What's annoying about Harry (WAS: Characters you hate)

[Grey Wolf <greywolf1@jazzfree.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51391

Trond Michelsen wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 01, 2003 at 07:37:35PM -0000, Grey Wolf <greywolf1 at j...> wrote:
> >>> I'm pretty sure that all the teachers had realised that 
> >>> the monster was a basilisk by now (OK, all except Lockhart). 
> >> There's no canon to support that. Is that just a MD thing?
> 
> > It has nothing to do with MD (little of CoS has). Let me expose the 
> > facts:
> > 1) the creature is the pet of Salazar Slytherin, famous parseltongue, 
> > whose heraldic symbol is a snake
> > 2) the creature paralizes.
> > 
> > I had figured myself that the creature was a basilisk after the attack 
> > on Mrs Norris, and I didn't even know point 1 at the time. Dumbledore 
> > has been through one series of attacks already. It would take an idiot 
> > not to know by then that the creature was a basilisk, after all the 
> > details Dumbledore has, and Dumbledore is *NOT* an idiot.
> 
> Aren't you forgetting about Hagrid's expultion? If it was common
> knowledge that the creature HAD to be a Basilisk, then why didn't anyone
> realize that Hagrid and his Acromantula was innocent when he was
> expelled?
>
> Hagrid was even arrested after the second to last attack, and even
> though Dumbledore protested, he made no comment about how the creature
> would have to be completely different from the creature Hagrid had
> as a pet when he supposedly opened the chamber the last time.
> 
> -- 
> Trond Michelsen

I already made a case for this, so I skiped the reasoning - I'm sorry, 
I tend to forget that not everyone has heard all my arguments from time 
to time. Let's look at it the other way round: why would anyone suspect 
of Hagrid's spider to begin with?

After all, most spiders don't paralize, they kill outright, and tend to 
leave bite marks when they attack, don't they?

Yes, but not exactly. For some reason, folklore giant spiders tend to 
paralize as well as kill when they want - like she-lob, from LotR. That 
fact, coupled with the dodgy justice system of the MoM and the fact 
that the acromantula scaped (so no-one could be sure that it *wasn't*) 
is what got Hagrid into problems the first time around.

However, Dumbledore *knew* it hadn't been Hagrid's pet - he trust him 
enough (and I have the feelings that acromantulas are deadly poisonous, 
not just paralizing poisonous).

And of course, I didn't say it was common knowledge - I said the 
teachers knew - probably because they had been briefed by Dumbledore, 
who *has* to know - as I said.

Finally, Hagrid wasn't arrested in CoS because he was suspect (Fudge 
admits as much) but because he "has to do something". Hagrid doesn't 
even get a trial this time around, he's simply thrown into prison "just 
in case". Since Fudge's mind was already made up, anything Dumbledore 
could say would be innefective.

Hope that helps,

Grey Wolf