House points and Dumbledore

[pippin_999 <foxmoth@qnet.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51120

The House Championship is not about that  modern concept 
"boosting self-esteem." The point is not to teach all the children 
to think of themselves as winners. It would be a remarkably 
wrong-headed way to do that, since only one quarter of the 
students can win. No, it is supposed to teach those 
old-fashioned virtues, sportsmanship and fair play. The fine art, 
that is,  of letting the best man win.

This is consistent with a warrior ethos rather than a commercial 
one--there is but one  prize and it can only be won or lost. It can't 
be mass-produced and made available at a reasonable price to 
everyone.  

As usual in Rowling, the situation at the end of PS/SS is more 
complicated than it appears to be. Harry's team is not in last 
place  because of the points  lost in saving Norbert. It is in last 
place because he "missed the last Quidditch match--we were 
steamrollered by Ravenclaw without you." 

This is *important.* Playing against Seeker-less Gryffindor, 
Ravenclaw could have amassed enough points to clinch the 
House Championship for themselves. They don't, because it 
wouldn't be sporting to use Harry's absence to take advantage, 
even of Slytherin. Slytherin itself, alas, has no such compunction.

 If Harry had played against Ravenclaw, he could have easily 
won the 160 points needed to beat Slytherin, and Slytherin 
knows this. Still, they not only cling to their false victory
(instead of offering to cede the Cup, as Cedric offered to cede 
the Tri-wizard Cup to Harry), they glory in it.

 That's why they are made to  lose in such a humiliating way. If 
the seventh-year Slytherins did not see this, it can only be 
because they are already focused on "their powers and their 
pleasures" rather than "their rights and their freedom" -- They 
have already chosen their side, and it isn't Dumbledore's.

I suspect it's only us grown-ups who need to assure ourselves 
that  Slytherin *really* deserved defeat. Children know a moral 
illustration when they see one, and are quite happy to see the 
good triumph and the bad punished. 

Pippin