Cool Motive, Still A Crime: Difference between revisions

* ''[[A Christmas Carol]]'' goes into this more sympathetically: Jacob Marley sends three ghosts of Christmas to save his former partner and protegee Ebenezer Scrooge from eternal damnation. The Ghost of Christmas Past reveals that the reason why Scrooge is so cold-hearted is not just that he lost his love Belle; he had a neglectful father that shunted him off to boarding school, and his sister Fanny, the only family member we see treating him well, died. Ebenezer acknowledges his faults; the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come shows that unless he changes, Scrooge will die alone, and London will be happier for it. By this point, however, Ebenezer is not just worried about his own soul; he frets that {{spoiler|his employee Bob Cratchit will lose his son Tiny Tim}}. The first thing he does on waking up during Christmas morning is to {{spoiler|ask a boy to buy a giant turkey for the Cratchits, and to surprise them with the food for Christmas}}.

* Happens in ''[[Harry Potter]]'' from time to time.

*** Dumbledore and Harry discuss this about {{spoiler|Merope Gaunt slipping a love potion to her crush Tom Riddle and drugging him for months. When she stopped drugging him, he ran for his life, leaving her destitute just as she was about to have their child. She died, and Tom Riddle Jr. aka Lord Voldemort was sent to a Muggle orphanage. They both acknowledge that she was in a bad situation, with her father and brother being abusive while treating her as unpaid labor and hexing any Muggle that so much as breathed on their property. Dumbledore asserts, however, that using a love potion on Tom Sr. was rape regardless of Merope's desperation. Tom Sr. had every right to leave her; if it had been a Muggle roofie, it would be just as horrific.}}

*** Harry eventually comes to this conclusion about {{spoiler|Severus Snape}} after the latter's actions in this book. He did feel bad for him after learning {{spoiler|that his father was exactly the arrogant bully that Snape kept describing and humiliated Snape just for being in the way.}} Then he finds out that {{spoiler|Snape was the one who overheard part of Trelawney's prophecy, which led to Voldemort deciding to kill the Potters. Harry is righteously furious and calls out Dumbledore for not telling him, screaming at him for defending Snape's assholery at every turn.}} Dumbledore says that {{spoiler|Snape also came to warn the Order, surrendering to Dumbledore personally, because he didn't want a family with a baby to die, even if it was the family of his sworn rival}}. Harry can sense that Dumbledore's lying, but the point still stands when {{spoiler|he relates this to the Order after Snape kills Dumbledore, and no one knows it was pre-planned between the men; Lupin is incredulous and says, "And Dumbledore believed him? Snape hated James."}}. Sure, Harry eventually forgives the man in ''Deathly Hallows'' {{spoiler|after seeing that he was flawed but eventually well-intentioned in the end}}, but the rest of the Wizarding World debates if he was just selfish or misguided.