#maybe they tagged the post with Snape and didn't realize what the culture of tagging posts as anti is and this is how they learned

[sideprince]

Thank you! Thank you for bringing up a really interesting point and idea, and thank you for reading my reblog and giving it both thought and a respectful reply. This is literally all I was trying to get at.

Re: bravery - I agree, it's a spectrum, though I have a different perspective on what that looks like. I don't think there's a need to qualify bravery as good or bad, better or worse, as OP did. Like you said, different situations and factors matter. But I disagree that raising a child is merely hard and therefore doesn't require bravery, and instead think that it requires a different kind of bravery than, say, what Harry or Snape faced. The stakes are lower when it comes to being in immediate danger or the number of people an individual's actions will affect, but there's also a long-term commitment that requires a lot of emotional and physical work and dedication and compensating for an irreplaceable loss (and we see that both Harry and Neville, despite their wildly different support systems and degree of love given as children, both bear the scars of growing up without their parents).

To draw a parallel, I have chronic illness, and people sometimes say "oh you're so brave, going through all that" and I think, "no I'm not, it's just hard." A friend of mine has a similar illness. When they contracted the condition that caused it, they knew what they were facing - a long, hard road full of pain, anxiety, and difficulty. But they didn't cry or fall apart, they faced it with grace and, frankly, bravery. I don't know if I see that in myself, but I know that this is hard, and they knew exactly what they had no choice but to go through, and still faced it. They were facing difficulty, but not imminent danger, but nevertheless I can't imagine describing their attitude without the word "brave." Similarly, choosing to raise a child alone isn't just hard, it requires the kind of bravery that knowingly walking into long-term hardship with your head held high requires. I think the second we choose to focus on qualifying bravery instead of examining it in its own context, we diminish that which falls on the lower end of the spectrum, and do so needlessly. Again, I think it's possible to appreciate one thing without diminishing another. Regulus was brave in a way Snape or Harry never had to be, because their situations were different; was the outcome more or less helpful or impactful? Are we looking at it through the lens of lives saved or which character had to push through more personal fear or who suffered more or less and what do we mean by suffering ie. physical or emotional or are we looking at it from the perspective of who was alone and who had support or who had more or less to lose or... etc. That's how I see the spectrum, but not as one where it's possible to assign more or less objective value to someone's bravery, because there are inevitably multiple subjective angles to view it from.

Re: relativism - I wasn't clear with my meaning, and that's on me. When I said "It's not possible to truly value a character or the merit of their actions if it's in the context of relativism," what I meant was that there's no value in appreciating the actions, in this case bravery, of one character, if doing so is for the sake of diminishing another. Ie. it's not doing a character like Regulus any favors to discuss his bravery, if it's only for the sake of the argument that as a result, Snape's bravery was peanuts. Since OP was discussing characters and their value, I was addressing this perspective specifically - that I don't think you can value a character's traits or actions if it's not for their own sake, but for the sake of diminishing another character's. But in terms of the relativism you're discussing, ie. that bravery is a spectrum, yes I agree but (see above lol).

Re: arguing - I love a good debate as much as the next person (just ask @pet-genius), and I feel like that's what's happening here and what you're talking about. That's not the same as arguing, in my opinion. A debate is an exchange of ideas, and sure it can get heated if we're passionate about those ideas, but ultimately it's fueled by curiosity and focused on exploring perspectives, outcomes, etc. An argument, on the other hand, is about asserting that one perspective is correct and another isn't. It has no curiosity, and is more about digging heels in, proving a point, and feeling like one side is right and the other is wrong. A debate involves listening; an argument refuses to.

What OP did was deliberately start an argument - whether or not that was their actual intention, their language and tone conveyed that it was. Their assertion was phrased as deliberately incendiary and I can literally pinpoint where in your response you get agitated, angry, and frustrated, and you even address them directly and insult their intelligence, making it personal. I'm not trying to point a finger, don't get me wrong! I understand having that response. I'm just trying to explain why I said what I did in my reblog. OP put out the bait and it looks like you took it and got angry, and although most of your response is engaging in debate, parts of it reflect anger and a personal beef, culminating in finger pointing ("you people") and placing yourself on the opposite side in an argumentative way, instead of concluding the points you were making the paragraphs that focused more on a debate based approach.

Can you honestly say that the anger and frustration that went into that response didn't affect you? Like I said, I love a good debate, and there would be plenty of room for one if OP had simply chosen to end their post after their point about Narcissa. But the moment they made it about saying, "but sure... Snape is bravest Slytherin ever" they picked a fight unnecessarily. They could have phrased it as a contrast to what Snape faced and what choices he made, but instead they chose to qualify and devalue his character in a way that was both needless and incendiary. Can you honestly tell me you enjoy that kind of argument and don't walk away from it frustrated and seething? Would you rather spend time in fandom shouting about whose blorbo is "better" by whatever arbitrary standard each side comes up with to prove they're right and the other side is wrong, or would you rather have a debate about the meaning and impact of bravery and how various characters are affected by it? Would you rather argue and feel frustrated that someone's being a jerk, or debate and feel heard and hear others and respectfully disagree at worst?

Regulus ‘Sacrificed my life so that one day the dark lord may be weakened enough to be defeated’ black

Andromeda ‘Defied my family to marry the love of my life and had a daughter, resulting in both of them dying in the war, only for me to step up and look after my grandson’ tonks

Narcissa ‘Lied to the most dangerous man’s face just to protect my son, leading to the death of said dangerous man’ Malfoy

But sure..

Severus ‘bullied a kid because he has the girl who never loved me’s eyes’ Snape

is the bravest slytherin ever