Doing the Two-Step

[dicentra63 <dicentra@xmission.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51323

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Steve <bboy_mn at y...>"
<bboy_mn at y...> wrote:

Eileen:
"It is difficult for me, after reading an entire book which
explores the ways in which the good guys are less than good, to read
the Train Stomp without a certain degree of apprehension."

bboy_mn:
 
The point I want to make is that none of them really knew that the
others were about to curse Draco too. Each made an independant choice
and acted on it. It is just by chance that they all cursed at once and
that the resulting effects were amplified by the combined simultanious
curses. 
 
Each of them threw a typical childish harassment curse; jelly-legs,
etc....
 
None of them intended the degree of (in the very general sense) harm
they caused. Although, the only lasting harm, would be to their egos.

Dicey:
And not only were the curses relatively innocuous, the act of stepping
on Draco and Goyle was hardly a "stomp."  The passage goes as follows:

***************
"Thought we'd see what those three were up to," said Fred
matter-of-factly, stepping on Goyle and into the compartment.  He had
his wand out, and so did George, who was careful to tread on Malfoy as
he followed Fred inside.

***************

There's no indication here that stepping on those guys was an act of
violence.  For an act to be violent, there must be an intent to cause
real harm.  You can step on *me*, a weakling Muggle, and not cause me
any harm if you step in the right place (between the shoulder blades).
 I've been stepped on in this way without being hurt by it.  It looks
as if the twins were expressing disdain for the anti-Trio, not trying
to grind their flesh into the floor.

It's funny--my brother just finished reading GoF and I quizzed him on
this very issue: "The twins step on Draco & Co. on the train home:
funny or disturbing?  Why?"

His response: "No harm, no foul."  It's hard for me to get upset about
the stepping upon for that reason--no one got hurt.  The retaliation
of the Trio and twins was no more harmful than the words that Malfoy
was shouting.  If it's disturbing at all, it's because it foreshadows
the coming conflict, when there will be more than angry words and
Jelly-Legs hexes.

So can we *please* pretty please not call this the *stomp* anymore,
because that's not what happened.  The Prank was most surely a prank
(as far as we can tell), but there's a world of difference between a
step and a stomp.

--Dicentra