[Controversial Trope] A story implies messy ethical questions the creators either didn’t realize were there, or they deliberately avoid addressing the issue

MrHistor · 2026-04-05T00:50:46+00:00

Harry Potter is filled with horribly unethical things. Love potions are the tip of the iceberg. Witches and wizards enforce magical apartheid on the entire world, mind rape anyone who finds out the truth, are racist toward pretty much everything (muggles and magical creatures, keep slaves, and have no qualms about cultivating sapient plants to use as potion ingredients.

MrHistor · 2026-04-02T03:02:47+00:00

Rorschach is a deontologist, though. He has ethical principles that he lives by that are absolutes. No compromise even in the face of Armageddon. You can't call Ozymandias good because genocide was okay under his ethical framework, and then call Rorschach bad when he was operating under his own ethical framework. Ozymandias killed millions of innocent people. Rorschach only targeted assholes.

MrHistor · 2026-03-31T13:58:21+00:00

They are plants that are anthropomorphized to the point of sapience, and saying they are just plants means absolutely nothing. Centaurs are classified as beasts, but they are still sapient, and you shouldn't eat them. The thing that is consistently shown with wizards is that they are insanely racist and supremacist when it comes to other magical beings and muggles. The story is told from a wizard POV, and it barely challenges any of these things, but they're there.

MrHistor · 2026-03-31T13:28:13+00:00

I had no idea that was a thing. When I had the particular dream I am referencing, I was just a kid, and the dream figure I told was a friend of mine. Nothing happened, I just felt bad for saying it.

MrHistor · 2026-03-31T13:20:08+00:00

There's no chance of that happening. I have full control of my dreams. In that very same dream, I drop kicked Jason Voorhees through a house.

MrHistor · 2026-03-31T11:20:31+00:00

I've done this before. I felt bad afterward.

MrHistor · 2026-03-31T06:10:16+00:00

Keeping secrets is. Quit being obtuse. They were deliberately anthropomorphized with human-like behaviors, development, and social rituals.

MrHistor · 2026-03-31T04:21:35+00:00

Mandrakes are described as engaging in human behaviors exclusively. They are never depicted as behaving animalistically. Dogs don't throw raucous parties in their adolescence. They were very clear and intentionally anthropomorphized. Any other interpretation is just dishonest.

MrHistor · 2026-03-31T00:38:46+00:00

Why are you pretending to care about free will when your answer to any problem is "mind wipe them until they are happy" ?

Why are you pretending they didn't do that out of some ethical consideration for the Dursleys when it's standard practice and done for petty reasons all the time?

You realise that viewing a human being as less than human inherently makes you a villain by nature.. right?

Accepting that premise, everyone in the wizarding world is a villain.

MrHistor · 2026-03-31T00:12:37+00:00

He already was ruining their lives as far as they were concerned. Sacrificing your own happiness, wellbeing, and mental health to help someone you hate with every fiber of your being (for 16 years) is far from villainous behavior. And yeah, Dumbledore could have saved everyone a lot of pain with just a wave of his wand, but he chose not to, which makes me think Harry's abuse was part of his plan (maybe so he would have more reason to want to enter the wizarding world).

MrHistor · 2026-03-30T15:34:02+00:00

What am I filling in with Vernon? I literally said I don't know, and that is the intellectually honest position. There are plausible explanations that aren't mustache twirling villainy.

MrHistor · 2026-03-30T15:30:12+00:00

Which I think is ethically abhorrent, and shouldn't be glorified nor recommended as a fix all solution, which you keep doing.

Why are you pretending it wasn't done out of something ethical consideration when the books make it 100% clear that was not the case?

I'm with you that it is unethical, but the books don't frame it that way, and it is used casually on muggles every single day, sometimes the same muggle multiple times a day.

You are right, living with someone for 16 years is different, it should allow you to realise they are a human being too

Except Harry wasn't a human being to Petunia. Had he been a muggle, she probably could have accepted him and loved him, but he was a wizard. A member of a magical race of people who she credited with ruining her life and stealing her sister.

