Is there anything in the HP world that bothers you?

[jodel at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 56576

Is there anything in the HP world that bothers you?

Yes. 

There is that pervasive thread of cruelty to animals that has run through the 
whole series. Generally told to us as the actions of the *good* people.

Usually it's the twins who are the perps, (force feed a firecracker to a 
salamander and watch it rocket around the room, indeed. Use your little 
brother's pet for bludger practice...) but it isn't only them. In fact 
Minerva McGonagall comes across a very cold-blooded customer with her 
assignments of turning furniture into barnyard animals. Turning actual living 
rabbits into slippers. Making children turn hedgehogs into pincushions and 
then stick pins in them to see whether they have done it correctly. 

It just goes on and on. Everybody winces about the mandrakes which don't even 
exist, what about the hedgehogs?

Sure, kids find it all just terribly funny. Yuk yuk yuk. But it isn't 
*really*.

Or else it's a joke in very bad taste.

-JOdel

(As to the lycanthropy thread; isn't it obvious? Lycanthrope = lunatic.)