fairness of Quiddich (WAS: Is the anything that bothers you about HP ...)

[psychic_serpent]

No: HPFGUIDX 56649

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "karmakaze_kk" <sarudy at y...> 
wrote:
> Malfoy had the advantage of having been tutored in broom flight 
> before even attending Hogwarts.  Technically, that's not fair
> either.

Me:

In GoF, when Harry, Ron and Hermione are walking through the 
campground, there are rather young children who are flying toy 
brooms that don't rise very far off the ground.  There seems to be 
no proscription against young magical children making use of magic 
objects, whether it's brooms or other magic objects in their homes--
they just aren't permitted to DO magic.  (Or let Muggles see the 
magical objects being obviously magical.)

Plenty of kids play sports when they're young and then are more 
likely to get onto teams in high school than kids who hadn't played 
those sports when they were younger.  Is that unfair?  Ron and the 
twins ride brooms at home, and are good flyers.  We don't know 
whether Ron flew at home when he was younger, nor whether his broom 
responded to him immediately during the first flying lesson, (don't 
tell me it struck him--that's movie contamination) but to me, the 
idea that he was a newbie flyer is ridiculous; he probably did have 
loads of previous flying experience at home.  And even if JKR did 
originally envision Ron being struck by the broom, and failed to 
tell us, it may be that Ron was simply having trouble with that 
particular broom responding to him, just as Harry's wizarding chess 
set didn't respond well to him at first.

The twins were on the team when they were in third year, possibly 
before that (it's not clear) and Ron might be on the team in the 
future, but his being able to fly brooms at home during the holidays 
certainly didn't get him on the team in his second and third years 
of school.  (No Quidditch in his fourth year.)  I don't see where 
it's at all unfair for wizarding kids to fly brooms before they get 
to school or when they're on holiday.  That happens to be the 
environment in which they're living.  As long as they don't let 
Muggles see them riding the brooms or using anything else magical, 
there should be no problem.

I strongly suspect that Neville's unease wih his broom is because 
his grandmother thought he'd be a disaster in the air and didn't 
permit him to try this when he was younger.  Perhaps his problems 
are less from being traumatized by his parents' attack or memory-
charmed than because of his being brought up by his grandmother.  

--Barb

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