Current Events > People thought what happened to Marietta was 'karmic overkill'? HP series spoils

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https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KarmicOverkill

Harry Potter fans For anyone who remembers book 5:

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Marietta Edgecombe is often viewed more sympathetically than intended. She betrays Dumbledore's Army to Umbridge and gets SNEAK written on her face in boils forever, thanks to Hermione's spell that she put on all the Army's members beforehand. However, many readers found that she didn't deserve this punishment for several reasons. First, Marietta never wanted to join them in the first place and was actually peer-pressured to do so by her friend Cho Chang. Second, her mother works at the Ministry of Magic, so Marietta could've been afraid that her participation in La Rsistance would bring harm to her mother (though she could have cut ties with them without betraying them, implying that she actually wanted to curry favor with the authorities and not just protect her mother's job). Third, Marietta (along with the rest of Dumbledore's Army) was never warned about the consequences of her betrayal: if she had known she'd be revealed at once and scarred permanently, she likely wouldn't have betrayed them. Fourth, she later had her memories of ratting out Dumbledore's Army and her involvement with them erased, so she's permanently disfigured for a crime she doesn't even remember committing.

As a biased teenager I obviously felt no sympathy for her and like Harry thought Hermione was completely in the right, but even now I still don't see how anyone could have viewed her sympathetically.

Of course I blame Cho Chang a lot more because she's the one who dragged her friend to the secret DA meetup and got her to sign up when her friend didn't even want to in the first place, and all because Cho liked Harry/wanted him to be both a replacement to Cedric and final link to Cedric, which was also a BS thing to do to Harry. But still, Marietta going to umbridge to rat out her friends, when umbridge was doing things like literally torturing students and had no qualms about using crucio. And that's not even getting into the legal stuff like getting expelled and having their wand destroyed, their only source of protection against literal death eaters. Even if she "didn't know what would happen to them" fuck that reasoning. Almost as bad as the dark knight with harvey two-face sparing ramirez.

I can't believe it's actually an entry on TVtropes side by side with Jurassic World, the most correct example of this trope. Who are these people that find mere boils too harsh? She got off easy compared to what would have happened had her betrayal been more successful.

Permanently disfiguring her to have "sneak" scarred across her face is kind of fucked up.

yea thats fucked up. Doesn't surprise me that someone like Rowling would come up with that though.

pegusus123456 posted...

Permanently disfiguring her to have "sneak" scarred across her face is kind of fucked up.

Hermione has a history of doing psycho things, even to the people she loves like that time she conjured a flock of birds to attack Ron because she was jealous of his relationship with Lavender Brown.

And besides the Ron thing, she was right almost every time. Trapping Rita Skeeter in a jar is justifiably cruel. But Rita Skeeter was basically J Jonah Jamesoning Harry, so that totally makes it okay to trap another human being in a jar

How come the boils couldn't just be magicked away? Was it one of those unbreakable spells like the Death Eaters use? I haven't read the books in a very long time.

Hermione gets shit done. I can't disagree with her methods because she was right every single time.

pegusus123456 posted...

Permanently disfiguring her to have "sneak" scarred across her face is kind of fucked up.

but trying to get people expelled from school/sent to prison where they could never legally use magic again, while Inadvertently helping voldemort rise to power even easier is fine?

This is the least she deserved. She didn't even have the balls to fucking apologise.

Kimbos_Egg posted...

but trying to get people expelled from school/sent to prison where they could never legally use magic again, while Inadvertently helping voldemort rise to power even easier is fine?

She was sixteen.

GeminiDeus posted...

How come the boils couldn't just be magicked away? Was it one of those unbreakable spells like the Death Eaters use? I haven't read the books in a very long time.

I'm sure they could be, especially if the school hospital can so casually regrow bones.

In terms of whether this is overkill or not, I think it really depends on to what extent the student body at the time knew or believed that the ministry was possibly collaborating with the death eaters. Was betraying them to umbridge her going to a strict school disciplinarian and telling on an unofficial club, or was it her going to a wizard Nazi and telling her where the resistance fighters were training?

Zikten posted...

yea thats fucked up.

Let's review what would have happened to the other kids had Hermione not put a spell on the parchment they signed:

- all the kids would have been rounded up by umbridge and her wannabe death eaters

- some of the kids would have been crucio'd, all would have been regular tortured like having to write in a pen that drains their own blood while writing with it (why does this exist again?)

- after being expelled and having their wands broken, they would be targets for the actual death eaters especially the muggle born ones

- potentially sent to azkaban, the place with all the dementors, and as 15 year old kids to boot

And that's just to name the big ones. Still think having boils is too much? If it were an actual resistance group, having a traitor among their ranks would make them shoot the rat or something because endangering them endangers their lives, their family's lives, and their friends lives.

i mean hell, she even betrayed her shit head friend with this. Did she expect people to be okay with it? She deserves to be shunned.

pegusus123456 posted...

She was sixteen.

Fantastic. Welcome to consequences.

pegusus123456 posted...

She was sixteen.

So was Hermione. So were the other people she betrayed.

A_Good_Boy posted...

So was Hermione. So were the other people she betrayed.

no they were a year younger.

