[HPforGrownups] Re: Blackmail Revisited

[GulPlum]

No: HPFGUIDX 52721

Steve <bboy_mn> wrote:

>So... "Give me back my crayon, or I'm telling Mom", would fall under
>the heading of blackmail then?

Absolutely. As would "Tidy your room or you can't go out with your friends".

The fact that we (as a culture) find the above two examples of blackmail 
acceptable, and perhaps even salutary, does not prevent them being 
blackmail. Who knows - within a few generations, such forms of 
blackmail/bribery will be considered unacceptable, the way that spanking 
kids has become unacceptable whilst (certainly when I was growing up) it 
was considered perfectly normal and constructive.

<snip>

>So, while I have to acknowledge that I may have been a bit off in my
>definition of blackmail, I still say that the twins weren't acting
>with criminal intent. They COULD, as I pointed out, have been warning
>Bagman that he would suffer negative consequences if they pursued
>redress of grievances in a public forum, and that warning could be
>considered in a grey area which is why Fred & George were debating it.

Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. I wasn't implying that the Twins were 
acting with criminal intent. In fact, I didn't address *their* motives at 
all. I was more interested in the way JKR presented their dilemma. However, 
if you want to raise that as an issue...

We have no idea what they threatened to do to Bagman. (Paraphrasing, rather 
than quoting from the two scenes in question, in the Owlery at the 
beginning of Ch. 29, "The Dream", and on the train in the last couple of 
pages of the book, with bits from the bet itself in Ch. 7, "Bagman and 
Crouch".)

All we know is that George thinks that whatever they said in the letter 
bordered on blackmail, and Fred said it was time to "play dirty".

Importantly, they don't disagree with Bagman's assertion that they're too 
young to be gambling (which, incidentally, he picked up from Arthur at the 
time of the bet who says it twice), and it's possible that in the wizarding 
scheme of justice, minors aren't allowed to gamble and thus they have 
limited legal redress.  They have the betting slip which Bagman gave them, 
so they have an easy case to prove. The question therefore is why don't 
they simply use whatever legal system the wizarding world offers rather 
than resort to "playing dirty"?

FYI if these circumstances were before a real-world English court and the 
facts were proven to be true, the kids would get their stake money back 
(nothing more) and Bagman would be sent to a criminal court on charges of 
knowingly gambling with minors for which he'd get a fine (the extent of 
which I don't know off the top of my head and can't be bothered to 
investigate).

Going public would be an embarrassment to their father, who is already 
looked down upon by some elements of the wizarding community (it can't be 
good for his reputation to have two knowledgeable gamblers as sons, or that 
he didn't stop them making the bet with Bagman). They probably have more to 
lose by going public than Bagman, who appears to be known to be a gambler 
anyway. If Lee Jordan's dad is having trouble getting redress, then what 
chance do two teenagers with limited financial resources have?

So, if revealing Bagman to be a gambler is no real threat, and doing so is 
going to embarrass their parents anyway, just what does "playing dirty" 
consist of? In some ways, this is akin to the banal example quoted at the 
top of this post (and quite possibly less effective).

As I said last time, given the scarcity of facts at our disposal, the whole 
of this blackmail sub-plot says a lot more about  the authorial vision of 
her characters and their attitude towards behaving honourably than anything 
else.

<huge snip>

>As far as I can see, Hermione has nothing and Rita is sitting on the
>story of the century. Hummmmm..... I wonder how that will turn out??

Agreed entirely.