Lack of re-examination SPOILERS for Corambis and Tigana

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 186547

Betsy Hp:
<SNIP>
I skipped everything having to do with Corambis because I haven't read it yet.
:D So dealing just with this part: Yes, Fake!Moody was a good teacher to a
certain extent. The autobahn is pretty darn cool. I'm *still* not going to
chat with a holocaust survivor about how, sure Hitler was bad at some things but
boy did he know good roads! Strikes me as rude, and also a colossal missing of
the point.

 
Alla:
So let me  try to rephrase it in completely non spoilerish way, I mean you read the first three books, I know  and we know that Felix did some things which were bad, right?.
Anyway, while I had read the first three books I totally thought that he has some very bad issues, but while I agreed with author that some of those things were bad, I really did not think that others were that bad, you know. Done out of guilt, grief, etc, but certainly not something that I felt he needed to spend a lot of time reexamining.


Well, let me just say that while I am reading Corambis, I am feeling (and it is not a spoiler, because I am only talking about my feelings here) that author does not leave me any space to disagree with her as to the things that Felix did, how to think about them. Does it make sense?

What is being done with this incident, I love so much more. Because you see, to me this one is so very not a moral problem Harry needs to think about, at least not more than for one second.

Here is how I see it. At first Harry sees a teacher punishing a boy who **deserved to be punished** IMO for something wrong that he did. Said teacher used a punishment, which was a bit over the top. He did not use an unforgivable on him, he did not make him bleed, he did not cause him any permanent injury. He caused him a humiliation and probably some pain. We do not even know if Draco felt any pain as human, don't we?

Then when we know that Fake!Moody is a DE, the only change that is in my mind is that the said teacher was a really bad bad person. But he still punished a nasty boy for something that nasty boy did wrong. There is of course an irony that he did not like Lucius much as DE who went free, but really this is to me nothing that requires any major reexamination on Harry's behalf.

But that is not my main point, I am certainly not arguing against your right to view it as some horrible thing that Harry must have been reevaluating in his mind. I am saying that I am glad that JKR did not put it up as a definite answer and leave a room for a reader to think both ways.

That of course does not mean that I do not think Harry should have reexamined some things (famous Crucio included), but to me since I do not often see Harry doing deep thinking on ethical dilemmas, to me it makes perfect sense that his action of giving up Elder wand could be viewed as a hint that he indeed does not want to trust himself with so much power. That he knows that he is capable of darker actions, etc.


Betty Hp:
I will say, I thought it was a cool choice to have Fake!Moody be a good and
charismatic teacher. It added a nice shade of gray to what should have become a
pretty dark character. But, per Harry, he never really became all that dark. 
*I* put pieces together and decided Fake!Moody was a bad sort that shouldn't
have been allowed around children, but I never got the sense JKR agreed with me.
Certainly Harry never thought through the implications of one of his favorite
teachers of that year being a sadist. <SNIP>

Alla:

He was a sadist, but I certainly do not agree that he acted as a sadist in that particular scene, if that makes sense. I can totally see real Moody punishing Draco the very same way.  I think that if Draco would have been taken in hand by his parents (no, wrong idea, I guess) or by his teachers earlier, and maybe if he was spanked ( HATE child's spanking, so believe me I am gritting my teeth when I am typing it, but I think Draco deserved it very much) on the regular basis in school, who knows maybe he would not have ended up on the Tower. 

But again, I am only arguing against the idea that we should have seen Harry reevaluating it. To me it is not much to reevaluate, but if it is, I like that it was left out and for the reader's imagination.

Do read Corambis, I can't wait to hear what you think.

JMO,

Alla