Hog’s Head PubCast #28: Evil and Choice

Travis!
Another great pubcast.

Time ’till DH is getting so short so it will be great to hear as many mid-week pubcasts as you can manage. Still, there’ll be heaps of time and topics afterwards.

I’m not sure if it was your point or Mrs Lovegood’s(?) about Merope making some courageous decisions about having Tom. I feel that she was not courageous in this. It was more to do with her escaping the ire and influence of father and brother. She wasn’t making a bold choice in their faces- she just didn’t have them there to give her a verbal or physical hiding if she stepped out of line.

Travis, you should start a career in voice characterisation. I’m going to make that my ring tone.

Matthew

Speaking of which (Michael’s comment about the spoiler), I’m now sorry that I even brought it up on this site. Even though I didn’t give the link (small consolation!), by mentionining it at all, I was giving the originator exactly what he was looking for: notoriety. I don’t want to completely bury my head in the sand with regards to spoilers, but I don’t want to give them any more prominence than they already have.

BTW, completely agree with Michael’s evaluation: it is pathetic.

Thank you, Travis!

I think Shadowquill made an excellent point in assuming that Voldemort would have spared Lily because he wanted to see her abandon Harry. His father abandoned Merope and Merope abandoned him, at least that’s how he perceives it. Perhaps he needed to convince himself that all people act that way. Though I don’t suppose this was Voldemort’s only reason for trying to spare Lily, it have been an important factor.

It also renders credibility to other theories, that Voldemort did it as a gesture to Peter or Snape. If he really needed to confirm his cynic opinion about love and human relationship, then maybe he wasn’t so sure of it after all.

As a matter of fact, I believe that Merope wanted the best for her child and that she did show courage in escaping her father and brother, like Mrs. Weasley pointed out.

Wow. Absolutely spectacular podcast, as usual! (This has to be one of my favorites…)

In reguards to the “spoilers” (which I highly doubt are accurate), I liked The Leaky Cauldron’s flippantly mentioned idea that we should all release many, many different supposed spoilers for book 7 so no one knows (or cares) about the real ones!

Kreacher “deserves his fair share of blame” for Sirius’s death? This was worthy of making a specific point of, in a PubCast??

Let’s look at all the possible blame involved here (100% of it);

Bellatrix – Actually preformed Unforgivable Curse on Sirius____%?
Voldemort – Conceiving and executing the prophecy scheme____%?
Sirius – Left 12 GP against orders and righteously engaged in battle____%?
Dumbledore – Took responsibility for all of this for not telling Harry about prophesy____%?
Voldemort – Who was using his friend at OotP HQ in his search for any way to get Harry to the DoM ____%?
Dumbledore – Choosing 12 GP as HQ where Death Eater lover Kreacher lived____%?
Sirius – Not careful handling of Kreacher i.e. “Get Out!”,etc.____%?
Harry – Not taking Dumbledore’s instructions about Occulemency and Voldemort’s possible use of Harry’s mind seriously____%?
Harry – Using the fire to communicate with Sirius, allowing Kreacher to interfere, when he had the two-way mirror with which he could have communicate with him directly____%? Plot hole?
Malfoys – Helping Voldemort by using Kreacher____%?

What did Kreacher, the unhappy slave of Sirius, do? He got out when told to. He told his beloved Death Eaters info that Sirius didn’t think was important enough bind him to secrecy on, i.e. that Sirius and Harry had a very close relationship. He lied to Harry about where Sirius was, when Harry could have used the two-way mirror. This is the only act he took that was in any way blame worthy, in this case. So why do we feel it is important to specifically note Kreacher’s blame?

Kreacher is what he has been made by wizards and JKR. JKR has written Kreacher in a way that makes us view him negatively. But why are we so ready to accept this? We need to look into our own souls and see if we are not way too ready to accept this negative view of him. He’s a non-human, subservient house elf. Of course he is easily seen as culpable. But it is obvious that his blame is extremely marginal, in this case. Not worthy of mention in the vast array of mentionable blame worthyists here. Look inside ourselves and see if we are not showing our own prejudice here.

Loyalty to his master? We expect loyalty of our slaves? Surprised by disrepect of the slave holder by the slave?

I agree there is always hope. Good point.

Of course JKR can write as she likes, and she does a great job of it. But, of course, she can write to misdirect us. Maybe to test our tendency toward perjudise or sensitivity relative to slavery? We seem to have lost focus on the fact, Kreacher is enslaved against his will.

Did you do the percentages? What percent did you get for Kreacher? – the one about which it was important enough to mention his blame specifically in the PubCast. All he did wrong was lie about where Sirius was.

It’s so complicated. Who knows how long Kreacher may have lived with the Mad-woman’s portrait screaming her ideals into his ears.

Brainwashed and bound to service for life, I pity Kreacher but I think we have another slight parallel to Harry/Voldemort: Dobby/Kreacher. Dobby has lived with the Malfoys (or at least within their family or that of the Blacks) for years and years and probably under very similar conditions. Is Dobby hateful towards others? Is Dobby a pureblood supremist? I’m not saying that we have enough information to judge which had the harder life, but I think that it still comes down to the choices each elf made.

