Pranks & Pranksters, Bullies, and Guilt By Association

[ssk7882]

No: HPFGUIDX 35336

I said:

> *We* know that there is really nothing in the least bit amusing or 
> good-natured about the practical joke, that far to the contrary, it 
> is just one of the many means by which the socially popular assert 
> their dominance over their less charismatic peers.

Tabouli wrote:

> I agree wholeheartedly with the overall sentiments of this, but 
> also I think practical jokes aren't always that. It depends on 
> their content and style of execution. 

Well, of course it does.  But that was a *rant,* you see, and one 
can't ameliorate or qualify in the midst of a rant.  It's...well, 
it's just not done.

I think that practical joking is a lot like 'teasing,' actually.  It 
*is* often used as a means of asserting dominance through ridicule.  
It is also sometimes used to share humor and express affection.  The 
problem with both teasing and practical joking, of course, is that it 
is horribly easy to get it *wrong,* and so to offend where you meant 
to do no such thing.  When that happens, then the only decent thing 
to do, IMO, is to humbly apologize. Unfortunately, people tend to get 
defensive instead, which is when you get "can't you take a joke?" 
and "must you always be so sensitive?" and similar remarks which do 
absolutely nothing for anyone's good humor.

(And people do vary a great deal in their sensitivity to teasing, not 
always for explicable reasons.  My husband, for example, cannot bear 
to be teased, not at all, not even lightly, not a bit of it.  If you 
know him -- and if you know what's good for you -- then you do not 
tease him.  I, on the other hand, can tolerate a good deal of 
teasing, which is strange, really, because I was mercilessly and 
cruelly taunted by evil small people all through my childhood, while 
he was never teased in anything but good-humor by very loving family 
members.  <shrug>  So go figure.  I don't understand it either, but 
there it is.)

Getting back to canon, I think that the twins' behavior is 
interesting for the extent to which it does show a very wide range of 
teasing/joking behavior, from the mild and affectionate to the 
downright bullying.  The twins are not very sensitive, and they often 
get it "wrong."  And they can sometimes be malicious, sometimes 
nastily so -- although we've never seen them indulge in the sort of 
wholly malicious and unceasing harrassment that I (and Tabouli as 
well, it would seem) have experienced first-hand.

Their attempts to cheer Ginny up in CoS by jumping out at her from 
behind pillars and the like, for example, strikes me as quite clearly 
a case of simply "getting it wrong."  There's no intended malice 
there that I can see -- I think that they really were trying to cheer 
her up -- but she's headed for a nervous breakdown, and they're just 
too insensitive to notice the effect their behavior is having on 
her.  When it is pointed out to them, they do stop.

Their constant attacks on Percy, though...well, there's malice 
there.  There's definitely malice there, and more than a shade of 
harrassment, as well.  But it's nice that even within their treatment 
of Percy, we see a wide range.  When they manhandle him into his 
Weasley jumper and insist that he spend Christmas with them because 
they're "family," their behavior is certainly bullying, and I'm 
sure that it was very annoying to Percy -- but I'm equally sure that 
it made him feel loved.  Unlike, say, their unceasing attacks on his 
badges, which I don't think made him feel in the least bit 
appreciated or valued.

But fictional characters often suffer from guilt by association.  If 
they remind us of people we have known in real life, then we tend to 
draw certain assumptions about their behavior. (We just saw a bit of 
this happening on the Ginny thread, I think.)  And for what it's 
worth, I don't think that that's at all a "wrong" way to read 
fiction.  It's inevitable: fiction *depends* on the reader's habit of 
forming gestalt impressions of character; that's a large part of how 
it works.  It's really only when you run into the highly 
idiosyncratic readings that perhaps it starts making sense to wonder 
whether you might have "misread" the text -- and even then, I think 
that "misreading" is a misnomer.  So long as the characters and their 
interactions and their motivations continue to make *sense* to the 
reader, so long as the work still carries the reader along 
emotionally and logically, then as far as I'm concerned, the question 
of authorial intent is moot.  It's only when things stop making sense 
that "misreading" is problematic.

As for the twins, I grew up down the street from a pair of 
pathological pranksters, quite a few years older than me, who *were* 
malicious (to *me*, at any rate) and who lacked chivalry towards the 
smaller and the younger (when it came to *me*, at any rate).  But 
they were also very popular, and extremely kind and supportive of 
their younger brother and his friends and other younger children whom 
they liked, and they did a lot of charity work mentoring younger 
children as well, so everyone thought they were these all-round great 
guys.  No harm in 'em.  Good-hearted.  They had this *rep* -- as 
chivalrous and kind-hearted and protective to the small and the weak 
and all of that.  No one ever seemed to notice that they...well, that 
they just plain *weren't.*

So yes, my reading of the twins may well be far more personal than 
canonical, as may be my ugly suspicion that they can be mean as all 
get-out when it comes to, say, the Slytherins.  But the text has 
borne me out so far -- I still say that the Hissing of Malcolm 
Baddock was a DEAD GIVEAWAY, they showed their true natures there, 
all right, oh yes, indeedy -- and so my admittedly-biased reading is 
not "problematic."  It isn't contradicted by anything in the text.  
It can therefore remain a satisfying reading for me without having to 
be "revised."


