Well, we “knew” that Dumbledore was always pure and untainted until the 7th book as well. My point is that no matter how well meaning Hermione was in doing this, it was not 100% morally right any more than the Human Centipede is 100% medically accurate. 
Harry and the Order didn’t set up protection for the Dursleys. The Dursleys ran away so they wouldn’t get caught in the crossfire. But the Dursleys aren’t much of leverage against Harry. Consider:
Harry gets a mental vision
Voldemort: “Oh Harry, I have someone new that’s very important to you. I think you’ll want to come try to save them.”
Harry: “Who? Hermione? The Weasleys? Hagrid?”
Voldemort: “Much more important - your loving aunt and uncle who raised you like their own.”
Harry: “Wot, the bloody Dursleys? You can have them. Hell, give them a few cruciatus blasts for me. Tell them Harry sent you.”
First he has to know he has the right people, and that they have a memory charm on them that needs to be broken. The point of the memory charm is to keep them from being identified as someone other than any other muggle couple. There’s no accidental leak of information that they’re really the Grangers in hiding, because they don’t know they are the Grangers in hiding.
Actually, I think it did offer protection. People can unintentionally let slip some detail that breaks their cover, have a drunk moment and sob into a beer at the local bar and be overheard by the wrong person, etc. Things happen. But you can’t give yourself away if you don’t know yourself. I could certainly see, however, Voldemort getting the Grangers to his lair and torturing them not just because they are muggles who had a wizard kid (sacrilege), but putting the word out that he has them to manipulate Hermione into trying to rescue them, probably bringing Harry along. Or getting Hermione in order to then get Harry to come rescue her. That’s why they had to be protected, not just from knowing Hermione was in danger and they couldn’t do anything about it, but also for their own safety and to prevent them from being used as leverage.
It is hard to argue that there is a bit of benign contempt. The whole Ministry of Magic is secret, and Wizards are hidden from the rest of the world. That’s the underpinning of the whole concept. And I agree, they do throw obliviate around a lot on muggles, which we’re just supposed to assume can’t cause any long term problems. Overall that is a valid argument, and I suggest that Rowling didn’t think that deeply about it, she was crafting a world where magic and wizards and witches exist right alongside our modern world and we don’t know about it. She had to justify that somehow for her concept. But the resulting implications aren’t that nice.
What if she had extensive training with and access to automatic weapons, and you had both hands and feet amputated? Because that’s what we’re talking about. She has access and ability with weapons they just cannot use - it’s not lack of interest, it’s complete functional inability to use them.
By the way, Hermione is 18 by this book/movie. Their birthdays are in spring, and she and Ron are of age before Harry - that’s why they can participate in the polyjuice subterfuge - they were of age and consented, but Harry is not of age so he doesn’t get a vote.
So what would you say if your 18 year old daughter came to you and wanted to join the marines, or become a police officer? “Sorry, you can’t unless I join with you”?
Sampiro said:
In fact, it’s highly likely she had the moral dilemma debate with herself before deciding to do it.
That’s not what she’s doing. The equivalent in the Potterverse would be Hermione becoming an Auror. What she’s actually doing is living in Afghanistan and deciding to go up against Osama Bin Laden with a couple of school chums - she does not expect her parents to sit by and cheer from the sidelines.
Harry expects the Dursleys would be cheering the Taliban.
JKR said that she deliberately let the characters make bad moral decisions occasionally Harry performs a cruciatus curse with feeling near the end of book 7 because one of the themes of the series is that no-one is entirely good or bad.
maggenpye, I’ll accept the correction to the analogy, but still my point remains. The parents are incapable of participating at the level Hermione can. They are defenseless against the tools Voldemort wields, which she is not - even if it seems she is well overmatched. She’s armed and dangerous, if outnumbered. They are unable to arm themselves, much less be anywhere near dangerous.
They can argue that she shouldn’t be doing it, but she’s 18. How can they stop her, except by emotional blackmail? Joining her wouldn’t help her, it would be an extra burden to her.
Shall I just point out that The Three are 17, not 18? Witches and wizards come of age at 17. Harry has just turned 17 at the beginning of Deathly Hallows.
Ahem. Carry on.
Yes, but (can’t believe I know this without looking it up) Hermione turned 18 in September, so for all intents and purposes, was 18 for the vast majority of the last book. Ron turned 18 in March.
Yes, but the decision you mentioned was called “gallant” by Professor McGonagall. I have no problem with characters making bad decisions that are called bad — I do have a problem with people calling these decisions not only good, but the best.
Who says McGonagall is the final arbiter of what is gallant? She’s as imperfect as anyone else.
There’s still no proof Hermione did this without her parents prior approval, they may have understood that this was their best chance of protection.
Irishman, we seem to be on the same side.
For whatever reason she actually did it, I think Hermione had very few options that would keep her parents safe. Whether or not I agree with it, I can accept Hermione thinking this was her best decision at the time. And McGonnagal backing her difficult choice at a difficult time.
After all, you don’t want your frontline soldiers distracted by moral quandries.
