Saving the kid from cavities.

Stuff like this is part of why I dropped out of multimedia production in college, I only enjoy that stuff as a hobby for myself, doing it for other people is a creative nightmare lol

I agree, though I also think there’s a discussion to be had about society’s obsession with punishment over anything else, and how sometimes it’s okay to let go of the past and appreciate that someone has become a better person and is working to attone for that they did and do good things from that point onwards, which is overall better for the world as a whole than them being forced to suffer endlessly for their past actions for the sake of vindication or revenge. If you’re going to take the stance that someone can have a moral debt they must be forced to pay, then you have to likewise acknowledge that there must be a point at which it can be paid. If you try to claim that some things can never be made up for and thus some moral debts can never be repaid, then that only highlights the problem with that sort of reasoning. Because if someone takes a life then saves a life, and you claim that one is not enough to make up for the other, then you’re essentially treating life 1 as more valuable than life 2. And what if they take 100 lives but save 1000? Can human lives even be stacked up against each other like that to say which group has more “value” than the other? That’s the paradox of a moral debt, something can not simultaneously be priceless and yet also not hold enough value to balance the scale against itself at the same time.

In real life this can be complicated further because it can be hard to judge whether someone has truly learned from their mistakes and genuinely changed their ways, but in a fictional story you often get to see for sure that the character truly is sincere. So to tie that in to what you said, just because a viewer/reader is capable of accepting a character’s redemption in a fictional setting, where they are 100% certain that the former villain has had a change of heart and feels bad and will continue to do good things into the future, that doesn’t mean it’s a moral failing on the audience’s part. But it’s also worth noting that being willing to give someone a chance to improve themselves and grow as a person instead of demanding their eternal damnation and punishment isn’t a moral failing either even outside of fiction.

I mean if the villain’s redemption is well written then typically the guilt from their past actions is the punishment for said actions, and their current actions are largely focused on atonement and reparation. That sort of thing often makes them even more relatable because while not everyone has killed another person, everyone in the world has hurt someone else at some point, maybe unintentionally, maybe unknowingly, maybe due to extenuating circumstances or their own trauma, or maybe because they were just a worse person at the time. Does that mean they are never allowed to be a better person and must eternally suffer for all the wrongs they’ve committed? Is it not better to encourage their goodness in the present than to forcibly drag them back to when they were bad over and over again for the sake of vindication? Does society really benefit from that sort of thing? And what if they end up saving more lives than they’ve taken? Something to think about.

Pretty sure it’s the fault of the scary awful side for being scary and awful.

Or maybe they thought it was referring to something more specific in American politics that they weren’t knowledgeable about and didn’t realize it was a more general message?

That’s because “I’m sorry” is essentially short for “I feel sorrow”. What it means specifically can differ depending on the context. We have lots of examples of phrases that work like this, for example: if you end a relationship with someone you call it “breaking up” with them. If you pass through a tunnel during a phone call and can’t hear the other person very well or the call drops, they’re “breaking up”. That’s because something “breaking up” can refer to it falling apart or being severed. When you apologize, you feel sorrow over your own actions and/or the hurt they have caused. When you console someone grieving, you feel sorrow for their loss. This, like puns, is not in any way exclusive to the English language.

Hair as well.

Oh there’s often plenty of reason.

Once a day isn’t crazy if she doesn’t eat tons of sugar.

Do you happen to remember who won that particular scuffle? And who had an enormous statue erected in memorial and is the most popular presidents in history? And whether slavery is in fact still legal or not?

Yes I did, I read and reread them many times as a kid and I never saw enough evidence that he had enough limitations to prevent him from doing something like lobbying for legislation. The degree of influence he held in the Wizarding world was huge and none of the reasons given for why he would struggle with changing things convinced me that they were enough to combat the sheer volume of feats Dumbledore had achieved throughout his career, the number of friends he had in high places, or the fact that he, again, very publicly defeated Wizard Hitler 1.0. The 5th book actually showcased pretty strongly how far his influence had spread and how much it intimidated the ministry. He had inside men in both Voldemort’s circle (Snape) and the ministry’s circle (Kingsley), neither of which were ever suspected or discovered by the leaders of the organizations they’d infiltrated, and he even orchestrated an entire underground order of powerful and influential wizards and witches working in the shadows to fight against Voldemort right under the ministry’s nose. It’s not like Fudge was terrified of him aiming for Minister of Magic for no reason.