Tabouli was approaching the Snape vs. Sirius disagreements along 
these lines, I think, when she wrote about her own experiences with 
Victimizers Who Never Accept That They've Done Wrong and Ex-Victims 
Turned Bully.  And I think that she was quite right in suggesting 
that people's personal experiences with these types have informed 
that on-going debate.

She wrote:

> I have met quite a few ex-charismatic-victimisers who, like Sirius, 
> are well into adulthood and show no signs whatsoever of remorse. 
> Indeed, they engage in almost exactly the same behaviour as Sirius -
> a bit of a smug, callous snicker and a "God, but they were just so 
> revolting and pathetic, they were just asking for it!" 

<shudder>

I remember a year or two ago finding myself in a discussion at work 
with a co-worker, a woman I'd always got along with quite well, about 
the film "Welcome To the Dollhouse" (if you've never seen it, 
Tabouli, you might want to be warned: it just might make you feel 
physically ill.  It did me.)  The discussion was going great, no 
problems, we had both liked the movie a good deal, and then suddenly 
she said something along the lines of: "God, you know, I felt so bad 
for that poor girl, but at the same time, she was just *asking* for 
it, wasn't she?  The way she dressed, and the way she acted?  She 
must have known better.  I mean, we always used to just *torture* 
people like that when I was in school, and I can't really say that I 
blame all the other kids for treating her that way.  She was *so* 
letting herself in for it."  

Cheerfully, she said this.  Cheerfully, and not without a certain 
hint of smug *nostalgia.*

And I just couldn't respond somehow.  My throat felt very tight, and 
I could feel the blood draining from my face, and...well, I simply 
wanted to be elsewhere.  Anywhere elsewhere.  I would like to be able 
to claim that, like Tabouli, I tried to engage this woman on the 
issue.  But I didn't.  I absented myself from the conversation at the 
next decent opportunity.  And I can't really say that I've ever felt 
quite the same about her since.

I think that a lot of people here have met those types, and that it 
accounts for a great deal of the anti-Sirius sentiment we see here on 
the list.  I myself, for example, tend to share Judy Serenity's gut 
feelings about Sirius, while also acknowledging all of the pro-
Sirist's arguments against them as perfectly canonically sound.  No, 
there's no canonical evidence that the guy ever harrassed or teased
less popular students.  No, there's no canonical evidence that he 
ever even did a thing to Snape, other than that one (admittedly 
potentially lethal) "prank."  No, there's no real canonical evidence 
that he is the sort of person who cares only for the people he has 
designated as "his people," and not so much for anyone outside of 
that magic circle.

But he gives many people the *impression* of being that sort of 
person, and impressions are important -- we form our opinions of 
fictional characters largely on a gestalt basis anyhow -- so I think 
that "he gives the impression of being this sort of person, and I 
just don't like people like that" *is* a valid response to the 
canon.  It's a perfectly legitimate, and indeed, unavoidable aspect 
of ones reading of the text.

As for the Ex-Victims Turned Bully...

(Tabouli, again):

> However, I have also observed another subset of people who impress 
> me almost as little... the victim-turned-bully. 

<shifts uncomfortably in seat>

Well...yeah.  I went through a stage of this myself -- although not 
with any racial agenda attached, thank God.  As a teenager, I got 
pretty mean, in both senses of that word: cruel and petty.  I'm not 
in the least bit proud of that.  It's shameful.

But interestingly, the logic one uses to rationalize such behavior is 
much the same.  Rather than 'they were so pathetic, they deserved it, 
they should just get over it already,' you get into 'oh, people like 
that are so insensitive that they can't possibly really be hurt 
anyway, all they're really upset about is that they just aren't 
*winning* for once in their lives, and maybe they should get used to 
that and...well, and get over it already.'

You don't think of it as bullying -- although that's precisely what 
it is. 

It's equally despicable behavior, of course.  And for what it's 
worth, I did grow out of it.

In fiction, naturally, I tend to enjoy ex-victims-turned-bully.  I 
can identify with them, although it's an uncomfortable sort of 
identification.  In real life, though, I just can't bear them.  They 
upset and anger me beyond all reason: I desperately want them to come 
to the same conclusions about their rotten behavior that I eventually 
did, and when they won't, or can't, then I become very distressed.  
And like Tabouli, I've had representatives of the type crushing on me 
(more than one, actually, which is sort of disturbing in its own 
right -- as if our shared characteristics are some kind of pheromone, 
you know -- as if they could *smell* it on me), but fortunately 
never reaching quite the scary stalker level that Tabouli described.  
(That sounds frightening, Tabouli -- you have my sympathies.)

> In fiction, as in Sirius (My Cocky Charisma) and Snape (Mr Victim 
> turned Bully), I'm quite happy to accept this sort of thing as an 
> interesting portrayal of things I've observed myself in real life.
> In reality, however, I brew with disapproval...

Indeed.  But then, the people I would disapprove of most strongly in 
real life generally *do* make for interesting characters...


-- Elkins