Timeline for Why was Slughorn so surprised that someone he taught was a murderer?
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| Jun 16, 2020 at 9:31 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
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| Apr 29, 2019 at 10:45 | comment | added | DavidS | that seems a little contradictory - you start with "he's pretending to care, but his actions say otherwise" and then immediately follow up with "when he does good actions it's for selfish reasons, not because he cares". By that logic can't we argue that any character (besides Harry) is a secret psychopath who only ever pretends to care? But yes fair enough, as a potential/alternative explanation I suppose it is possible. | |
| Apr 29, 2019 at 10:35 | comment | added | Oli | That all said, this is supposed to be an alternative viewpoint. [As you quote] good/evil is not a binary quality, and we have very little written substance to explain why Slughorn (etc) does the stuff he does. The greys in life are full of mistakes, personality disorders, historical context but the other answers (mine included) ignore the possibility of that, in favour of tidy, rational, lawful-good explanations. | |
| Apr 29, 2019 at 10:30 | comment | added | Oli | I'm not saying he's evil, just suggesting he's more chaotic-neutral than his interactions portray. He is always outwardly horrified, always saying the right thing, but we have no internal monologue to verify his feelings. All his actions indicate power-mongering and self-preservation are his drives, without conscience, not feeling objective goods or evils, allowing him to swing either way. I do also think his Battle for Hogwarts actions can be rationalised with this too. | |
| Apr 29, 2019 at 9:59 | comment | added | DavidS | This seems overly conspiratorial and at odds with his other behaviour. While he's definitely not a good guy, he also never joins Voldemort, is horrified and ashamed of his interaction with Tom about the Horcrux, and does (in the end) fight during the Battle Of Hogwarts when he could have easily fled. As Sirius says, the world is not divided into good people and Death Eaters, and Slug is at least consistently presented as having a conscience, even if he tries to ignore it. | |
| Apr 29, 2019 at 9:37 | history | answered | Oli | CC BY-SA 4.0 |