Oh no two whole paragraphs longer than 3 sentences. I didn’t mean to frighten you with words.

That’s like saying “Dumbledore had the biggest assault rifle of anyone, so he can do anything”.

Except it’s not, not even close. Having a gun is not the same as having authority and influence in an institution or government. He ran Hogwarts, for one thing, as you said. He could have very easily refused to have house elves at the school unless they were paid employees, and that alone would have made a very public statement, which would have meant a lot on a societal level coming from such an important, influential, public figure. There are other options for labour, so it’s not like he had any excuse not to. He also had political influence and could have pushed for changes in legislation if he wanted. Part of why the ministry was so afraid of him was because of the influence he had. It wasn’t because he was a string wizard and they thought he would come to the ministry one day and shoot up the place if he didn’t get his way, Dumbledore could only do so much against an entire building full of powerful wizards, even he wouldn’t be able to stand up to all of the ministry’s aurors. He had friends, connections, a reputation, a history, control over one of the most influential schools in the world which produced a significant percentage of the world’s licenced and trained Wizarding population, direct access to thousands of witches and wizards who could all potentially be the next minister of magic or the next Voldemort or hell the next Dumbledore. He absolutely could have leveraged that to change something societally but he only ever used it to maintain his own status quo when the ministry got too jumpy and tried to knock him down a few pegs.

If he goes with 1, he has to maintain favor.

You say that like it would be difficult. He was beloved by most of his students, many of which had influential parents or would become influential themselves. He had an untold number of connections from favours he’d provided over the years, people he’d helped, or even just friends in high places. He was close with many high ranking experts in their respective field including his professors and others outside of Hogwarts. He’d previously been the one to take down the first wizard Hitler, and had been instrumental in fighting the second wizard Hitler. Etc, etc. His favour only slipped with the ministry precisely because they were aware of the power he held politically and were afraid of him leveraging that, and thought his claims of Voldemort returning were part of a move to take over the ministry. That was the entire deal behind the Dumbledore’s army conspiracy. Even when they managed to force him out of Hogwarts they had to basically play dirty and strong arm him out of the position because they knew they couldn’t do it through any legitimate channels. Even then the school constantly pushed back against them taking over and it became a nightmare to deal with.

But it’s not like he would have to stage a revolution to enact meaningful change. All he’d have to do is suggest a change in legislation to important figures who respected his opinion, openly advocate for said legislation to gain public support, y’know, regular everyday activism and political lobbying, and he’d undoubtedly get results.

I don’t know about you but I think the people who argued in favour of abolishing slavery were not historically ridiculed as far as I’ve ever heard.

Tries and fails. It never goes anywhere, and she’s mocked as a well-meaning fool for trying in the first place because “welp most elves just enjoy being slaves what can you do shrug emoji”. Jkr sets up something with Hermione and the elves and then doesn’t follow through with it in any meaningful way (and I don’t count commentary from her outside the books as following through) so it’s left to just sit there uncritically as “slavery is a thing in this universe and is seen as completely normal by most characters, and only one person ever tries to do anything about it and she’s depicted as a cringey radical in the process”. Jkr doesn’t even show the beginnings of societal change like more elves coming to Dobby’s side of things once they see it’s an option and that Dobby’s is happy that way, or other house elves being motivated to think differently about their situation and starting to unlearn their generations of indoctrination. We don’t even see a glimpse of Winky starting to recover instead the last we see of her is as a depressed alcoholic whose life was ruined by her being freed from slavery. Jkr depicts it as “yeah slavery is bad but you can’t change the way the world works so might as well not even try.” the house elves’ servitude is treated as something so fundamentally tied to their species that it seems to be biological and thus humans taking advantage of that is to some degree the natural way of things which, I shouldn’t have to explain what the problem with that sort of depiction is. Maybe that wasn’t what she intended, maybe she just added slavery because it’s a common world building trope, but if that’s the case she did so without considering the implications or how it would come across in the end product or the messages it would send.

I mean my best friend and I enjoy showing each other new songs but we’re secure enough in our music tastes to not take it personally if a song doesn’t jive with the other person. It’s a nice way to find new music since our tastes overlap enough that we usually like a few of the same songs.

I don’t look at other people as if they are or were me, I look at them as if they are their own people who may or may not be living their life differently from me.

They already did it’s called a blindfold.

I’m pretty sure there’s not a single person on the planet who expected them to be equally critical of both.