Ambush and Style: what he said and what I thought

'"You keep writing these war stories," she said, "so I guess you must've killed somebody." It was a difficult moment, but I did what seemed right, which was to say, "Of course not," and then to take her onto my lap and hold her for a while."' - p. 125

When I first read this and didn't know that he really hadn't killed anybody himself after all, even if he did in spirit, it reminded me of a moment in... either Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire or Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It's in the trailer, I remember.

Yep, it's Goblet of Fire. I love that trailer. Anyway, Dumbledore ends it with, "Dark and difficult times lie ahead, Harry. Soon we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy." That's a sticky question. Morality isn't always black and white. Had he really killed in Vietnam, would O'Brien have been wrong in lying to his daughter to preserve her innocence? Was it wrong to lie to her in the knowledge that he felt responsible for deaths in Vietnam? I don't know. It's against the word of the Commandments, but perhaps not the spirit, and that's where the discrepancy, the gray area in which arguments sit dormant, lies. In any case, the lie was definitely the easy path, whether it was right or not.

[transition to chapter Style....]

"There was no music. Most of the hamlet had burned down, including her house, which was now smoke, and the girl danced with her eyes half closed, her feet bare."

I don't know what a hamlet is...

...but this is what I was thinking.