deathtocapslock | Rowling does sympathy wrong. Again. (Reply)

So I recently finished the 17th chapter of my parody of HBP, and I noticed a rather awkward sequence.

This is the chapter where Harry sees the memory of a young Voldemort bewitching his uncle, Morfin, in order to take his wand and use it to murder his father and nonmagic grandparents. The way the sequence progresses, Voldemort comes into Morfin's home, Morfin reveals that Tom Riddle Sr. has left his (Voldemort's) mother and returned to his former home, he blames Merope for ever running off with him, and then he tries to attack Voldemort, only for Voldemort to magically cause a blackout. Harry and Dumbledore then return to the present day, where they discuss how Morfin was wrongly convicted and died in Azkaban. Dumbledore magnanimously explains how he tried to clear Morfin's name using this memory (which he presumably extracted through shady means, just sayin'), and these characters (who, remember, both display a history of arrogance, narcissism, and sadism) both express sorrow that he died the way he did:

"Well that's rubbish," snaped Harry. "Look what happened here, look what happened to Morfin!"

"I agree," said Dumbledore. "Whatever Morfin was, he did not deserve to die as he did, blamed for murders he had not committed."

I'd say it's refreshing that their response wasn't simply, "Oh, he's a slimy Slytherin, he had it coming," but in light of everything else they've said and done, I'd argue that makes it worse. Because it makes it all the clearer just how rarely they bother to show any sort of sympathy toward those they don't particularly like, or lament any sort of injustice that doesn't cause them personal inconvenience. And of all the characters they could have shown sympathy for, why did they choose one so awful?

Now, it is true that from Morfin's perspective there are extenuating circumstances. Yes he was wrongly convicted of a crime that he did not commit. Yes he was part of a fairly screwed-up family. Yes it's true that we never SEE him do anything worse than be generally unpleasant to Merope and kill snakes horribly by nailing them to the door of his home. But the question remains: why does he warrant sympathy when other characters who suffer similar problems or have situations that are analogous in certain ways, who have no more vices and/or more significant virtues, do not?

First of all, while it's true that Morfin couldn't have chosen to be born into such a screwed-up family, the same holds for plenty of other characters who get no sympathy at all! Voldemort had no more choice of family than Morfin did, yet every time anyone in or out of universe expresses any sympathy for him that sympathy's quickly shot down with allegations that he was always evil, really. Furthermore, what about Merope? She belonged to exactly the same family as Morfin, yet she gets no sympathy either. Draco, for having a racist mother and father, is roundly condemned by the series, and Harry refuses to acknowledge he might be anything other than an evil spoiled brat until his experience demands it.

To get back to Merope for a moment, what exactly was her relationship with the rest of her family? We see that she appeared to get along with neither her father nor her brother very well. Just what was her everyday life like, under their thumbs? Much has been made by the members of this comm about how we're instructed to accept Dumbledore's story of her drugging Tom Riddle Sr. and dying because she didn't love her son enough, without any sort of proof or even circumstantial evidence, other than that Tom ran away from her (which plenty of men have done for lesser reasons). Interestingly, the series never instructs you to assume that Morfin might have done anything equally awful, even if he easily could have. The idea that he might have, say, raped Merope at one point (an idea that I have actually heard, though I couldn't pinpoint who brought it up) is never even considered, nor is the idea that he too might have hated Tom enough to want him dead or that the only thing that stopped him from killing more muggles was his general incompetence at lethal spells (he comes after Voldemort with a knife, not a wand?). Even the truly awful things we see him say to and about his own sister (calling her a slut several times, ratting on her when he knows it'll bring their father's wrath upon her...) are just glanced over. He is not blamed and condemned for being generally awful as a person, just his sister. It seems we are supposed to take it on faith that he never did anything worse than give Tom hives. Again, I say, really, now?

And if we're meant to sympathize with Morfin for being the pawn of a Dark Lord much more powerful than he is, then why aren't we meant to extend this sort of sympathy to Draco, who is also the pawn of a Dark Lord much more powerful than he is? Why does it not occur to Harry that Draco might not be acting as a Death Eater because he wants to? He has the opportunity, after this chapter, to make that connection, but instead he persists in the idea that Draco is evil until the very end of the book, where he's confronted with hard evidence of Draco's distaste for brutality.

Actually, this same chapter ends with a jab at Slughorn for tampering with a memory he's ashamed of, which is taken as further evidence of his Slytherin cowardice (that Dumbledore would make Slughorn show him a memory he's ashamed of is rather creepy as-is--Dumbledore isn't Slughorn's therapist, it's really none of his business). Slughorn, for the entire book, is portrayed as a smarmy creep for his interest in Harry, even though he does nothing wrong and his relationships with his students are clearly mutually beneficial. Slughorn, who is alive but whom Harry doesn't particularly like, is treated with more contempt than a guy who was genuinely horrible (even if it is the case that he was never particularly dangerous). It all comes across very much as the supposedly magnanimous, loving Harry only feeling comfortable sympathizing with "the enemy" when they're safely dead and he doesn't have to put any effort into actually understanding their side of the story.

Now, it's possible that Harry and Dumbledore are just objecting to Morfin getting tortured to death. And that's a viewpoint that gets no resistance from me, because torturing people to death is always bad. However, this sudden burst of sympathy for a lowly Slytherin is suspicious coming from two narcissistic sadists who delight in seeing their personal enemies suffer and normally write off all misfortune that befalls people they don't like as being their own fault. Yet they decide to sympathize with this particular character, who is at least as bad as some of the other characters they withhold sympathy from, if not worse? Seriously, even when Rowling's characters try to see past their own prejudices they still demostrate blatant double standards!