The Train Scene GoF/ Hero vs Anti-Hero/Draco, Ginny, & Tom, oh my!

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 162472

Betsy Hp:
A note before we begin: I typed this all up last night; and it was 
beautiful.  And Yahoo ate it.  So, weeping, I went to bed.  This is 
version 2.0.  Enjoy.

> >>Betsy Hp:
> > Oh, it's not there of course.  But fear is what all bigotry is 
> > based on.  And the WW is built around fear of Muggles. 
> > <snip> 
> > So when Hermione brings her parents right into the heart of the 
> > British WW (Diagon Alley) that could be seen as threatening.
> > <SNIP>

> >>Alla:
> I thought you were comparing Draco's actions to what muggleborns 
> supposedly do or what purebloodists think?
> When Hermione brings her parents to Diagon Alley, she does not say 
> that "purebloods will be next to go" and if she did say that, I    
> would honestly understand the response similar to what Trio did.
> I mean the parallel is a bit removed IMO or I would say a lot      
> removed.

Betsy Hp:
It's not really a parallel at all.  It was more of an "aha" moment on 
my part built off of something you wrote earlier, which has since 
segued into yet another "aha" moment.  Here's the beginning:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/162375
> >>Alla:
> What is their excuse? If Harry being traumatised is not sufficient
> excuse, then the fact that Hermione is the one who is being
> threatened with her life and Ron loves her ( we do agree on that,
> yes? Even if Ron cannot quite figure that out yet) and twins I think
> figured that out even if Ron did not. So that would be their excuse
> IMO.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
I finally get that you really do feel the Trio and the twins see 
Draco and Co. as an honest to goodness actual threat at this moment.  
(I'm guessing you're giving me the world's biggest "duh" face right 
now. <g>)  But if that is how the Gryffindors feel, there's no logic 
to it.  Or, on the surface at least, it *seems* illogical.

Because Draco is a massive wuss.  He's never (up to this point) 
attacked any of these people physically.  None of the Trio have ever 
hesitated to respond to Draco (even physically) if they thought it 
necessary, even if Crabbe and Goyle were standing nearby.  So the 
sense of threat cannot come from a real fear of Draco.  It must come 
from an outside source: the Death Eaters Draco is invoking.  Am I 
right about that?  That's how you see it?

An analogy would be a Hitler Youth threatening a group of Jews in 
1930's Germany, or a white boy threatening some black children in 
1930's USA.  The threat isn't the youth or boy, it's the Nazi party 
or the Ku Klux Klan looming up behind him.

But the thing is, for me, this analogy doesn't play through.  Because 
the Death Eaters just aren't that powerful.  And the Gryffindor's 
know it.  The Trio and the twins are not the underdogs or the 
threatened minority.  Heck, *muggles* aren't even the threatened 
minority: wizards are.  Muggles didn't gather up their cows (and 
elephants and termites) and flee for the hills, that was the 
wizards.  And muggles don't need to worry about the big bad wizards 
finding their hiding places, it's the wizards who worry and fret and 
pass laws to keep their hiding places hidden.

Hermione didn't even know what Draco was saying when he first called 
her a mudblood.  But Draco knew that muggles were dangerous enough 
that a story about evading them would make him sound pretty cool to 
fellow wizards.  So, to my mind, the Death Eaters just aren't 
powerful enough to loom up behind Draco in this scene.  They aren't 
powerful enough to take a wussy little kid with a rather nasty way of 
speaking and turn his words into an actual threat.

I guess what I'd been trying to say earlier is that the only group in 
these books that I can possibly see playing the role of downtrodden 
minority (of the humans, anyway) is the pure-bloods.  They're the 
only group that's been hounded enough, even though it was centuries 
ago.  Not, of course, that this makes their bigoty right or noble or 
anything of the sort.  But it does mean that I have a hard time 
accepting that either the Trio or the twins see Draco as an actual, 
viable, and therefore frightening, threat.  The Death Eaters just 
aren't powerful enough, and the Gryffindors aren't weak enough.

(I'll just add that I quite liked Pippin's observation that the 
spells thrown were meant to insult rather than stop or disarm.)

> >>Betsy Hp:
> > <snip> 
> > It's beneath "hero" behavior.  And, as per the Sorting Hat       
> > anyway, it's not very Gryffindor-ish of them. 
 
> >>Alla:
> <snip>
> They did not conspired all to attack poor Draco - it is just all of 
> them thought about it simultaneously. That again to me just         
> strengthens the thought that they all felt threatened.
> I do not consider fear for their friend and especially being 
> threatened by the son of those who watched your torture to be      
> beneath hero behaviour. That is just me of course. 

Betsy Hp:
*Feeling* the fear isn't beneath hero behavior.  Being *controlled* 
by the fear so that one acts in a manner unbecoming, *is* beneath 
hero behavior.

Leaving the twins out of it (because they're worse than the Trio here 
and therefore only confuse the issue), I really can understand why 
HRH lash out at Draco.  First of all, he's practically begging for a 
response (he's *really* good at pushing buttons), and second, they've 
all been under a lot of pressure and Draco makes a lovely scapegoat.  
The Trio are children and they're still learning how to control 
themselves.

I don't like that not one of them felt the slightest twinge of 
regret.  I don't like that not one of them thought mistreating the 
downed boys' bodies was less than admirable.  This is not how a hero 
should feel.  He shouldn't revel in his enemy's loss.  It's too bad 
that none of these children have a role model to take them aside and 
explain why such behavior just isn't done.  (Gosh, there are so many 
times I wish someone would take a member of the Trio aside and 
say "do you really think that was fair/nice/honest, etc.?")

Betsy Hp