[HPforGrownups] Re: HRH and their Prefect badges

[T.M. Sommers]

No: HPFGUIDX 75596

Rebecca Stephens wrote:
> --- "T.M. Sommers" <tms2 at mail.ptd.net> wrote:
> 
>>If we are going to stick strictly to the book, there
>>is no solid 
>>evidence that I can recall that any of the above
>>violates any 
>>rules.  'Midget', might, for all we know, be the
>>accepted term 
>>for first-years, analogous to 'plebe' at Annapolis. 
>>Just because 
>>Hermione doesn't like it doesn't mean it violates a
>>rule.  Again, 
>>we have never been shown a rule that Fred and George
>>were 
>>violating.  Ditto with the brain-boosting products.
> 
> I never said anything about him calling them midgets. 
> It's the forgetting to show them to their dorms I was
> calling him on.

I didn't say you did; it was a nested quote.

> I'm sorry, but if what Fred and George were doing by
> testing the fainting things one the first years wasn't
> against the rules, it should have been.  The first
> years didn't know what the effect of them was.  I
> can't say anything for the later ones, as the first
> years seemed to know what was going on then.

You did say, though, that we should go only by what we actually 
see, and we don't see, or aren't specifically told, that F&G were 
violating a rule.

> It was implied that the brain boosting stuff was
> against the rules, if not stated.

Again, by the rule of inference you used, if it was not stated, 
we can't rely on it.  Alternatively, if we are allowed to assume 
such a rule, we should be allowed to assume that Ron is a 
competent prefect when we aren't watching.

>>Regarding Fred and George, Percy couldn't tame them,
>>either, so 
>>he must have been a poor prefect, too.
> 
> Nope.  As I've said time and time again, it's making
> the attempt that counts.  It's one thing to be unable
> to do something; there's no shame in that.  But to not
> try to do your job?  That's different.

Trying to tame them would have been futile.  Worse than futile, 
since they would have humiliated him, and thus would have greatly 
reduced his stature and authority as prefect, making it more 
difficult for him to do his duties with respect to other students.