Scene with likeable James WAS: Re: Eileen Pince

[wynnleaf]

No: HPFGUIDX 156315

  
> >   Joe:
> >    
> >   No offense intended at all but are you sure your kids and their
> friends didn't just tell you what they thought you wanted to hear?
> Honestly if they had done those things do you think they would just
> tell you?
   

Ken 
> Having been a schoolboy myself I have to agree with Joe on this one.
> There is an exaggerated, comic book quality to life at Hogwarts, no
> doubt about that. The interactions between male students ring true
> nevertheless. The scene you are discussing is not the equivalent of
> two thugs holding a victim helpless while a third beats him
> mercilessly, I don't recall seeing *that* happen outside of movies and
> TV shows. Two big guys holding a victim helpless while a third does
> *something* to *humiliate* him? Yeah, I saw that several times. And
> this was in quiet, small town schools in northern Illinois and central
> Wisconsin in the 1950's and 1960's. I even had three fellow students
> attempt this on me once but "Crabbe" and "Goyle" found that I was a
> little too slippery to hold long enough for "Draco" to get a shot at
> me. You might even say I fluttered away like some overgrown bat!
> 
>
wynnleaf
Just to clarify or remind... I wasn't trying to say this kind of thing
doesn't happen everywhere, but that this behavior isn't common to
*all* or *almost all* guys.  Certainly I'm sure all guys know of guys
who do this kind of thing, or people who have had that happen to them,
but I don't think most guys would do this themselves.  When I asked
teens around here about it, they were very familiar with that type of
behavior, but catagorized it as coming from (in my son's description
which others agreed with) 1. athletic super jocks who think they're
the greatest and are ticked off at someone 2. unconscionable (yep, my
son's word) bullies 3. and arrogant jerks who are also ticked off at
someone.  

By the way, my kids are not saints.  While they might not tell me
everything they do, they are certainly willing to pass along
incriminating info on their syblings and their sybling's friends --
and no one passed along any such information in this case.  

Ken
<The scene you are discussing is not the equivalent of
> two thugs holding a victim helpless while a third beats him
> mercilessly, 

wynnleaf
I didn't characterize it that way.  I said it was like one boy
accosting another without provocation, having his friend hold the
other kid down, and hitting him.  I didn't say anything about two
people holding one kid down, didn't characterize them as thugs, and
didn't say "beats mercilessly."  Since Sirius *did* basically tie up
Snape with magical bonds, that's equitable to "holding down."  And I
equate knocking someone off their feet, doing the scourgify which
causes gagging and choking, lifting someone upside down and dropping
him, freezing the person to where he falls over without being able to
catch himself at all, lifting the person again upside down from which
position he must have presumably been dropped again as equitable to
having hit the person.  Add to that the "pantsed" part and lots of
verbal insults, *and* doing it in the middle of a large group of
school kids, and I'd say it was pretty bullying behavior.  

Imagine a school yard full of kids.  Two boys accost another kid from
basically out of the blue.  They have some rope and tie him up.  While
he's tied up they insult him and pour soap in his mouth to gag and
choke him.  As he's starting to finally get out of the ropes, he
throws one punch so they turn him upside down, partially undress him
and drop him on his head, then stand him up and tip him over (he's
tied again and can't catch himself ) so he falls again. 
Then they turn him upside down yet again, once again partly undressing
him, and then threaten to take off his underpants and finally drop him
on his head again.  This didn't happen in a dorm, but outside on
school grounds in the middle of a large group of students.  But this
happens commonly you say?  All guys act do this kind of thing to other
guys?  

Yes, this kind of degree of behavior sometimes occurs practically
anywhere, but I don't think all guys do it to that degree.

But to get back to what JKR was doing, she certainly has *Harry* see
this behavior as arrogant.  When Harry talks to Lupin and Sirius about
it, and they say that they were only 15, Harry says, "I'm fifteen,"
clearly meaning that *he* wouldn't act that way.  And in fact, we
*don't* see Harry or his friends act like that.  Of course, that may
just be because JKR's a woman, but my point is that even if she was
writing from a non-guy <g> perspective, she's obviously trying to say
that this *was* bullying behavior and that Harry was appalled by it
and would not do it himself.

wynnleaf