Hate as motivation for murder in canon WAS: Re: Duane: Harry was Right?

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 189735

 
> Alla:
> 

> Take a look at the contemporary hate crimes, there is a reason why they are called hate crimes IMO.

Pippin:
Well I suppose that's a topic for OT-Chatter (remember OT-Chatter?)
But why let the other side's rhetoric define the argument? I realize I am going against conventional wisdom here, but If we called them fear crimes, maybe people would not be so ready to brag about them or emulate the perpetrators. 

Alla: 
> And Peter killed out of fear? Sure, he did, but I have not noticed him loving those whom he killed. 

Pippin:
He adored James or so we are told, and Harry sees in the Marauders picture no difference between his expression and Lupin's. 

Alla:
Malfoys are capable of love? Sure they are, *between themselves*. I have not noticed Lucius loving muggle borns and muggles, and those are species they aim to kill and yes, I think hate is at least part of his motivations. 

Pippin:
If Lucius had wanted to kill Muggles and Muggleborns he could have, but there is no evidence that he ever did. None of the Malfoys, even Lucius IIRC, ever kill anyone. That's my point. 

Alla:
 What about Bella besides her being crazy murderer? Whom did she fear? I guess you could say that she feared what she imagined as her Lordie's love or lust for her, but again I see such hatred from her of muggles and muggle borns that I do not understand how you can claim that hate is not a powerful motivator to kill people in canon.

Pippin:
I didn't say Bella killed out of fear. I'd say she killed like an attack dog, to please her master. Molly had the right word for what she is <g>. Now I'd agree that   hatred attracted her to Voldemort in the first place, and she wouldn't have joined him if his program was anti-pureblood or treating people with kindness and respect. But she killed to please him -- she'd have killed her own (hypothetical) sons if he asked her to, and surely their blood would be as pure as hers. 

<snip> 
> And again, what about Voldemort? I have not noticed any particular motivation for his killings besides hate. I guess we can assign world domination to him, but that is not mutually exclusive.

Pippin:
What about him? Well I am not going to be a true LOON and go through every single murder in canon, but let's take the wand shadows as meant to be a representative sample.

Cedric the pureblood champion and Frank the common Muggle were both killed because they showed up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Hate is hardly a factor: if a pureblood wizard had shown up in Frank's stead, he would have died just the same.

Bertha Jorkins, blood unknown, but by that very token we know she wasn't singled out because of it. Any witch gullible enough to follow Peter  into the forest would have done. 

Then there's Lily. And that's really interesting. There's no doubt that Voldemort hates her.  She's everything in the world that he hates most: a Dumbledore supporter, a Muggleborn witch married to a pureblood, and she's defied Voldemort not once but three times. But if we don't believe that Voldemort would have spared her, there's no story. Everything hinges on the fact that Voldemort, our star example of hatred, did not feel he had to kill this woman he hated so much.

And lastly James. Voldemort hated him, of course. But we get to ride along in Voldemort's mind as he is closing in, and it is not hatred that he is thinking about, nor even anger. Instead he is enjoying the feeling of power and control he has. That's what drives him, that's what he gets out of killing. 

Tell me, do you think Voldemort was born hating Muggles? I think he learned to fear them first. When Dumbledore finds him in the orphanage he is not plotting world domination, he is just hoping not to be put in an asylum. 

Voldemort uses hate as a recruiting too, as his real life inspirations didl. Some of the people drawn to him by hatred are killers and some are not. It would be the same if he recruited greedy people, or cowardly ones. But canon suggests that sheer hate is just not enough to make a person into a killer.

 Look at Mrs. Black. She spits some of the most virulent hatred in the books, but according to Sirius she stopped short of being a Death Eater because she thought Voldemort was going too far.

Pippin