Blinded all, by the wiles of JKR! Oh, so quick we are to blame the non-human. Yes, he is not a “good” guy, as we see it. But look at it from his perspective.

What did he do? He left the house when told to get out. He talked to his “friends” about what was going on in his life. He lied about where Sirius was. That’s all! There was no great percentage probability that things would go as Voldemort planned, and certainly the plan did not have Sirius’s death as a goal. Harry could have checked with the mirror and the plan would have failed, and the book would be less interesting. He was giddy that the plan worked, to some extent. That sways many readers against him but does not give him blame (good misdirection by JKR). He is on the “bad” guys side for sure and by his own choise, although we are quick to ackowledge psychological effects as justifying explanations of statements and actions when it comes to other house elf issues. But being on the wrong side does not give specific blame to someone in any particular action unless they took a culpable action.

Kreacher does not want to be enslaved to Sirius – thus he is, in fact, an unwilling slave, at this point.

Have the guts to put up your percentages, post them and justify going out of the way to note Kreacher’s blame in this case. Yes, it is a dare.

In fact, I double dog dare you!

I’m missing something here.

It was Bellatrix who zapped Sirius. It’s 100% her responsibility.

Sure, if DD had told Harry about the prophecy and Voldemort’s interest in it, and if Harry had persisted in his occulmency lessons with Snape, and Sirius had been nicer to Kreacher so Kreacher wouldn’t have hated him, and Voldemort hadn’t wanted the prophecy, then Harry wouldn’t have gone there, and Sirius wouldn’t have followed and Bellatrix wouldn’t have zapped him.

But none of the events which happened before take away even 1/100th of 1% of Bellatrix’ responsibility. We keep talking about choices. This was 100% her choice. Unless, of course, you want to get into how her upbringing made her into a fanatical murderess in the service of Master.

Fan B, you have brought up the two way mirror several times, and no one has addressed it. Harry didn’t use it because he never opened the package that contained it. He didn’t know what it was or what it did until after Sirius’s death. So really, it’s not a plot hole at all. It’s part of the plot that led to Sirius being lured to the Ministry to protect Harry, who was lured there to rescue Sirius.

The mirror, it seems to me, is just one more thing that is an example of how we have things happen in our lives–the what-ifs, if you will. What if I had turned down the job? What if I had taken a different route to work? What if, what if, what if? And you know what? Just as it is for us, it is for Harry. That line of thinking gets you no where. It’s full of regret because we can’t go back and redo those events.

Everyone had a part in the death of Sirius, including Sirius himself. He knew he wasn’t safe outside of Grimmauld Place, and certainly not at the Ministry. It was a chance that he chose to take because of his love for Harry. Does that make him wrong? Of course not–it made him human.

As for the blame that Dumbledore shares in, it does seem that had he told Harry about the prophecy, Harry might have worked harder at Occlumency, or at the very least, might have had more reason to be cautious about the vision and about Kreacher’s information. But would he really have taken the chance that it was only a planted vision? I tend to doubt it. Had Harry ignored the vision and not taken the bate to go rescue Sirius, I don’t think he could have ever lived with himself if it had turned out to be true. And that’s what would have been going through his mind. He might have been able to think it through rationally, that what he was seeing was a set-up, but he still would have gone in the end rather than take the chance that Sirius was in danger and no one was there to save him.

And that has nothing to do with what the rest of them did. Kreacher still played his evil part by ducking out to the Malfoys when Sirius said “Out”. Kreacher knew full well that Sirius was telling him to leave the house, but used that as an excuse to leave. When he came back, he was more polite and more compliant, likely on the instructions from the Malfoys or Bellatrix. And when he lied about the whereabouts of Sirius, knowing that he was only upstairs, Kreacher knew exactly what he was doing.

It still remains–if Harry hadn’t gone to the Ministry, then Sirius wouldn’t have gone to help rescue him. If Sirius hadn’t been there, he wouldn’t have been killed by Bellatrix.

There was more than enough blame to go around for that particular death. And I don’t think it much matters who had what percentage in the share of it.

But the mirror really had nothing to do with it. It is more a way to show Harry’s grief and sorrow when he does find it and realizes that he had a means of communicating with Sirius all along and never used it. It’s one of those huge “what if” moments in life, and the truth is that we just can’t dwell on them. We have to live with the choices we have made, not the ones we wish we had made.

Pat

(Sorry, Travis, I still need to listen to this one, and probably should have done before jumping in here. So if I’m way off, my apologies.)

Travis,

Ok, I am reluctant as well to start down paths that may lead to a truth about myself that I may not want to see in the mirror. And especially in the bright light of the public arena. All right, you get a pass, so I’ll do it. Let’s call it responsibility, instead of blame. People get too emotional when you assign good and bad to an act. We’ll leave that to a higher authority.;

Total Responsibility – 100%

Bellatrix – did the deed – 40% – although Reyhan is right that it would be easy to see 100% here.

