DH reread CH 12 -- Cracking a Few Eggs.

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 186474

 
> > 
> > Pippin:
> > Of course it's YA -- it's fantasy violence.
> 
> Magpie:
> I mean it's YA so why would JKR be writing primarily for the reactions of young children? YA is for older kids.

Pippin:
Older kids wouldn't need to have Harry's lust characterized as a chest monster. Ron's language is obviously sanitized (and would surely have undercut Molly's big line if it wasn't. Can you imagine  *not* calling Umbridge a b-?) The books are eight and up, methinks. 

> Magpie:
> I think Neville would grimly back Harry up. He's fighting to keep the students from being forced to practice them on others. If Harry did it in this instance I think Neville would grimly stand by the action and maybe even compliment him on it.

Pippin:
Gee, and the kids made such a point in OOP that Dumbledore's Army was about fighting the Dark Arts, not about student rights. When do you see them having this change of motivation?

> 
> Magpie:
> In the context that JKR uses it in the interview I think it sounds pretty breezy. She's not being sarcastic that I can see (if she's being sarcastic then she's claiming Harry is a saint.) He's never been a saint and he's got a temper. I don't remember exactly how people use the term in those other instances, so I don't know if they're being defensive.
> 

Pippin:
' "Honestly, Hermione, you think all teachers are saints or something," snapped Ron.' PS/SS ch 11, reacting to Hermione's contention that Snape wouldn't steal something that Dumbledore was trying to keep safe.

"Then let me correct you -- your saintly father and his friends played a highly amusing joke on me that would have resulted in my death if your father hadn't got cold feet at the last moment." -- ch 14 PoA

"Oh, we all know you worshipped Dumbledore; I daresay you'll still think he was a saint even if it does turn out that he did away with his Squib sister." -- Muriel, DH ch 8

Outside of the  religious senses, my dictionary says a saint is an extremely virtuous person. That's the way it seems to be used here, meaning someone so virtuous that it's unthinkable that they could do something seriously wrong. You seem to think JKR is using it to mean a character that's unrealistically good, or someone so good that their virtue makes people uncomfortable. But it's not used that way in the books. 

Wouldn't it undermine the idea of second chances if JKR didn't trust the ability of the audience to pick up on a moral lapse without having someone  point it out to them?  

If there has to be a rebuke or a punishment or an expression of guilt for us to know that wrong has been done, then there is no interior moral sense. In that case, second chances would corrupt people's values by teaching them that no wrong has been done as long as the person in question gets away with it and feels  okay afterward.  But JKR evidently does not agree. 

Pippin