Dumbledore, house points, and sportsmanship

[marinafrants <rusalka@ix.netcom.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51189


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "pippin_999 <foxmoth at q...>"
<foxmoth at q...> wrote:
> 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.

I'm quite sure that "sportsmanship and fair play" do not include
gratuitously humiliating the losers in public.  


> 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." 

In other words, they were behind due to circumstances that weren't 
even
Slytherin's fault -- yet you're claiming that the Slytherins 
should've
ceded their claim to the cup on the grounds that *if* circumstances 
had
fallen out differently, Gryffindor *might* have won?  I must say 
this is
the first time I've ever heard anyone claim that good sportsmanship
requires the first-place team to step down on the ground that the
last-place team was hampered by injuries.

> 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. 

This is pure speculation.  First of all, we don't know that the
Gryffindors played without a Seeker. If they did, it's because 
Oliver Wood didn't bother to train a reserve, which is his own damn 
fault.  Second of
all, the QWC has amply demonstrated that even the world's most 
brilliant
Seeker won't do you any good if your Chasers are sufficiently
outmatched.  The Gryffindors still had their Chasers, their Beaters 
and
their Keeper.  How do you know that the Ravenclaws didn't bust their
brainy little butts trying to score more points, but failed because 
they
couldn't get the Quaffle past Wood?  How do you know that Cho (or
whoever was playing Seeker for Ravenclaw that year) didn't 
desperately
pounce on the Snitch at the first opportunity because she was afraid
that if she waited, Angelina and Katie might put the game out of 
reach? 
There's no canon to suggest that the Ravenclaws nobly refrained from
scoring as many points as they possibly could.


>  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.

How was their victory false?  Gryffindor lost to Ravenclaw because 
one
of their players was injured -- that's a normal part of sports
competition.  If Harry had tripped down the stairs and broken his 
ankle
the day before the game, would you have expected Slytherin to give up
first place because of that?


> 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

I'm afraid I don't share your faith in the innate moral superiority 
of children.  In my experience, most children are quite happy to see
themselves and people they like triumph, and to see people they 
don't like punished, regardless of who's actually right or wrong. I 
have trouble imagining any kid coming out of that hall 
thinking, "Gosh, Slytherin could've avoided this humiliation if 
they'd only forfeited in a properly sportsmanlike manner."  More 
likely, they came out thinking, "Wow, Dumbledore really stuck it to 
those slimy snakes! Cool!" (Unless they were Slytherin, in which 
case they came out thinking, "Dumbledore sucks.")  If any student 
drew a moral lesson from that, I'd expect it to be something along 
the lines of "if people you don't like suffer a defeat, it's okay to 
rub their noses in it."

> Eileen:
> >>Really, this is a game. Why should anyone be at fault
> for Harry not being about to win, any more than the
> team who wins the Stanley Cup  should feel bad about
> the losing team's star player being injured and out of
> the line-up? 
> 
> Where does morality come into this story?<<
> 
> PoA ch. 9: "Diggory got the Snitch," said George. "Just after you 
> fell. He didn't realize what had happened. When he looked back 
> and saw you on the ground, he tried to call it off. Wanted a 
> rematch. But they won fair and square..."

This is a completely different situation, though, from the end of 
CoS. 
In this case, Harry was injured *during* the game, due to outside
interference.  (Note that even the super-virtuous Cedric didn't 
offer to forfeit the game -- he offered a *rematch*, something the 
Slytherins in CoS were not in a position to do. And even then, the 
rematch request was denied because
everyone, even the Gryffindors themselves, recognized that the
Hufflepuff victory was legitimate.  In CoS, Harry was injured 
*before*
the game, due to circumstances that had nothing to do with 
Quidditch.  I follow a number of sports, and the standard is always 
the same: if you're injured and can't play, you forfeit and your 
opponent wins.  (Or, in the case of a team sport, your team has the 
option of replacing you or playing without you.)  The only 
exceptions are cases where the injury was caused by someone 
attempting to influence the outcome of the competition (like the 
attacks on Nancy Kerrigan or Monica Seles), but that wasn't the case 
with Harry's injury.

And yes, if the uninjured opponent is feeling paticularly altruistic,
they may offer to postpone the competition; but that was up to
Ravenclaw, not Slytherin.  Under no circumstances, however, do the 
rules of good sportsmanship require the winning party to forfeit.  
This is true even in cases of deliberate attack -- Seles' opponent 
did not forfeit the match when Seles was stabbed. And I think
it would be particularly unfair to expect it of the Slytherins, who
weren't even part of the final match -- they were merely waiting on 
the outcome.  Expecting them to forfeit on the basis of what might've
happened if Harry had played is unreasonable.  We don't know what
might've happened.  Yes, Gryffindor may have scored a lot more 
points, but Ravenclaw may have scored more too.  If the game was 
sufficiently close and high-scoring, Ravenclaw may have won the 
House Cup even if Gryffindor won the game.  So even if the 
Slytherins, if a fit of remarkable group altruism, decided to cede 
first place, they'd have had no way of knowing whom they should be 
ceding it *to.*

Marina
rusalka at ix.netcom.com