[HPforGrownups] Re: Fred and George: The Bullies You Do Know

[yr awen]

No: HPFGUIDX 43163

Just to address a couple of the issues:

<snips very, *very* large amount of Elkins' post>

11. All bullies are racists.

No, of course they aren't.  You can be a bully without being a 
racist.  

Again, I have no notion where this one came from, although I get the 
impression that it derived from a faulty syllogism, one that went 
something along the lines of "Draco is a bully.  Draco is a racist.  
Therefore, all bullies are racists," and then concluded with the 
assertion that in order to argue that Fred and George are bullies, 
one would therefore first have to prove that they are racists.<<<<<<<<<<

I think it was Darrin who brought it up, but my understanding of his argument was that he was not attempting to set up a bully-equals-racist dynamic, but rather arguing against those who compare F&G's behavior to that of Draco. The gist of his argument was the difference in *motivation* between F&G and Draco's respective behavior, whether you consider it bullying or not. Namely, Draco taunts/belittles/harrasses the Trio for Hermione's status as a Muggle-born, for example, while F&G don't target their victims based on genetic criteria (the Ton-Tongue Toffee incident figured largely in this particular discussion, but I'll let you revisit that for yourself.) That spiralled into a side-discussion of the issue, best left unquoted here -- that, and it's almost 3am here and I'm not at the top of my argument.


HF *DID NOT*, but someone else did, write:

> I guess one way to look at it is this: Why haven't Fred and George 
> been left with their heads in a toilet somewhere? I mean, they are 
> bigger than the younger kids, but certainly not bigger than the 
> seventh-years. If their pranks are so intolerable to people, one 
> would think the law of the playground would have stopped it.

Elkins:
You must have grown up on a remarkably just playground. ;-)

Just correcting a misattribution there. I think... I can't remember what I wrote, but I'm pretty sure I didn't write that :-) I think I can safely say I'd be the last person to trust in the parity of older schoolkids to keep the balance of playground power. Partly, that's because I was the kid who hung upside down on the monkey bars until she got a good buzz on from the blood rushing to her head. Anyway.

I did say, to my chagrin:
> Additionally, wouldn't it go against the grain to have people of 
> said description in Gryffindor, as "daring, nerve, and *chivalry*" 
> is their major descriptor?

Elkins:
Aw, come on.  The Gryffs are good kids on the whole, but they're 
hardly *saints,* are they?  The Trio and Neville get ostracized by 
their housemates for losing all of those points in PS/SS.  I don't 
get the impression that Lavender and Parvati are always perfectly 
sweet and kind to Hermione, either.  And let's not even get into the 
infamous Prank. ("Down, boy!")<<<<<<<<<<

Okay, I'll buy that. But that's the only concession you're getting from me :-) And that's mostly because I'm a bit irritated at myself for quoting the Sorting Hat, of which I take a dim view, verbatim. ::writhes irritably:: I can't believe I *did* that.

As a personal note, the reason why I do like F&G is because my next-door neighbor and friend, a boy who was the only other kid on the street close to my age who *wasn't* a sister, was, and still is to some extent, very much like F&G -- like F&G put together, if you can imagine that. A lot of the things he did were things I disapproved of, some things I got pretty angry at him for doing, and he did a couple things that made me seriously re-think our friendship (and almost break his legs.) He was pretty much... oh, why not? A bully. But we made it through the hell of being ostracized at school together and we're still close ::shrugs:: So I see a lot of F&G in him. And if that's too personal a statement to make in an otherwise psychosocial debate... the heck with it. So be it. But I find that I can't dismiss good qualities wholly in favor of the bad.

HF
--who politely acknowledges the power and validity of Elkins' argument, but who will nonetheless remain unconverted and persist in *liking* F&G.


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