Who Framed Fred and George?

[lupinesque]

No: HPFGUIDX 43102

Brilliant analysis, Dicentra.  I think you get at exactly why we can 
laugh at some things and cringe at others that are quite similar.  It 
also gets at why different readers react differently to the same 
scene:  who is and who is not a Toon is not a simple objective 
matter, but varies with the reader's perspective.  Most of us have a 
Toon character whom we relate to strongly enough that he/she isn't a 
Toon *to us* at all.

Looking to your examples, I think the ground is shaky under Neville, 
because Neville *isn't* a Toon.  He is quite complex.  Most of the 
portrait is Toonish--the slightly pudgy, forgetful class klutz--but 
from very early in the series that portrait is complexified.  He's 
gutsy, and he has a hidden sorrow that would be a heavy burden to an 
adult much less a child.  He is also written in a way to invite our 
empathy, which makes any prank targeted at him likely to make us 
wince rather than laugh.

Now, the 

> Canary Cremes

are still funny, but for a different reason:  Neville himself finds 
the prank funny.  See, if his feelings were hurt by it, it wouldn't 
count in my book as "Danger Averted."  Danger isn't just having an 
anvil fall on your head; in a drama about children, a drama about 
school, one of the chief dangers is emotional:  being friendless, 
shunned, or the target of ridicule.  (Harry suffers all three to 
varying degrees at various times and our sympathy is meant to be 
strongly with him.)  But Neville really doesn't mind this one, and 
those of us who want to give F & G the benefit of the doubt can 
decide that they knew he wouldn't.  Kind, non-bullying practical 
jokers don't overstep that line.  They don't tape down the sink 
sprayer on the morning you're wearing a silk blouse for an essential 
interview; they don't tease you when they know you've had a really 
bad day; they don't, in short, do real harm (including emotional) or 
kick anyone who's down.

This is why, of all of Fred and George's pranks that you mentioned, I 
have the hardest time with the snowballs on Quirrell (fortunately, 
you left out the painful Puffskein Incident--I don't want to go over 
that one again).  Quirrell proves to be complex, too; he is no 
weakling and no sweetheart; but Fred and George don't know that at 
the time, and neither do we.  (Nor do any of us know that they are 
actually snowballing Voldemort, which is hilarious in a whole 
different way.)  What we do know is that none of the kids respect him-
-his class is "a bit of a joke."  We don't know how his colleagues 
regard him, but he stutters, one of the Top Ten Symptoms of 
characters suffering social rejection.  He's a nebbish.  

Now, picking on a nebbish is almost excusable when he's your teacher, 
because students tend to feel themselves on the losing end of a power 
imbalance with any teacher and so their little revenges are quite 
understandable; i.e., the students are the underdogs in the 
relationship, not the bullies.  But it's a close thing.  When a 
student humiliates a teacher thoroughly enough, the power imbalance 
shifts very dramatically, for the very fact that the teacher is 
supposed to be on top makes it all the more humiliating to him when a 
student treats him as a weakling.  

**************

Elsewhere on this thread:  the moral standing of the target of the 
joke is relevant to the question "are they bullies?"  Dudley is given 
a small bit of his overdue comeuppance by his long-suffering victim's 
surrogate big brothers (and this is the case whether Dudley's parents 
made him a bully or not.  Most bullies are made rather than born, but 
at 14 they are responsible for their own actions).  Likewise, 
stepping on Goyle and Malfoy, especially the latter, is not bullying 
in the way that stepping on someone merely inconvenient like Cedric 
would be.  I'm not advocating revenge as a matter of policy, just 
saying that it's a bit much to call it bullying when you are not 
picking on someone weaker, but on someone stronger (a bully, in fact) 
who is temporarily vulnerable.  Revenge, in other words, is not the 
same as bullying.

Amy Z
who can't quite believe how much she wrote about this seemingly 
trivial matter

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"Winky is having trouble adjusting, Harry 
Potter," squeaked Dobby confidentially.
           --HP and the Goblet of Fire
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