Fred and George: The Bullies You Do Know
lucky_kari
lucky_kari at yahoo.ca
Tue Aug 27 20:39:10 UTC 2002
No: HPFGUIDX 43247
--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "jferer" <jferer at y...> wrote:
> Have you ever met a real bully? someone who is 'A person who is
> habitually cruel or overbearing, especially to smaller or weaker
> people?' The kind that beat kids for their lunch money, steal their
> clothes off their backs, and stick smaller kids' heads into
unflushed
> toilets?
Yes, I have met real bullies. There is more to them than the
stereotypical bully exemplified in the pages of Calvin and Hobbes.
"Moe": Calvin's tormentor, is a type of bully that does exist, but is
not really such a great problem as you would think. No, most bullies
are quite different from Nelson in the Simpsons. Between Grades 3 and
Grade 5, I went through hell with bullies at my very toney
Hogwarts-like private school. Here is their profile.
- Rich. Upper-middle class. Well-dressed.
- Popular with students and teachers.
- High academic achievers.
- Physically unimposing.
- Overly sentimental in regards to animals and little children, while
completely unempathetic to other weaker children.
- Cliqueish and elitist.
I actually began to draw up that list when I was being tormented and
used it to turn the tables on them. By Grade 6, I had the upper hand
of them, and I think I had a close escape from becoming Tabouli's
"victim turned bully." I've already mentioned the life I lead my Grade
6 teacher, and there are many other things I regret. I think the day
when I realized that I could make them squirm was when in Grade 5 they
dumped one of their hangers-on (who later became my best friend at
school), and I said, "Oh, the Chateau Clique is meeting again, is it?"
That got a great roar of laughter from the rest of the class, and
suddenly they were the target of derision instead of me for the rest
of break. (The Chateau Clique, btw, was the horribly corrupt colonial
government of Quebec that lead to the 1837 rebellion, and our current
topic of study in History.) I was always clever, and I could be quite
cruelly clever towards them.
But they weren't pushing people's heads down toilets. No. Or taking
people's lunch money. They already had plenty of lunch money, while
their victims generally didn't. But they were habitually cruel and and
overbearing to weaker classmates. And Fred and George Weasley have
always reminded me very much of them in some (though not all) of their
attributes. They were the bullies that You Do Know, as Elkins put it,
except I was one of the few who didn't.
Eileen
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