Voldemort – Schemed, Lead, Used Harry’s mind -25%

Dumbledore – Left Harry Uninformed – 10% – although he sees himself responsible

Dumbledore – Set HQ up with Death Eater lover in residence – 10%

Sirius – Treatment and Carefulness with Kreacher – 5%

Harry – Not heeding warnings and working at Occulimency -5%

Kreacher and other Death Eaters who worked the plan – 5%

Of course there is Pip’s “wrong is wrong” point of view which has some validity as well – all get equal share’s – about 10 folk’s involved – about 10% each – so about 10% for Kreacher.

And yet we find it necessary to specifically point out Kreacher’s responsibility here. Is it because JKR sucked us in to the black hole of our own prejudices to misdirect us? Do we make a point of mentioning Bellatrix – who did the deed and obviously has the preponderance of the responsibility here, as so well pointed out by Reyhan. No! Even as a Death Eater, and one of the worst, she is a human and therefore seen as far less culpable then a sub-human, subservient elf.

Pip,

You are right; Kreacher did wrong and should be held responsible for his actions. But the point brought up was not that Kreacher holds no responsibility, but that Kreacher’s responsibility was pointed out specifically. Not Bellatrix, not even Voldemorte. We are left, by the PubCast, to ponder the responsibility of Dumbledore and Kreacher alone. Why even mention Kreacher in the big scheme of things? Because JKR puts the spot light on him to misdirect us. Sure we would see the preponderance of responsibility lying with Kreacher; we are prejudiced against him to start with.

I know this is touching on very sensitive ground here, so try to remain detached – Does the Bible happen to mention that slavery is wrong? I know about “Let my people go” but what of slavery in general? It seems strange that the Bible would help institutionalize slavery by requiring respect of a person held against his will, to his captor. ?

Eyeore,

According to the Lexicon:

Two-way mirrors;
Sirius and James used to use small mirrors to talk to each other when they were stuck in separate detentions. Sirius gave Harry one of the mirrors during the Christmas holidays in 1995 [Y15], telling Harry to use it to talk to Sirius if he ever needed to, but Harry forgot about it. He remembered after Sirius’ death in June of 1996 [Y16], but though he called several times, Sirius didn’t answer. 

Still seems like a huge plot hole in this case, to me. Harry has to ponder how to contact Sirius and takes the time to help contrive a complicated and risky scheme with limited chance of success and the possibility of interception, and forgets he has a “cellphone” for direct communications to his most beloved god-father? No way!

Concerning “ducking out”; Kreacher is an unwilling slave to Sirius! Of course he tries to escape when it suits him; it is every soldier’s duty to do so. Prejudice blocking our view here?

Travis,

It’s all about the choices we make, right? The choice was made to include and concurr with this section of the E-Owl. The PubCast leaves us with the impression that responsibility for Sirius’s death lies with Dumbledore and Kreacher. It is so vastly out of balance that it glares out at me. It seems a simple, “Yes, Kreacher has some responsibility but not as much as some others….”, would have been way more balanced. The defence of this unbalanced view point in the comments, rather than a simple, “Yeah, it seems I left out some other more responsible folks…”, which would have simply ended the matter. We usually react in a strongly defensive way when some touches a soft spot.

I have studied the site’s elf references, and other than general altruism, the direct references to elves and their treatment leave me cold. Hermione would tell you, so much more could be done!

“deep, dark, evil”

Sounds like a vast over statement of my point, which might have been called a subtle bias attribuatable to life long exposure to life amongst the priviledged, but I agree to lay off.

I’ll take correct, even if it has to come with self-righteous. Much Appreciated.

Travis,

Point well taken. I’ll try not to suppose others motivations.

It’s not the altruism at issue. It is the everyday choises we make, right? Please see comment 27, as there is no need to duplicate. Why do we blithly blame Kreacher when it is so clear that his responsibility here is minimal? Yes, he is a nasty bad guy and his role in this part story is important but most of his actions are not blame-worthy, although he does deserve some blame. But if someone E-Owls that Kreatcher needs to be mentioned in connection with blame for Sirius’s death, we agree, and publish our agreement accross the internet in a PubCast. Why? There were many choises, see comment # 27. But we choose – unbalanced blame for the elf. Why? When questioned, why defend it? Why not simply admitt the lack of balance and move on?

On the Old Testament slavery topic; I am far from a Biblical scholar but didn’t the Isrealites get into Egyt by way of a guy being incopassitated by his brothers and sold into slavery? Doesn’t seem voluntary to me, but I may be way off on this one. Were not many people enslaved as the results of wars and such?

“the Bible also directs slaves and servants to respect their masters or bosses. This isn’t the Bible we’re discussing, but since JKR is a Christian, I would assume her Christian ethics apply”

“was not a God-approved slavery”

“God’s command (which actually was more often than not to “kill them all”

As this is but vaguely tied to HP (and I am not courageous enough to actually devle into these comments) I will not belabor this thread but to say,

WOW!!!!