Friendship, Loyalty and Toads

[Sean Dwyer]

Friendship & Loyalty Report
***************************

Initial Posts: 448
Final Posts: 276

Trust/Mistrust: 154
Spying/Betrayal: 44

What a terrible category. Not helped by a slow recovery from teeth extraction,
I wallowed in this Slough of Despond this entire week, and have come to
several conclusions:

1. It's generally useless except in terms of its two sub-categories.
2. It's all too frequently mistaken for Trio Dynamics.
3. It's easily the most overcoded category I've reviewed.

The basic rule of thumb deriving from the above conclusion is, unless a post
REALLY REALLY REALLY concerns F & L, don't even think about it, and ESPECIALLY
(clears throat to attract the attention of colourfully-singing Ginger bashing
around in the back-posts), NOT as an alternative to Trio Dynamics. TD exists
precisely to mop up vague categories all dealing with the Trio; it is a large
category because it's a List obsession, apart from Shipping. You are free to
disagree with me, and I am free to permanently Transfigure you into a nice
specimen of Bufo Marinus: you won't be lonely and you'll have the gleeful
attention of small Australian children.

I expect F&L and its sub-cats to be a bit more useful post-GoF discussion; but
the current quality of the discussion particularly re Snape and Ron leads to a
surfeit of cynicism. The big surprise was how little Hagrid figured. THE
canonical case of friendship & loyalty outside the Trio (TD is for *within*
the Trio or Maurauder comparison), and few remark on it. God knows what I'm
going to find in Hagrid, which is my next task.

Sean (penguin of doooom)

-- 
When all you have are foxes, everything looks like a henhouse.