Special treatment of Harry or not WAS:Re: Lessons in the book

[hickengruendler]

No: HPFGUIDX 146055

 
> 
> Ceridwen:
> My gripe is with the rule-breaking in ordinary incidents. Such as 
> talking in class, and wandering around after hours (with or without 
> cloak), sneaking into Hogsmeade despite warnings for his life in 
PoA 
> and suchlike.  

Hickengruendler:

While it's undoubtly true that they are doing this, isn't this 
something totally normal for teenagers? I personally am glad that the 
protagonists (not counting the characters that are written as 
caricatures on purpose) despite being a bit stereotyped are also very 
normal and recognizable persons instead of some saints, who can do no 
wrong. And normally, when they are talking in class they do get 
points drawn. I really don't think something harmless like that needs 
to be punished with a detention, unless the student doesn't shut up 
during the whole lessons despite being told to do so. But I can't 
remember any scene in the books where a student did this.

And whenever Harry is getting caught sneaking around he does get 
punished, with three exceptions.

1.) The one in CoS, where Harry and Ron told McGonagall, that they 
wanted to visit Hermione. And McGonagall was angry in the beginning, 
it was just that her good heart showed through and she could 
understand that Harry and Ron middes their friend and wanted to visit 
her.

2.) The scene with Lupin in PoA after Draco saw Harry in Hogsmeade. 
This comes closest to where I agree with you. Lupin probably should 
have punished him here, but he did manage to give him a bad 
conscience with just a few words at the very least, which I don't 
think some shouting and a detention by Snape would have done.

3.) The one where Moody saw Harry under his invisibility cloak in the 
chapter "The Egg and the Eye", and where he helped covering up for 
him. But we later learned that he wasn't Moody anyway and had his own 
reasons to do what he did. (And this scene did lead indirectly to 
Crouch junior getting the map and being able to kill his father 
before Dumbledore arrived, so it did have some very bad 
consequences). 
 
Ceridwen:

> My other gripe is the cavalier attitude toward detention.  Instead 
of 
> being ashamed that they broke the rules (in an ordinary manner), 
> they're offended that they are being disciplined. 

Hickengruendler:

This is not entirely true. Harry and Hermione agreed, for example, 
that they did deserve the Detention in PS given by McGonagall. And 
like I said, those are teenagers and I find this pretty normal. The 
authorial voice is also a pretty tricky one, because most of the time 
(though not always) the authorial voice only presents us Harry's 
thoughts. Therefore it is a pretty biased one, and we recognize this 
all the times, where Harry has to recognize, that he has judged some 
people wrongly or without knowing the whole story.