Hogwarts detentions (Was: The Trio's Morality)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 162552

Pippin wrote:
<snip>
> JKR's advice to RL kids who are being bullied is to  tell someone,
> 
> http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/faq_view.cfm?id=78 
> 
> but her characters seldom do that. I don't think this is authorial
> hypocrisy, this is JKR showing us *why* people don't follow this
> advice, and why they would often prefer to give the bully
> a taste of his own medicine instead. 
> 
> But she also shows that in her world when you fight fire with
> fire, everyone gets burned.   No one in canon has ever stopped 
> being a bully because of punishment or retaliation (short of being 
> totally incapacitated.) HBP makes clear that the Marauders were 
> punished time and again for picking on other students. We
> also know that Snape was in the habit of retaliating. But 
> something changed James all the same.
> 
> 
> We don't know what it was, but I'm betting it was not punishment
> or retaliation. 

Carol responds:
Very good point. Which brings up the whole question of punishment in
the HP books. Setting aside the Dursleys, who of course don't teach
Harry anything except to stay out of their way when possible, what,
exactly, do the Hogwarts detentions accomplish?

Snape's detentions, nasty as they are, aren't that different from
anyone else's: He has Harry sort rotten Flobberworms from good ones
and later recopy old detention records from the MWPPS era; McGonagall
sends first years to work with Hagrid, who takes them into the
Forbidden Forest at night(!), Filch has Ron polish all the trophies in
the trophy room, including one on which he's spit up slugs; Lockhart's
idea of an "enjoyable" detention (enjoyable detention?) is having
Harry help him sign his fan mail; Flitwick has Seamus write "I am a
Wizard, not a baboon brandishing a stick."  Umbridge's detentions are
an unspeakable variation of writing lines, this time in the student's
own blood.

What all these detentions have in common is that they're ineffectual.
None of the students involved is taught any lesson. Harry doesn't stop
breaking rules or telling "lies" about Voldemort, and the only reason
he stops using the HBP's Potions book to get credit he doesn't deserve
is that the book is hidden in the RoR. He doesn't regard himself as "a
liar and a cheat," nor does he get Snape's point that his father was
every bit as much of a bully and rule breaker as Snape has always
said. Snape's detention doesn't even address the main issue of Harry's
using a dangerous, Dark spell, and unfortunately, it directs Harry's
attention away from his own foolish and dangerous action onto Snape
himself and the perceived unfairness of making him miss the Quidditch
match. Snape may well have some other purpose in mind for his
detentions in HBP, for example, keeping Harry and Draco apart, but in
terms of changing Harry's attitude and behavior, they're as pointless
and futile as all the other detentions. They may punish the students
(even idiot!Lockhart's "treat" is excruciating), but they don't
accomplish anything more than perhaps providing an outlet for the
teachers' anger--certainly better than whipping or Transfiguration as
punishment, but equally useless as teaching tools. And point docking
is equally ineffective. It's intended as a deterrent, but it serves
mostly to make the students angry at the teacher, or at the student
who lost them 50 or 200 hard-earned points in a single day.

I'm not sure what JKR's point is here, perhaps that punishment is
different from discipline, which actually teaches a lesson. And that
seems to be the same point she's making with the bullies--no matter
how often you hex them, they don't learn their lesson.

Multiple detentions didn't teach James to change his ways, but, as
Pippin says, something did. Maybe it was saving an enemy's life. Maybe
it was serving in the Order and accomplishing something important as
opposed to reckless self-indulgence and danger for its own sake. Maybe
it was "only" getting married and having to be responsible for his own
child that made him settle down and behave responsibly (and
ultimately, heroically). The Hogwarts teachers can't teach
responsibility and consideration and the importance of following
sensible rules (as opposed to Umbridge's dictates) by placing the
lives of helpless infants in the students' hands, and only a few can
be made Prefects (a position that doesn't always teach responsibility,
either--witness Remus, Ron, and Draco, the last of whom abuses his power).

I don't know the answer, but I'm almost certain that we're supposed to
ask the question.

Carol, agreeing with Pippin that JKR is trying to illustrate the
futility of retaliation and wondering how HRH are going to learn that
lesson in Book 7