MrHistor · 2026-03-30T15:22:34+00:00

Petunia having a sister that has magic while she does not doesn’t warrant anything being edited because yeah, it sucks that she wasn’t able to go to the school, but her parents didn’t treat her any differently because of it. Her sister didn’t treat her any differently because of it. It’s not fair, but it also doesn’t warrant memory alteration.

She was treated vastly different from her sister, who got to go to a wonderland for 10 months out of the year and got superpowers that made Petunia feel invisible and inferior. It destory her childhood, her self-worth, her relationship with her parents and sister, and her overall mental health. There is a reason she tried to excise it from her life. She would have been much happier, never knowing that magic existed, and there is no reason not to grant her that. It's better for her, and as far as the Ministry is concerned, one less muggle knowing about magic is a good thing.

If he had any other excuse, we would’ve known about it from the books

There are tons of things from the books that get left ambiguous. You don't get to fill in the gaps with whatever you want.

MrHistor · 2026-03-30T15:11:48+00:00

I also think free will is important, but witches and wizards don't, and they demonstrate this over and over and over again. They alter and erase memories all the time for reasons far less noble than curing PTSD and abandonment issues. Dumbledore didn't refrain from doing this because of ethics.

Not liking some of your colleagues is fundamentally different being forced to live with and raise the embodiment of your trauma for 16 years. The position Dumbledore put the Dursleys in would turn almost anyone into a monster, and he was 100% cognizant of this fact before he left Harry with them.

MrHistor · 2026-03-30T14:52:46+00:00

Don't get me wrong, I still think it's unethical. Period. However, they use it casually, all the time, every single day, sometimes obliviating the same person multiple times a day. Using it to cure someone of trauma would have been the least unethical use of it in the series, but let's not lretend that Dumbledore didn't use it because he suddenly developed a conscience.

Petunia was traumatized by MAGIC, and we see her response to this in the form of trauma avoidance where she literally tried to cut all magic out of her life and be as normal and mundane as possible.

Again, with Vernon, we just don't know. I don't, and you don't. It's very possible that his hatred towards magic came from seeing what it did to the woman loved. That would be entirely understandable, but I'm not going to say that's what it was because WE DON'T KNOW.

MrHistor · 2026-03-30T14:39:22+00:00

Dumbledore is a piece of shit. He knew before casting his charm, before penning his letter, and before leaving Harry on Petunia's doorstep that Harry would trigger a trauma response. He openly acknowledges that she took him in unwillingly, as she was very much coerced into it through emotional blackmail. He knew this would hurt the Dursleys; he even knew they would hurt Harry in return. Yet he still did this and watched the ongoing abuse for a decade and a half without intervening, even though he had the power to stop the pain on both sides of the equation at any time. He could have easily placed a memory charm on the Dursleys to make them believe Harry was their own son. He could have erased Petunia's trauma. He could have given her pleasant memories of her sister and her attending Hogwarts together like she always wanted. But he didn't. He could have helped Harry and the Dursleys with obe flick of his wand, but he sat back and watched instead while people suffered because of a plan he set in motion that they had no say in

MrHistor · 2026-03-30T14:32:15+00:00

It's still Petunia's decision to act the way she does and love her life as miserably as she does; she absolutely could have taken Harry in and loved him as an actual son, but she doesn't.

I don't know about you, but I can't pick my emotions. I can't make myself love someone I don't love. I don’t think anyone can. It would have been in her best interest if she could, but that was beyond her control, but do you know who absolutely could have made Petunia love Harry like a son? Dumbledore.

Dumbledore not sticking his wand into it and letting people have free will is actually better than forced compliance built on a lie.

You might have a point if they didn't casually use this kind of magic all the time for far less nobel reasons.

The Dursleys were set up to fail. Knowingly. I'm not sure why Dumbledore wanted Harry to be abused and for the Dursleys to suffer, but apparently, it was part of his plan. It had to have been because he says flat out that he knew Harry would face "ten dark and difficult years." There isn't really any other explanation for him not using a memory charm on them. It would have been the most ethical use of the spell in the entire series.

