My post for The Harry Potter Alliance’s What Would Dumbledore Do Campaign:
Save the Malfoys, Save the World
Save the Malfoys, Save the World
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{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
Yes, forgiveness has far more power than revenge.
It’s not too difficult to forgive a low-to-medium range offense. But an offense that goes so deep as to seriously damage or threaten a person’s life . . .to forgive such, even if it takes a seemingly long period of time; to let go the offense and be concerned about the offender; to offer that person mercy and wish them wellbeing and happiness–that is God’s transforming presence in a person determined to forgive and transcend the wrong(s) done them. As Paul wrote about love, “against such there is no law.” And that is serious power–power that can change the world.
Good one, Travis.
“And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
Very excellent article, Travis. What most people don’t realize about mercy & forgiveness is that it has less to do with the one being forgiven or the one being shown mercy but more with the one forgiving & showing mercy. Mercy is by its very definition undeserved. You show mercy to someone who doesn’t deserve it & to one who is weaker than you.
To echo Arabella’s thoughts, that is transformative power.
Yes, revgeorge. In forgiving a great wound, you understand the weakness of the offender and their inability to be a healthy person. You recognize that you are not worthy yourself to administer the penalty they deserve, if you could do it. Vengance just becomes repulsive.
I used to think, about someone who has caused me torment my whole life and lived in denial, “how awful to stand before God with that, instead of working it out and being cleansed of it now.” But after reading The Shack, I find myself thinking, “I can’t wait for that person to be redeemed!” It’s a whole different way of thinking, and brings hopeful excitement that overshadows sadness.
Dumbledore was looking at Draco’s (and his family’s) redemption in this way. Too bad they were interrupted.
Yessss….. but we are still really dealing with an easy case here, a situation constructed to show off Dumbledore’s mery.
Suppose Draco had killed Katie Bell. Or Ron. Would mercy be appropriate then? Does the magnitude of the offense keep increasing the magnitude of the mercy here? Does the quality of mercy ever become strained?
SPT, nope, the quality of mercy never becomes strained, because mercy as I said is always undeserved. You don’t show mercy to someone who deserves it. Nobody deserves it, especially if they’ve done terrible things.
Of course, mercy is not a get out of jail free card in that if you show mercy to someone it somehow means they escape all the consequences of their actions.
Voldemort was responsible for the deaths of many, including Harry’s parents. Yet didn’t Harry show Voldemort mercy at the end? Harry follows Dumbledore’s lead.
Beautifully written, Travis. I needed to read this tonight, so thank you!
revgeorge, you say that you show mercy when it is undeserved, not to those that deserve it, but isn’t it fair to say that mercy should be shown only when there is some possibility of redemption, some hint of remorse or potential for remorse or even just regret. Draco shows this by failing to kill Dumbledore, by his hesitation. Draco hesitates and cannot bring himself to kill Dumbledore in exactly the same manner that Harry hesitates and cannot bring himself to kill Sirius in POA. Of course if Draco hadn’t hesitated, there wouldn’t have been a conversation in the first place. Narcissa was never a death eater, though she seemed to share their views, and she obviously cared more about her son than about the Dark Lord’s plans. These are people to whom mercy can be shown. And in the past he has shown mercy to Snape. But he showed no mercy to Barty Crouch, Jr., only a cold implacable fury.
Certainly good points, Lily Luna. But I don’t think I ever said one had to show mercy. Perhaps I implied it but if so it was an overstatement on my part. Mercy isn’t something that can be forced or is automatic. It all depends on the person giving it. But the person who receives it never deserves it even if they are remorseful.
In POA Harry has mercy on Pettigrew even though Wormtail never shows any sign of repentance or true remorse. Harry, of course, doesn’t do it for Pettigrew’s sake but for Sirius & Remus to keep them from being murderers but it is still mercy.
And certainly showing mercy & being forgiving is never easy. Especially depending on the wrongs that have been committed. As Arabella notes it is certainly easier to forgive people who haven’t done much to you as opposed to those who have really hurt you. And certainly miles365’s comment up above is to the point too. Voldemort never shows the slightest hint of remorse but Harry exhorts him to try to find some in himself. Harry gives him a chance.
Travis wrote: “In other words, Dumbledore had a plan: ‘Save the Malfoys, Save the world.’
But it’s not the plan of the cold, manipulative Dumbledore that so many have read into the version of Albus we learned about from Rita Skeeter. It’s the Dumbledore who knows that self-sacrificial love is just that powerful.”
