Thinking about betrayal

I have been mulling about betrayal this week, and about making mistakes in general.

It's a lot of little things coming together in my mind. I spent a lot of time--perhaps too much--kicking myself about a couple of bone-headed things I had said in this journal. Just stupid things, really, the sort where I look back at myself and wonder, My god, Peg, what on earth were you thinking??? (I've mentioned my seven year "statute of limitations" rule, where I refuse to feel guilty about anything that happened over seven years ago, on the basis of the fact that you all replace the cells in your body over the course of seven years, so you can rightfully say it was an entirely different person who made that mistake.) I've been reading a ton of fanfiction about Severus Snape (*waves to bohemianspirit), about the choices he made (not to mention listening to "The Bravest Man I Ever Knew" on the Ministry of Magic website on endless repeat). I've been following the coverage about the trial between J.K. Rowling and RDR Books. (Reminder: this is the trial concerning the Harry Potter Lexicon webmaster Steve Vander Ark, who, contrary to J.K. Rowling's wishes, is trying to publish a print copy of the Lexicon through RDR Books). The trial concerns issues of fair use copyright; I've mentioned the excellent analysis being done by praetorianguard. I was listening to PotterCast's [pottercast] episode about the trial, in which the PotterCast staff talked about the severing of their longtime relationship with Steve Vander Ark over the issues coming out of the trial and where sue_tlc in particular talked about her personal grief over the loss of the friendship.

I've mentioned it before; I, too, was friends with Steve because we worked together on the HPEF Board of Directors. This has all been bothering me a great deal more than I have said here.

I liked him. I can't understand why he has done this. I read the coverage about his words and actions during the trial, and while I want to scream at him for doing such a thing, the part of him that was his friend reads about his own grief at how he now feels cut off from the Harry Potter community, and I find myself sympathizing with him against my will. It hurts to find something inside of yourself that still tugs you toward someone who you feel has done something betraying.

This, coupled with all that Severus Snape fanfiction, has made me think again about the essay I wrote about remorse and transformation of character in Book 7. It's fascinating to re-read that essay, keeping the events of the J.K. Rowling trial against RDR books in mind. I wrote:

Rowling has always said that that series is about choosing what is right over what is easy. What I started thinking about as I read DH is that, especially in this book, Rowling has as much to say about the people who initially chose wrongly, and then went back to correct their mistakes. Choosing rightly the first chance you are given is best, of course. If you don't make mistakes, you don't have as much to fix. Some mistakes are enormous, and they can create consequences that are permanent.

Is it still possible to go back and choose again, differently? To say, I was wrong, I take it back. I want to now move in a new direction, the first one I should have chosen"? Since it is our choices that make us who we are, Dumbledore tells us, changing our choices means transforming our character. Is this possible, even when our initial mistake was enormous, leading to permanent consequences

I've been thinking about the Order of the Phoenix and how horrified they were by Severus Snape's actions in Book 6. How could he do such a thing? How could he betray them like that? (Of course, in Snape's case, ironically we learn in book 7 that the events in Book 6 weren't a betrayal, but he did truly betray someone in the past, and that--what he did to Lily--is really what shaped his life.) I've been thinking about Steve's actions in comparison to Severus' story arc. In the essay, I said that to correct a huge mistake, you need four things: remorse, courage, the willingness to seize the opportunity to correct your mistake as soon as it comes, and humility. From what I've read about Steve's comments about the case, he's lacking that first crucial element, remorse. As sad as he is about the bad feelings that have resulted, the broken friendships, he doesn't think he has done anything wrong.

I realized, as I was mulling this all over, that I'm still looking back with grief at my relationship with msscribe, who was on my innermost friends lock until her perfidy in the Harry Potter fandom was revealed over at the bad penny journal at journalfen. It gnawed at me for months. I missed her friendship, even as I was angry at her. And it badly shook my confidence in my own ability to accurately assess other people. How could I have considered someone who would do such things a good friend? How could I still miss someone who had the type of character to hurt people so badly?

Tell me about a case where you felt betrayed by someone. Were you able to forgive?

Or--even harder--tell me about an incident where you betrayed someone. What happened? Why did you do it? Were you ever able to change course and mend the relationship again? What did you learn?

Karate last night

I went to karate class last night and got sooooo frustrated. It was just one of those nights when I felt so klutzy. Kept falling out of balance on the slow kicks, and then, just to complete my humiliation, sensei decided to work on spin kicks (tornado kicks, spin hook kicks). Spent some time stretching after class, brooding unhappily on my performance, near tears in frustration, actually, and finally I decided to talk to sensei. I felt a bit craven to beg for reassurance, but it was really bothering me. He assured me that I was absolutely on track of where I should be at this point in my study. I need to work on keeping my breathing regular--if I start holding my breath because I'm getting frustrated, I fall out of the kicks much more quickly. It helped to talk to him. A little.

Still.

One of the most useful lessons I've taken away from my sporadic study of yoga is the concept of understanding that some days your body simply does what you ask of it better than on other days. The trick is to accept what your body can do each day without beating yourself up about what you can't do. I remember what sensei told me a long time ago, that for most kids the challenge in karate is physical, but for most adults (and for Delia, as I've written before) it's primarily mental. Well, it's both for me, but what was really bothering me last night was mental. Or rather, my mental reaction to what I was doing physically.

haiku

Haiku2 for pegkerr
you open the leg comes down you can only join me in some kick
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Created by Grahame

Today's Wizard Rock offering

Swish and Flick's "Hogwarts House Party" is silly, and not great, but oddly fun. And downloadable.