[HPforGrownups] Re: McGonagall as Deputy Headmistress

[feklar]

No: HPFGUIDX 116744

> > Potioncat:
> > She also assigned 4 first-year students to go into the Forbidden
> > Forest in the middle of the night as detention for wandering around
> > the castle at night.  Sort of fits the crime, but seems extreme.

Feklar--

I think this episode always tainted MM to me.  It wasn't just extreme, it
was possibly sadistic and definitely reckless endangerment.  The Forbidden
Forest is forbidden for a reason--on its best day, it's full of dangerous
creatures that are probably even beyond most seventh years' ability to
handle.  At the time in question, MM knew there was something killing
powerful magical creatures in the forest and sent them in right at the time
the killings were most likely to occur.  Yeah, Hagrid was there, but even if
they were all together, can you reasonably expect one man, even a
half-giant, to protect four panicked kids?  For all they knew it could have
been a pack of rabid hippogryffs, could he shoot them all before one of the
kids was hurt?  Above and beyond that, who sends a bunch of eleven year olds
out to see unicorns slaughtered?  That's pretty sadistic, imo.

When I first read the book and was following it as more of a fairy tale,
this read to me as a fairy-tale-ization of the classic boarding school
punishment story--instead of being beaten they were sent to the forbidden
forest.  But now the tone has changed, so we're left with what was clearly a
reckless and irresponsible act.

Feklar