I'm talking about conscience. Of course Sauron himself could still do good things if he wanted to. But  he no longer feels any remorse about what he's doing, even though we're told he wasn't evil in the beginning.  

There's a downward spiral in those stories that doesn't exist in the Potterverse, a sense that at some point the conscience erodes completely. "Neither strength nor good purpose will last" says Gandalf. The Ring and the Dark Side  can turn normal people into psychopaths or the magical equivalent. But there's nothing in the Potterverse that will do that. If you were born with a conscience, you're stuck with it. Even Quirrell, though he spouts Voldemort's teaching that there is no good and evil,  can't bring himself to think that killing unicorns is okay. 

Dark Magic is defined in Snape's lesson -- it deprives people of their lives, or their will, or it causes unbearable pain.  It's Dark Wizard that's a nebulous, and eventually, IMO, an erroneous concept. There are people who are so damaged that they have no conscience but there isn't anything different about the way they do magic. 
  
> 
> Montavilla47:
> Right.  No great harm was done by McGonagall's actions, showing that
> that power can be wielded by one person as long as they aren't 
> homicial maniacs.

Pippin:
That's what you could believe, until you hear Dumbledore's story. In the first place, he didn't have to be a homicidal maniac to use deadly force against an innocent, and in the second place, he fooled himself into thinking that Grindelwald wasn't a homicidal maniac at all. And he's the guy who's supposed to have such great insight into people. If he can't tell who is or isn't a homicidal maniac, who can? Certainly not Harry! How many times did he get fooled?

The books don't show that following laws is for suckers, IMO. They show that the laws have to bend to serve the people and not the other way around. The rules are made for the students, not the students for the rules.

There's no sense that Arthur is doing a bad thing by trying to keep dangerous magic out of Muggle hands or keeping people from being cheated by wizard con artists. It doesn't seem like he's doing anything very wrong by trading favors, until we find out that Umbridge is doing the same kind of thing for Willie Widdershins. Then we see where it can lead. 


Pippin