Hagrid, Moody and Violent Responses (WAS What Does It Mean To "Like" )

[ssk7882]

No: HPFGUIDX 34171

Cindy wrote:

> Am I forgiving Moody just because I like him?  Uh, this is the part 
> where I'm supposed to come up with all kinds of impressive reasons 
> why Moody can be forgiven a violent response, but Hagrid cannot.

No, no, Cindy!  *This* is the part where you're supposed to smile
sheepishly and say: "Well...yeah, okay.  I guess I *am* just 
forgiving Moody because I like him."

But since you refused to cooperate with my cunning plan... <sigh>

> I also think that Moody had authority over Draco that Hagrid does 
> not have over Karkaroff.  A teacher who disciplines a student and 
> acts to protect another student from the offending student is 
> entitled to some leeway.  

I tend to agree with Marina on this one: the degree of authority
that Crouch/Moody already held over Draco in that scene was a large 
part of what made it seem so horrific to me.  

But I can see your point, and I recognize that my own emotional
response to the scene was probably informed in large part by both 
my own personal neuroses (I confess to a somewhat instinctive 
mistrust of authority in general) and by my own cultural 
assumptions.  My own parents never used corporal punishment, and I've 
never attended a school that even *permitted* the use of corporal 
punishment, so I'm culturally conditioned to read an adult's use of 
physical means to reprimand a child as "assault," rather than
as "discipline."  It's quite likely that had I grown up someplace 
where corporal punishment was more commonly used (is it still used in 
British schools?), then I wouldn't have reacted to the scene in the 
same way at all.


> Also, by the time Karkaroff is slammed into the tree and Draco is 
> bounced, we have very different amounts of information about these 
> two antagonists.  First, Karkaroff at this point isn't really an 
> antagonist.  Karkaroff's only crime up to that point was showing up 
> wearing fur.  :-)  

Heh.  Well, fur-wearing aside, there's also Sirius' claim that he
(a) used to be a Death Eater, and (b) ratted out a whole bunch of
his old DE buddies to the ministry.  IIRC, Sirius tells Harry about
all of that in the head-in-the-fireplace scene, which comes long 
before Hagrid smashes the poor guy up against the tree.  So while 
Karkaroff may not be an antagonist per se, he's certainly someone the
reader has cause to mistrust and suspect at the time of the attack.

Also, he's been oleaginous and smarmy and unpleasant since the moment 
he first arrived.  Not, of course, that any of that justifies 
*assault.*

And also you're quite right: Draco does have three whole books of 
unpleasantness stacked against him, while Karkaroff only has a 
few hundred pages.  And firing off a curse at someone's back is
a rather more serious offense than spitting at someone's feet.
So okay.  

> To be fair, though, I suppose Moody could have just transfigured 
> Draco without bouncing him in the air.  Yeah, OK, that part wasn't 
> justified.  But it was very, very funny.

See, I did recognize that it was *supposed* to be funny.  But
I just found it horrifying, myself.  Something about the way the 
ferret was described as lashing and squealing, perhaps.  Or perhaps
I just found myself imagining all-too-vividly what it might feel like 
to get bounced around like that.  

I've taken a lot of flack for refering to the ferret-bouncing
as "torture" -- and I concede that my use of the word was probably
unwarranted -- but that really was how it came across to me when
I first read that scene: as not only violent, but as extremely
brutal and cruel.  I *winced* when I read that scene; I was 
profoundly relieved when McGonagall came by to intervene; and I
felt genuinely uncomfortable whenever one of our protagonists
gloated over Draco about it.

Maybe I'm just overly sensitive.  Or maybe I just readily identify 
with muscalids.  I dunno.

> While we are on the subject of violent responses, there is another 
> scene that really bothered me.  I didn't like it all in CoS when 
> Arthur Weasley and Lucius Malfoy fought each other with fists.  

See, here's another place where mileages vary.  I found that 
scene absolutely hilarious.  I don't know, something about the
image of mild-mannered government official Arthur Weasley and haughty
blue-blooded aristocrat Lucius Malfoy actually engaging in 
*fisticuffs!*  And in a public place, no less!  It was just so 
utterly incongruous, and so profoundly undignified, that it struck me 
as funny.

I feel certain that both men were absolutely mortified over it later.

Especially Lucius Malfoy.  

Which is, of course, largely why I found it so funny.  I mean, 
you're Lucius Malfoy, right?  And this...this *clerk* suddenly
attacks you in a bookstore.  Not even honorably, like a proper
wizard, with a wand.  No.  No, he attacks you with his *fists.*  

What in God's name are you supposed to do about this?  In a Right 
and Proper Universe, of course, your servants would just take the 
miserable little serf aside and give him a good thrashing, but 
alas, things don't work that way anymore, and besides, your 
servants aren't there.  So what are you supposed to do?  Let 
yourself get pummelled?  Not good.  Call the authorities?  Lord no, 
you'd look like the worst sort of weakling if you did that!  
Descend to his level and hit back?  Probably the best of a host
of bad options, but still utterly *degrading.*

There was just no way for Lucius to emerge from that situation with 
his dignity intact, and I guess maybe I am mean-spirited enough to 
have got a bit of a chuckle out of that fact.


> Aside from the fact that it didn't seem believable that two wizards 
> would use their fists to fight instead of wands, I wasn't plesed 
> that Arthur would lunge at Lucius over a petty insult.  

I'm under the impression that drawing wands is *serious* for adult
wizards, the equivalent of drawing weapons.  Had they gone for their,
wands, then their altercation would have been a *duel,* rather than 
merely an exchange of blows.  And that wouldn't have been funny to 
me at all.  That would have been extremely scary and disturbing.

But I do know what you mean about Arthur.  I was rather disappointed
in him as well.  I assumed that it was old school boy habits taking
over: I'm firmly in the camp that believes that Arthur and Lucius
were contemporaries at Hogwarts.

> I guess that reaction makes me a pacifist, unless of course 14 year 
> old boys are being attacked by fully grown men. :-)

<laughs>  Well, that's *different.*  14 year old boys deserve
what's coming to them.

> I think I will have to adopt a new rule for myself that each 
> beloved character is allowed one hideous mistake, and after that, I 
> will cross them off my list.  Lupin and Black have used their 
> quota.  Snape probably has used his quota.  

Probably?  The man was a _Death Eater,_ Cindy.  I think he ran out
his quota a long, long time ago.

Besides, he picks on Trevor.  And while picking on Neville might be 
excusable, picking on his poor long-suffering toad is utterly 
unforgivable.

-- Elkins

(who wonders why she always seems to be handing Cindy reasons to hate 
Snape)