[HPforGrownups] Re: Wizarding Top Ten

[Margaret Dean]

No: HPFGUIDX 187941

On Tue, Oct 6, 2009 at 10:40 AM, justcarol67 <justcarol67 at yahoo.com> wrote:
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> Carol earlier:
> >
> > > Bad guys
> > >
> > > 1. Nagini. I hate her more than I hate Voldemort. She ate his victims, she sustained him through her venomous "milk" when he was Baby!mort (and her venom was an ingredient in the potion that created that repulsive form), she killed Snape, and she viciously attacked both Harry and Mr. Weasley. The scene where she comes out of Bathilda's body may be the most horrific moment in the series, simultaneously revolting and terrifying.
>
> Margaret Dean responded:
> > I was a little surprised by this, mainly because I never thought of Nagini in any terms but "animal" -- kind of like Hagrid when he points out that if Crookshanks has indeed eaten Scabbers it's because he's "only doing what cats do." That is, I don't consider her a self-aware creature with moral choices. Yes, she attacks and eats people on Voldemort's orders, but I don't fault her for that any more than I'd fault an attack dog for obeying its master's directions to attack people. (The *master*, OTOH, I might have much more severe language
> > for.)
> >
> > OTOH I'm aware that many people have an instinctive revulsion for
> > snakes which I don't happen to share, and that may be a factor here
> > too.
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> Carol again:
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> I understand your perspective, but I'd like you to understand mine, too, even if you don't agree with it. It has nothing to do with an instinctive revulsion to snakes, which I don't have. (I rather like the boa constrictor in SS/PS, for example).

Oh, no, I quite understand your perspective -- it just caught me off
guard, that's all.

> I think that Nagini and Voldemort had an affinity for one another even before he made her a Horcrux. She was already his "dear Nagini," his pet, his familiar, and even a kind of surrogate mother if you count the restorative potion and the "milk." When we see into her mind in OoP, she's not just acting as a Horcrux, she feels an instinctive desire to bite and attack the man (Mr. Weasley). she's quite happy to oblige Voldemort when he treats her with his victims or orders her to bite Snape. She bites and fights Harry on his orders, true, but he's the only thing that restrains her; she'd happily have killed Harry rather than luring him into a room to subdue him and hold him for Voldemort. In other words, she's not just a killing machine. She's a parallel to Voldemort, a kindred spirit, who apparently enjoys maiming and killing.
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> Animals in the HP books, especially magical animals, are not just automatons who act on instinct. Owls magically deliver letters, and Hedwig clearly has a personality, which sometimes includes resentment of Harry or jealousy of another owl as well as loyalty to Harry. Crookshanks and other part-Kneazle cats (Mr. Tibbs, probably Mrs. Norris) are highly intelligent. Crookshanks is *not* just instinctively chasing Scabbers because one is a cat and the other a rat, as Hermione thinks. He *knows* that Wormtail (and, for that matter, Padfoot) is an Animagus and that Wormtail is untrustworthy. He even helps Padfoot/Sirius get into the castle to kill him by stealing Neville's list of passwords.
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> Nagini, to me, is the antithesis of Hedwig and Crookshanks, an animal who willingly and deliberately helps her master, not because she's the slave of his will but because she's evil in herself, rather like the Basilisk, which would have been just as formidable and just as bloodthirsty if it hadn't been controlled by Tom Riddle.
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> Carol, noting DD's remark that having an animal as a Horcrux is inadvisable because it can move and *think* on its own

That does raise an interesting question about magical animals, how
sentient they are, and whether they can make moral choices.  Since
they are magical, it's quite possible that they can, but I don't think
there's any textev one way or another.

And if they are at that level of intelligence/sentience, should they
be treated as people?  Another can of worms....


--Margaret Dean
  <margdean56 at gmail.com>