No, McGonagall called Harry’s decision to use Crucio on Mr. Carrow “gallant.” Now, in Book 5, it was considered downright shocking for Harry to do this to Bellatrix; a sign that he’d really been pushed too far. Of course, we all understood why Harry would do it, and we’d certainly forgive him for it under the circumstances, but we still wouldn’t say it was the right thing to do. In Book 7, however, McG said it was right, proper, and gallant to Crucio someone. I don’t agree.
And that’s exactly why it was included - to show that Harry could make *bad *choices. He was not wholly good - exactly what Dumbledore told him in the first book and various characters prove in each book. No-one is wholly good or wholly evil. He’d learned not just from Dumbledore and the rest of the good guys, he’d also learned from Belatrix that for the *Cruciatus *curse to work, he had to mean it. He even says that at the time.
He was protecting other students, Harry’s ‘bad’ choice saved them from almost certain torture and death. Don’t you think that might affect her attitude? She was surprised by the appearance of Luna I’ve just checked the scene and that way I read it, the “gallant” was in keeping with her character’s phasing more than an outright judgment and her “But-” would have been telling Harry off.
Where does she ever say it was right or proper?
I’m still not saying it’s right - I’m saying the good guys can make bad choices and even the other characters in the book might be swayed more by circumstance than moral standpoint.
But everyone — without exception — appears to believe that Hermione’s actions with regard to her parents were good.
Oh, and no one has answered the question of why:
- Hermione should have erased her parents’ memories of herself, but:
- She should not have erased Harry’s memories of all the dead people in his life.
As I said before: In these discussions, no one ever has.
Because it’s just a story?
How are you defining “good” though?
There’s a difference between “good” and “unquestioningly 100% percent good”. Our universe and the Potterverse are the same in that nothing is black and white. The point has been made that Rowling had the kids purposely make bad decisions in order to show the good and bad sides, and maybe with the exception of Voldemort (who never does anything remotely good so it seems) everyone’s decisions can be thought of in a “good or bad depending on perspective” mindset.
The ones who are agreeing with Hermione’s decision of erasing her parent’s memories (me included) are doing it with a sense of “it was the right thing to do given the situation at hand” and not “there is no question that this was totally right no matter what”. Unless I am wrong and someone somewhere actually brought up that sentiment…I just don’t see it.
- She erased her parents memories so they wouldn’t come after her & prevent or assist her in her battle against Voldemort. As I said before, I do not believe that her parents would have just gone into hiding and not contacted her, and let her fight this battle alone, regardless of how well she explained matters to them. She knew that any contact with them would (a) put them in danger, and (b) make her own mission riskier. So she had a practical reason for erasing their memories of her - to control their behavior.
The same is not true of Harry. Erasing his memories won’t prevent him from doing something she doesn’t want him to do. It would purely be an emotional move, not a practical one.
ETA: I’m not in this post claiming that it was good or moral for her to erase her parents memories. I’m merely saying that the reasoning that leads to her erasing her parents memories would not also lead to her erasing Harry’s memories.
Harry’s memories help to make him what he is: a wizard who, when the chips are really down, will chose compassion and selflessness instead of selfishness and power. It would an evil thing to take away his memories.
This.
I can 't speak for 1), though I agree with the consensus that what she did was good.
As for 2), I flashed on this scene (0:35 - 0:50) from Star Trek V. Harry’s memories, including all the sadness and loss he’s endured, influence the decisions he makes. Hopefully someone can articulate this better than I can.
I agree. I just think it’s also evil to do the same thing to the Grangers.
It’s certainly true that the painful events Harry has endured are part of what makes him “him”. However, it seems that nearly everyone agrees that Hermione was right in deleting her parents’ memories of herself to spare them the pain in the event that she is killed. I say there isn’t a single person alive, even (perhaps especially) those who have lost a loved one, who would want to forget that their loved one ever existed.
In addition, consider this: If Hermione had been killed, the Memory Charm would never have been removed. For all intents and purposes, Mr. and Mrs. Granger would be dead, having been replaced by “Monica and Wendell Wilkins.” Hermione would have murdered her parents as surely as if she’d written their names into a Death Note. (Assuming, of course, that they have names.) They actually use this in lieu of the death penalty on Babylon 5; they call it “death of personality.”
Every member of the Order would have to die - they were aware of the memory charm and could have removed it if Hermione couldn’t. Erasing Harry’s pain would have harmed his ability to fight Voldemort. Erasing Hermione from her parents memory protected them during the worst period of fighting.
People do ‘bad’ things for very ‘good’ reasons and vice versa. It’s one of the themes of the series. Snape betrayed many teachers while playing double agent for the death eaters. He also accidentally provided another layer of protection on Harry because he couldn’t forgive James Potter’s behavior.
Still not claiming it was an absolutely ‘right’ thing. Just the best option in a bad situation. JKR said she expected her readers to be growing up as Harry did, so this was the book aimed at 17 year old readers. I never expected anything more than adolescent level morality.
ETA, ricksummon’s sig has to be the best post/sig combo ever.
I was reminded of the animated scene in the beginning of Hellboy: The Golden Army.
I liked the movie, it all worked for me.
That’s not what Hermione said, though. She specifically stated that if she died, her parents would never know they ever had a daughter. That would seem to indicate that it was Hermione’s intent to commit death of personality in the event of her own death. That is, the Memory Charm would only be removed if she survived.