Some even more so.

Pretty fucked up to scar her, but umbridge was very clearly objectively evil so cooperating with her deserves punishment

But teens are dumb. Even Hermione who was book smart probably wasn't thinking long term about permanently scarring another kid

Kimbos_Egg posted...

no they were a year younger.

Some even more so.

Oof

There goes that excuse

s0nicfan posted...

depends on to what extent the student body at the time knew or believed that the ministry was possibly collaborating with the death eaters. Was betraying them to umbridge her going to a strict school disciplinarian and telling on an unofficial club, or was it her going to a wizard Nazi and telling her where the resistance fighters were training?

The Ministry was not collaborating with the Death Eaters at this time. Umbridge was just a huge bitch.

I'm pretty sure that was the extent of Marietta's involvement. She thought they'd get expelled for running an unnofficial club. Her mom worked at the Ministry, directly with Umbridge, and she was afraid she'd lose her job. She didn't think they'd get Crucio'd because that's, y'know, insane. They wouldn't have been sent to Azkaban.

There's absolutely no shot that there's not a spell to reverse that.

Doe posted...

There's absolutely no shot that there's not a spell to reverse that.

curses are more difficult to reverse when you don't know the counter charm or even which spell was used.

When fred had his ear cut off, they couldn't fix it because it was dark magic.

Doe posted...

There's absolutely no shot that there's not a spell to reverse that.

Hermione likely created it herself or modified an existing spell to do it.

Doe posted...

There's absolutely no shot that there's not a spell to reverse that.

Probably, but the treatment is definitely a long, drawn out one because it's mentioned in a later book that there's still some redness where the curse was. Considering Madame Pomfrey is a one-woman "get out of whatever the hell you want free" card in the series, if she can't fix her then it's some fucked up dark juju Hermione did. >_>

Also it's even more fucked up since Hermione never warned anyone about this "punishment". It served no purpose to protect the DA, it was just her being a petty bitch. <_<

Kim_Seong-a posted...

Also it's even more fucked up since Hermione never warned anyone about this "punishment". It served no purpose to protect the DA, it was just her being a petty bitch. <_<

This is true, if the consequences for betrayal are only known after the betrayal then those consequences didn't do anything to protect your group.

Kim_Seong-a posted...

Also it's even more fucked up since Hermione never warned anyone about this "punishment". It served no purpose to protect the DA, it was just her being a petty bitch. <_<

Why would you warn potential moles about a trap that reveals the moles in the ranks? Or is that not how it worked

saspa posted...

Let's review what would have happened to the other kids had Hermione not put a spell on the parchment they signed:

- all the kids would have been rounded up by umbridge and her wannabe death eaters

- some of the kids would have been crucio'd, all would have been regular tortured like having to write in a pen that drains their own blood while writing with it (why does this exist again?)

- after being expelled and having their wands broken, they would be targets for the actual death eaters especially the muggle born ones

- potentially sent to azkaban, the place with all the dementors, and as 15 year old kids to boot

And that's just to name the big ones. Still think having boils is too much? If it were an actual resistance group, having a traitor among their ranks would make them shoot the rat or something because endangering them endangers their lives, their family's lives, and their friends lives.

This.

I'm a big fan of redemption arcs. Put simply, I don't like a highschool age girl being scarred her entire life over 1 mistake. And someone already pointed out that she was manipulated and misguided

Zikten posted...

yea thats fucked up. Doesn't surprise me that someone like Rowling would come up with that though.

Shed love to give trans kids a scarlet letter.

Doe posted...

Why would you warn potential moles about a trap that reveals the moles in the ranks? Or is that not how it worked

To discourage actually snitching in the first place.

This wasn't sold to the students as some hardcore resistance group. It was just an underground sparring group to get an education the school had recently forbidden. And a lot of the students barely even wanted to do that given the risks involved and not trusting Harry. It took a good amount of convincing to make them come around. Just seems really shitty to persuade a bunch of people to join something they're not already on board with and then punish them when that obviously wavering loyalty breaks under the pressure of a system much more powerful than any one of them. <_<

And in any event it was a shitty countermeasure. The story establishes that Hermione can put a permanent hex on someone through the equivalent of signing a bogus TOS document and the best she can come up with is boils? For being the smartest wizard of her age she's a fucking dumbass lmao

codey posted...

This is true, if the consequences for betrayal are only known after the betrayal then those consequences didn't do anything to protect your group.

No, the consequences were already known; the kids would be in trouble and put through horrible pain.

Oh, you meant consequences for the betrayer? Mmmh maybe knowing that your friends and partners being tortured should have been enough of a deterrent not to rat them out? She could have simply not tattled. She could have said to take her name off the list.

Are you really suggesting that people should know of a punishment before thinking about hurting someone else? Seriously?

I'm pretty sure there is a line in the books where Hermione makes it very clear that you should absolutely not rat out the DA or you'll regret it, but I also haven't read it since I was like 16 so I might be misremembering.

I definitely remember Marietta having someone go to her defense by basically saying that she was predisposed towards snitching because she actually believes in the co-I mean ministry of magic being lawful good. I think one of her parents works there or something?

