Dueling

[archeaologee]

No: HPFGUIDX 40025

Elouise wrote:
(sidenote - am I imagining that it says somewhere that it is now 
> illegal, and if so, why did Hogwarts start a duelling club?). It 
would be 
> extremely unsporting, to say the least, if you used an unblockable 
curse on 
> your opponent. In fact, it is likely that all (serious, as opposed 
to 
> sporting) duels would end up with two dead wizards. Or witches (I 
suppose I 
> shouldn't be sexist about this). 


I always assumed hogwarts taught dueling like my school taught (and I 
assume still teaches) fencing.  Duels have been banned in England for 
a long time, but we still (if we chose) were taught to fence, or 
shoot. Guns also illegal to use on others - handguns banned - 
firearms strictly licenced - but I learned to use (as well as strip 
and clean) all of these things in a school taught environment.

There was really nothing the teacher could have done if one of us 
decided to turn the gun on another (guns are also refered to as "a 
sort of metal wand" in PoA), and despite the "unblockable nature" of 
bullets most gun duels ended with only one dead person (unless 
westerns have lied to me).

Also teaching any form of martial arts implies restraint on the part 
of the student, whilst I very much doubt I could have hurt my 
instructor (as the children probably couldn't have hurt Snape in the 
dueling club) I certainly could have broken noses\arms\ribs of 
another student whilst "sparring".  We all trained to prove we could 
beat the opponants defence, but pulled the blows. I would imagine it 
to be the same in the dueling club.

Two other points.  Firstly Harry goes off for a duel with Draco in 
CoS (despite the illegality) so duels may well continue in the WW 
despite the illegality, meaning the teaching of how to duel may well 
be a nod to this.  

Also AK is (as mentioned in recent posts) the quickest spell to kill 
with, but Harry still gets his "expeleramus" out in time to catch it, 
meaning it must take some time.  Other ways of killing mentioned 
recently may well be slow enough to do something about if you are on 
the recieving end as well.  Just to heap more on, I see no reason to 
disbelieve Crouch\Moody when he says few people can mangage a AK so 
it may well be less of an issue than it seems.

Secondally, despite having more than able teachers (Snape does seem a 
little TOO good to waste), it is only under the auspices of that ass 
Lockheart that a dueling club is formed in the first place and after 
he leaves it is never again mentioned as happening (to my 
recollection anyway).  Why did they stop having one in the first 
place, and why would be allowed back (with Dumbledore as headmaster) 
if they were that dangerous.

James (who may well have scared list members by excessive knowledge 
of varied froms of muggle conflict - but if he was in a wizard duel 
would probably throw a bag of pepper at his opponant, thereby denying 
him\her the ability to cast spells due to sneezing)