[HPforGrownups] Common Rooms

[Jesta Hijinx]

No: HPFGUIDX 44655

>Felinia Wrote
> > I get the impression, from the fact that Harry and Ron can't just
> > ask someone in  advance, that people from the other houses aren't
> >*supposed* to know the location of common rooms not their own.
>
>
>I've gotten that impression too. To me that seems extremely odd
>that such knowledge would be so restricted, yet it does seem to be
>what canon indicates. Unles Harry and Ron were extremely dense, but I
>dont think so.
>
>Why do you think this is? My first thought is to keep house
>rivalries from getting out of hand, but that seems almost silly.
>
It *does* seem very odd, doesn't it?  But then I sort of measure my reading 
in HP against other books in the subgenre of "boarding school books", and in 
this case, there probably isn't much of a parallel - the common rooms in the 
Marlow books are all known and easily found, just that members of other 
forms aren't supposed to go into them without permission.

I think you're right about it being a bit silly to prevent house rivalries 
from getting out of hand, but it *is* possible.  nowhere do we find prefects 
or teachers impressing on first-years the importance of not divulging the 
location of their dormitories and common rooms; but there's the whole 
password thing, and the fact that Harry and Ron don't know where Slytherin's 
common room is and have to rely on following others.  Hang on - they *do* 
ask Penelope, but only in their guises of Crabbe and Goyle.

it's just very weird - I'm leaning more towards the idea that it's a don't 
ask, don't tell situation unless you're someone like a prefect with some 
semblance of responsibility.  And it is probably for a jumble of reasons, of 
which preventing interhouse rivalry getting out of hand is one - I imagine 
the others are to discourage random interhouse visiting,e specially in the 
middle of the night, and to prevent any harmless pranks or vandalism.  
Because where do harmless pranks stop and interhouse rivalry/vandalism 
begin?  I suspect the teachers prefer it this way because it's one less 
headache for them to have to deal with.

>  *L* Then again maybe MWPP caused such grief for the Slytherins that
>  it was deemed necessary to keep their common room hidden *L* (Yeah
>  there's completely non canon based reasoning.
>
:-)  Could be.

>  Serious again, I really can't come up with a reason for keeping the
>  houses hidden. It seems to breed sectionalism and discrimination,
>  which you'd think Hogwrats would be against, given Dumbeldore's
>  stance on issues.
>
>  -Ani
>
It certainly does seem to encourage "each house to itself", but there could 
be a side to that of enforcing "your house is your family" and making it so 
that the inmates thereof *have* to learn to get along, rather than being 
able to run off.

Felinia

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