DH reread CH 12 -- Cracking a Few Eggs.

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 186460

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "sistermagpie" <sistermagpie at ...> wrote:
. That's obvious throughout the books, like where fair numbers of readers will find something a character did repulsive and in interviews JKR will reveal she was enjoying the character's actions vicariously.
> 

Pippin:
The two aren't mutually exclusive. Draco  enjoys performing the cruciatus curse on Rowle enough to be able to do it, and yet he  is also repulsed by what he's doing, so much that Voldemort has to threaten him to make him continue. 

 I can perfectly well understand that Rowling can make a character do something that she knows is repulsive, and at the same time, enjoy her power to inflict a vicarious punishment. 

I have to admit that the first time I read the destruction of the Dursley living room in GoF, I thought it was hilarious slapstick. Now it just seems sad. And I'm sure these are exactly the reactions JKR had in mind. But JKR doesn't like to ruin the story for those who haven't read it yet by telling people ahead of time how they are going to feel when the whole story is over.


> Magpie:
> True--though I don't think in the Crucio scene that anybody in the scene thinks it's wrong at all. Harry stands by his action and McGonagall's protests have nothing to do with its being wrong. She describes the action as gallant but foolish (iow, foolish because Harry might have gotten caught).

Pippin:
It wouldn't be foolish to get caught in order to save innocent lives -- that's what they are all about to do. But it's foolish to get caught for a moment of petty revenge on a criminal. And in a larger sense, it's foolish to fight fire with fire, though that's clearly not what McGonagall is thinking at the time. Her words are made trues than she knows, as often happens in canon.

Magpie:
> Personally, I take the scene as just an action movie moment not unlike the "Not my daughter, you bitch!" moment. I think it's a moment we're supposed to cheer. 

Pippin:
But you're not cheering. And children do not cheer this moment, AFAIK.  They're shocked, and they don't need any one to tell them they should be shocked. And I suspect they're shocked when Molly swears, also. 

The people who do cheer are almost always careful to say they wouldn't cheer if it was real life. They enjoy the thrill of being able to indulge the human bias towards overkill without worrying about the consequences. But the way that JKR's world is set up, we can tell that consequences would happen, just as we know that Snape's body is going to rot where it lies unless somebody arranges a burial.

Nobody is sorry when Bella dies. But if Molly went around zapping everyone, would that be a good thing? We already know she's not always just in her anger.

Pippin