[HPforGrownups] Re: muggle baiting vs. muggle torture/Sorting Hat

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 155431

> PJ:
> Y'know, National Geographic tells me via my television that some group of
> peoples in the world today still use reed boats or handmade canoes because
> they don't know about cabin cruisers... Personally I think that's kind of
> quaint.   I can admire their ingenuity while still wondering how they 
> manage
> without electric motors, etc.   Does this mean I look down on them as
> inferior?   I don't believe it does...  I'm facinated with their ability 
> to
> get along without the things I take for granted in my daily life and I
> sometimes wonder if I would be able to live that way.   I think most 
> people
> in the WW share a similar curiosity about Muggles as I do about that tribe
> in the Amazon.  I can't imagine why that would be considered wrong.  I 
> find
> it about as normal as normal can be...

Magpie:
Yes, but there's a difference between being fascinated at the way people 
live differently and seeing them as children (with you as the adult) because 
you come from a different society.  Especially when you're continually 
taking children from those people and claiming them for your own. 
Basically, the books aren't interested in the interplay between the two 
worlds.  Despite the fact that some Muggles are Wizards and some Wizards are 
Muggles, and some Wizarding stuff seems modified from the Muggle, the Muggle 
world isn't taken seriously anywhere.  Which is the author's decision, but 
it's also the author's decision to make just this kind of arrogance a theme 
of the books.  It just makes for sort of an odd mix where one is writing 
about prejudice the modern concern highlighted by nineteenth century 
abolitionist attitudes.

> PJ:
> What we have are a couple of *kids* who are so used to the effects of
> strange candies that they don't consider all the ramifications of giving
> them to a muggle.  Immature, yes.  Even ignorant and stupid, but I didn't
> see it as intentional cruelty on their part.  And certainly not muggle
> baiting since they told their father straight out that it wasn't because 
> he
> was a muggle, it was just because he was Dudley...

Magpie:
They defend themselves to their father by claiming it's not Muggle-baiting 
because they didn't do it because he's a Muggle and their father is still 
just as angry, as if this doesn't actually make it a totally different 
thing.  He seems to be trying to teach them something.  If the twins can't 
be expected to know the results of the kinds of Pranks they play all the 
time, much less care once the results are explained to them by their angry 
father, their opinion is probably the less informed one.

PJ:
> If it had been an adult wizard who'd dropped those candies for Dudley I
> might more easily see your point of view but having raised 4 teens I can
> tell you that they aren't always the brightest bulb in the lamp and that
> sometimes they don't think too far ahead in considering the consequences 
> of
> their actions.  If they did I'd certainly have fewer gray hairs to cover
> up.... <g>

Magpie:
So they're stupid teenagers playing the kinds of practical jokes they've 
been playing all their lives, not well-meaning innocents who couldn't 
possibly know the results.  We shouldn't judge them as adults, but nor 
should we judge them as toddlers.  Teenagers being stupid is something 
acknowledged in the books, but it's also always made clear that each 
teenager is stupid in his own way.  When James and Sirius are defended that 
way the person they're defending them to is Harry, another 15-year-old.

houyhnhnm:

However shoddy an excuse for a human being Peter is, I don't think he is 
necessarily a *physical* coward.  After all, he ran with a werewolf for 
years in the form of a rat!  He cut off his finger, and later his whole 
hand.  That takes some guts.

And when did Gryffindor morph into the House for those who Do The Right 
Thing?  That is really being Gryffindor-centric.

Magpie:
Whoa--you're right.  That is totally Gryffindor-centric.  Many Gryffindors 
do prize that attitude, of course.  If you prize bravery you want to find 
opportunities to be brave in the world, and so might be more likely to seek 
out situations where you're fighting for justice.  Not that every Gryffindor 
does this--McClaggen, for instance, doesn't seem to care.  (Personally I 
have always thought Lockhart was a Gryffindor as well.)  I think that's what 
Hermione means when she puts courage over books and cleverness--she wants to 
be doing things in the world. It's also the kind of bravery Neville prizes. 
(One could also come to the desire to do what is right over what is easy 
through the intelligence prized in Ravenclaw, Slytherin's ambition or 
Hufflepuff's hard work and fair play.)

Peter, even before Voldemort, was running around with a werewolf and 
probably wouldn't have been able to stay friends with James if he wasn't 
willing to take risks.  He wasn't brave the same way as his friends were, 
but the guy's got guts when it comes to saving his skin.  That's partly why 
Phineas' line shouldn't be taken completely at face value.  *Peter* however 
brave he was, chose to save his own neck.  Sirius wouldn't.  There are 
Slytherin examples of not doing that either.


-m