SPT did have a good point up above regarding Draco’s attempts at killing DD which ended up almost killing other people. Dumbledore seems to make it plain that he knew about Draco’s mission all along. Certainly Snape would’ve told him of the meeting with Narcissa. And yet he refuses to do anything to stop Draco all through the year even after two students are almost killed! Seems pretty blase & callous on Dumbledore’s part to go the extra mile to protect Draco & his family from punishment by LV by giving Draco opportunities to harm & possibly kill other people. This sounds like something Red Rocker could run with!
Mercy and anger can coexist; at times they do so, inevitably and sensibly. Mercy and justice aren’t oppositional. For the sake of mercy toward others, a criminal bent on further killing or harm to others must be removed from society.
Dumbledore was all about protecting students. It must have pained him considerably to keep Draco in school to possibly cause more havoc. But if he’d removed him, Draco would have failed, and been killed by LV; I believe Dumbledore was desperate to prevent that (witness the Tower discussion). And his plan regarding the Elder Wand would have failed.
Mercy isn’t weakness, it’s strength and doing the right thing, whatever form it may take.
Travis wrote,” Love for friends is easy – perhaps even self-sacrificial love for friends. But who gives up his life for his enemies? It’s what Dumbledore did, and it saved the world”.
Travis you hit on a marvelous parallel in your post.
In John 15:13 the Chosen One who sacrificed His life for all mankind said this, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends”. At the cross He gave His life willingly for His friends and He also forgave His enemies, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Dumbledore’s actions near the end of his life at the Astronomy Tower gives us that Christ-like mirror/reflection of what it really means to show someone (Draco) true mercy and love, even unto one who thought himself to be Dumbledore’s enemy.
Draco came to finally realize this during Dumbledore’s dialog that he is not a killer, though he held up his wand toward Dumbledore for the kill………..his wand hand began to tremble and then began to drop. We all know the rest of the story.
Love, mercy and compassion
for a young lad trapped by his family history and the vengeance of the Dark Lord won the story in the end, but it also required a great sacrifice to accomplish its reward.
Travis, thanks for this lesson today. Super post!
Yes, revgeorge, Dumbledore’s doing nothing about Draco’s earlier attempts is disconcerting, and possibly detrimental to my theory. I tend to think plot overrode character in JKR’s decision there, but that doesn’t really help the conversation any, because the text is still the way it is.
I too was puzzled as to why Dumbledore didn’t take action, especially once *two* students were near-fatally harmed, saved by a whisker. Of course, he didn’t know what form Draco’s attempts would take and that they might boomerang on students; but after Katie, and then Ron, he surely would see the possiblity of more, perhaps worse, disasters as Draco became more desperate. Should he have stepped in to abort Draco’s mission by forcing him into protective custody?
Here’s where the two sides of Dumbledore–protector and schemer–uncomfortably collide. By keeping Draco–and the mission–alive throughout the year, he endangered the other students. Perhaps plot did override character, because Dumbledore demonstrates several times in the books how concerned he is about protecting students.
I’m guessing the real reason regarding Dumbledore allowing Draco’s plots to proceed is simply plot related. Of course, to go with what we know of Dumbledore, he is a schemer. And he doesn’t seem to so much stop other people’s schemes as to think he can outscheme them & use their schemes to his ends. Of course, that does go against his other main priority, protecting his students. He lets Draco nearly kill two students & absolutely refuses to listen to what Harry has to say, thinking perhaps that he, Dumbledore, already has a grasp on everything that’s going on.
We might also posit that Dumbledore expected Snape to be dealing with Draco and keeping him from attempting these plots. That seemed to be Dumbledore’s assignment for Snape.
More to the point, Dumbledore doesn’t listen to Snape when Snape tries to tell him that Malfoy’s not cooperating with him. Dumbledore seems to have assumed that Snape could ferret out Malfoy’s schemes.
I thought about the Snape angle too, but after two failed attempts, one would think, well, Snape’s not getting the job done.
Oh well, sorry for derailing this thread, Travis.
It was a really good article otherwise on mercy.
Travis, guess we wrote our last comments at the same time. I really liked your article. It does seem to raise the questions: is Dumbledore showing mercy from his heart, or to forward a scheme, or both, and does it matter if it forwarded a scheme if it was still mercy?
I think Dumbledore was putting off the showdown with Draco as long as he could so that he could put off Snape having to kill him as long as he could to buy himself time to find the cave where he believed Voldemort to have hidden a horcrux, knowing that it would be nearly impossible for Harry to find and penetrate this one on his own. Of course, as a practical matter, if Dumbledore and Harry had never gone there, Harry could have tracked down the horcrux if he or Hermione remembered handling it when they cleaned the drawing room in OOTP and then questioned Kreacher about it (they would never have needed to go to the cave, in that case).