[HPforGrownups] Re: The wages of gluttony.

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 145444

festuco:
> They played a trick on them. His tongue got engorged and Arthur fixed
> it. Not really nice, but quite a good practical joke from a wizarding
> point of view. It is not sadistic, not criminal.

Magpie:

Well, where we get into subjectivity, I don't like practical jokes and I 
would never make someone's tongue swell up because to me it is sadistic and 
not funny.  (I think their giving someone boils during their OWLS is 
similarly sadistic and not funny.)  But my point here is not to insist that 
the twins should go to jail or that everyone must conform to my pov of the 
joke.  I don't feel like I'm making a fuss so much as just calling a spade a 
spade.

I have no trouble with people finding the joke funny or not sadistic.  What 
I'm arguing against is the idea that because Dudley "should have known" that 
because these people he's never met who just left his house are wizards, 
that eating any candy they leave behind is like agreeing to have something 
hex put on him.  That, imo, just silly.  The twins are responsible for the 
joke that they played on Dudley that they planned and set up.  I also think 
that the idea that because the twins are wizards Dudley should know not to 
trust them is exactly what Arthur is trying to fight against.  He doesn't 
want his family confirming the stereotype that wizards all play magical 
pranks on Muggles.  In the next book Dumbledore's bopping them in the head 
with mead and chiding them for being impolite in not taking his Wizarding 
Mead.  If Lupin offered the Dursleys candy wouldn't their treating it like 
it was threatening be seen as inappropriate or even rude on their part?  Not 
that the twins gave Dudley the candy, they just pretended to lose it 
accidentally and left it behind, but in both cases the Dursleys would be 
eating Wizarding food.

-m