Love Hermione was right tends to be the go-to argument for Rowlings self-insert, especially when (in the books) she had a habit of being petty and vindictive which is never called out.

KajeI posted...

I definitely remember Marietta having someone go to her defense by basically saying that she was predisposed towards snitching because she actually believes in the co-I mean ministry of magic being lawful good. I think one of her parents works there or something?

Yes, Cho mentions her mom work under Umbridge.

I had no idea the novel's version of Hermione was a sociopath.

<_<

Also, the novel had more characters than the movies? The sheer number of characters in the films was insane. I legitimately assumed it was part of J.K. Rowling's contract that every character had to appear. You're telling me there are still more characters in the novels?

I'm pretty sure on multiple occasions Harry does go "Man, Hermione goes really hard when she's pissed off, I'm gonna stay on her good side". Like when she made that comment about her type being "really good" quidditch players, or the bird incident, or the thing this topic is about.

FortuneCookie posted...

Also, the novel had more characters than the movies? The sheer number of characters in the films was insane. I legitimately assumed it was part of J.K. Rowling's contract that every character had to appear. You're telling me there are still more characters in the novels?

Yes, and the bolded can't be true since the movies has left out a few characters or failed to initially and had to jam them in when they became important.

FortuneCookie posted...

Also, the novel had more characters than the movies? The sheer number of characters in the films was insane. I legitimately assumed it was part of J.K. Rowling's contract that every character had to appear. You're telling me there are still more characters in the novels?

Ehhhhhh. There are probably more characters, but theyre mostly just there, like how most of the student body in the movies was just extras basically.

The movies did leave out a lot of stuff, but Im struggling to think of any of that not involving the core characters that were in the movies.

PraetorXyn posted...

Ehhhhhh. There are probably more characters, but theyre mostly just there, like how most of the student body in the movies was just extras basically.

The movies did leave out a lot of stuff, but Im struggling to think of any of that not involving the core characters that were in the movies.

I watched the movies in part to find out what a Skrewt was after seeing it in on of the Harry Potter rides.

<_<

No sympathy for traitors. Though she should remember what she did. Not knowing is fucked up.

Speaking of Hermione being scary...

Wasn't it her idea to lure Umbridge into a forest with centaurs? Now nothing is 100% confirmed but...

Given the mythology of centaurs, which doesn't necessarily mean HP are the same, and their "interactions" with human women.

If HP centaurs are the same, then Hermione knew good and well what was in store for Umbridge that night.

It was Hermione's idea to bring Umbridge to the forest, but I think she wanted to find Gawrp and have him keep her there, but they ran into centaurs first and Umbridge fucked it up. I'm not super confident on that though.

KajeI posted...

It was Hermione's idea to bring Umbridge to the forest, but I think she wanted to find Gawrp and have him keep her there, but they ran into centaurs first and Umbridge fucked it up. I'm not super confident on that though.

Ah, okay then. It's been a while.

KajeI posted...

It was Hermione's idea to bring Umbridge to the forest, but I think she wanted to find Gawrp and have him keep her there, but they ran into centaurs first and Umbridge fucked it up. I'm not super confident on that though.

No, Harry notes that Hermione was not leading Umbridge the road they used for Grawp. The fact that her specific intention was to probably "have the centaurs and Umbridge go at it and take each other out" shows just how she thinks about taking care of problems.

Umbreon posted...

No sympathy for traitors. Though she should remember what she did. Not knowing is fucked up.

Speaking of Hermione being scary...

Wasn't it her idea to lure Umbridge into a forest with centaurs? Now nothing is 100% confirmed but...

Given the mythology of centaurs, which doesn't necessarily mean HP are the same, and their "interactions" with human women.

If HP centaurs are the same, then Hermione knew good and well what was in store for Umbridge that night.

Despite what fans think HP centaur are nowhere like their mythological counterparts in that case. They closer to indigenous peoples.

Umbreon posted...

Ah, okay then. It's been a while.

Nah, she knew what she was doing.

If I remember right, she was making as much noise as she possibly could, and the centaurs very much said the last time they were there "we don't kill kids but do not pull this shit again or we might change that."

That's certainly less disturbing then.

DrizztLink posted...

Nah, she knew what she was doing.

If I remember right, she was making as much noise as she possibly could, and the centaurs very much said the last time they were there "we don't kill kids but do not pull this shit again or we might change that."

The best part is Hermione managed to piss them off there and was lucky Grawp showed up to bail them out.

lilORANG posted...

Pretty fucked up to scar her, but umbridge was very clearly objectively evil so cooperating with her deserves punishment

But teens are dumb. Even Hermione who was book smart probably wasn't thinking long term about permanently scarring another kid

Nah she knows. She deliberately and cleverly trapped rita skeeter in a jar. She just thinks her way is the right way. Glad she's on our side.

J. K. Rowling has shown herself on social media to be a nasty person. It's not surprising that she would be all about writing disproportionate retribution or delighting in body horror. This is the person who thinks that normal people are muggles with no potential and that trans people are rapists posing as women.

It's ironic that she's the one who came up with the quote about choosing between what is right and what is easy.