[HPforGrownups] Re: Hermione must be stopped, ...-Hermione's Crimes/Trusting Snape

[Karen]

No: HPFGUIDX 149413


On Friday, March 10, 2006, at 10:39 PM, Magpie wrote:

> Magpie:
> I'm glad to clear up that I was not expressing disapproval of Hermione 
> every
> time I felt her actions were manipulative, then.:-)  I thought it just
> seemed very straightforward that it was the most obvious thing to call 
> it--I
> can't think of any other word.  Just as I'd say Harry is being 
> manipulative
> when he gets the memory out of Slughorn, and Draco's manipulative when 
> he
> gets Harry out to the midnight duel.  I like both those scenes in canon
> (one's for a good cause, one's for personal gain).  Sometimes it's 
> downright
> satisfying and fun to watch a character being manipulative.  In my 
> mind the
> difference is sometimes that when you call a person manipulative in 
> real
> life what you often mean is that their manipulation is crude so that 
> you see
> them doing it.  A good manipulator is just smooth and often gets 
> called a
> cool person.
>
>

kchuplis:

Wow. It's just amazing how different people view a word. I would never 
equate Draco's example and Harry getting the Slughorn memory in anyway. 
I mean, I guess I see the connection but definitely manipulative does 
not imply a favorable thing to me, nor "coolness". The term 
manipulation just has never had good connotations to me.

So I looked up manipulate:

2 a : to manage or utilize skillfully b : to control or play upon by 
artful, unfair, or insidious means especially to one's own advantage
3 : to change by artful or unfair means so as to serve one's purpose
b
I guess it does allow for "artful"  but overall, I still get the sense 
that people usually (and certainly anytime I've ever seen it) use the 
term to portray unfair and insidious means.  Synonyms seem to back this 
up for the most part too:

Related Words engineer, finagle, jockey, maneuver; beguile, bluff, 
cozen, deceive, delude, dupe, fool, gull, hoax, hoodwink, kid, snow, 
take in, trick; intrigue, machinate, plot, scheme; arrange, contrive, 
devise, finesse, mastermind; cheat, chisel, defraud, fleece, gyp, 
hustle, swindle