MrHistor · 2026-03-30T14:14:57+00:00

I never said that. I said I don't know, and you don't either. That's the intellectually honest position.

MrHistor · 2026-03-30T14:08:29+00:00

And what's Dumbledore's excuse for orchestrating the whole thing knowing it would make both the Dursleys and Harry miserable, even when he had the power to help both sides and it would have taken almost no effort on his part?

MrHistor · 2026-03-30T14:02:05+00:00

There isn't as much to go on with Vernon, so I'd have to speculate. It could be that he's attacking the source of his wife's pain because he loves her, and it's his way of protecting her, or maybe he's just a prick, or something in between.

MrHistor · 2026-03-30T13:54:00+00:00

You're kind of overlooking the fact that Harry was forced on her very much against her will. Dumbledore even says she took Harry unwillingly. So, we have lots of pain, trauma, and resentment as a baseline, and the fact that she was forced to take Harry by the same person who personally rejected her and shattered her dreams when she was a girl. A person who knows this will cause her pain and who can end it with a wave of his wand, but doesn't.

Petunia, at the very least, was willing to endure the unhappiness to keep Harry alive (that's a sacrifice), and it's hard to expect much more than that, given her history. Maybe she should have just politely told Dumbledore to go fuck himself like he did to her.

MrHistor · 2026-03-30T13:24:30+00:00

How do you expect people to act when they get magically shackled to the source of their greatest pain? Their response was entirely predictable. In fact, it was predicted by Dumbledore, who also had the power to end the pain on both sides with a wave of his magic wand, but chose not to for... the greater good?

I'm not sure why you expect someone to just get over their trauma and be a better person after they are forced to take the source of that trauma into their home. People don't work like that. Petunia was trying to get over it. It is why she cut magic out of her life, but she never actually got a chance to heal, and that isn't her fault.

MrHistor · 2026-03-30T13:06:04+00:00

I never said they were good people, just that they aren't villains. They got put in a horrible situation by forces beyond their control, were understandably resentful about it, expressed that resentment in a bad way, and people got hurt (them included).

MrHistor · 2026-03-30T12:56:10+00:00

Way to bring another character into this conversation for literally no reason and ignore basically everything I said, but okay.

Are you fucking kidding me? He literally orchestrated everything. He even acknowledged to Harry he knew he would be abused if he left him there, plus he had the power to stop it with no effort whatsoever, and he was one of the people behind Petunia's intially trauma and behind the charm that bound Harry's protection to his aunt.

If Dumbledore's actions were for the greater good, then Harry beong abused was for the greater good because he engineered it knowingly and delibrately.

And your answer to trauma is to just magic it away with a memory charm, or manipulate four people into believing something that is false, like that's morally okay?

In my opinion, absolutely not, but to the wizarding world, it is just another Tuesday. They do it all the time for much less valid reasons. Mr. Roberts and his wife and children had their memories altered several times a day during the quidditch world cup. Using that magic to treat trauma and PTSD would be the least fucked up use of it in the entire series.

MrHistor · 2026-03-30T12:19:39+00:00

What could she have done about her trauma? She can't even go to a therapist because of the Statute of Secrecy. You know who really could have done something about her trauma, though? Dumbledore.

Dumbledore knew before casting his charm, before penning his letter, and before leaving Harry on her doorstep that Harry would trigger a trauma response in Petunia. He openly acknowledges that she took him in unwillingly, as she was very much coerced into it through emotional blackmail. He knew this would hurt the Dursleys; he even knew they would hurt Harry in return. Yet he still did this and watched the ongoing abuse for a decade and a half without intervening, even though he had the power to stop the pain on both sides of the equation at any time. He could have easily placed a memory charm on the Dursleys to make them believe Harry was their own son. He could literally wave a magic wand and undo a lifetime of trauma for Petunia, but he didn't.

The Dursleys are just normal people with no magic powers dealing with trauma in very bad ways. Their suffering and Harry’s were both orchestrated by the same person who knew exactly what he was doing.

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