Sportsmanship in Harry Potter / Bad Slytherins

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 151795

> >>Joe:
> Erm don't we see a great deal of Bullying by Malfoy, Crabbe and
> Goyle. Well at least attempted bullying? Just because they are bad
> at it doens't mean they aren't doing it.

> >>Alla:
> Sure we do. Neville comes to mind of the top of my head right away.

Betsy Hp:
Actually, we don't.  The reason Neville springs to mind is that he's 
the only person we see bullied by Draco.  And Neville is a peer.  
Meanwhile, the twins hiss newly sorted Slytherins.  (Nice welcome to 
Hogwarts, by the way.  Make sure the new Slytherins realize they're 
the red-headed stepchildren of the Hogwarts world.)

> >>Joe:
> As for Quidditch I seem to remember most of the rows in the       
> Gryffindor/Slytherin Quidditch matches being started by the       
> Slytherins.

Betsy Hp:
Um, that was my point actually.  The Gryffindors and the Slytherins 
behave about the same.  They trash talk, they play hard and dirty.  
The twins spy on the Slytherins while at the same time saying that 
the Slytherins will be rotten and spy on the Gryffindors.  Neither 
team cover themselves in glory, IMO.  But I doubt that's the point 
of quidditich.  Any sport that encourages its players to hit other 
players with iron balls can hardly claim it teaches clean playing.

> >>Joe:
> Not to mention the fact that if the whole school thinks the       
> Slytherins are low down no good dirty cheaters then its more than 
> likely that they are. If all your peers seem to dislike you as the 
> other Houses seem to do then there is probably a good reason for  
> it.

Betsy Hp:
Heh.  Yeah.  Always best to listen to the mob, yes?  This is exactly 
why I think that if Hagrid is right, if all members of Slytherins 
are bad (except for the ones that pray really, really hard and 
change to Gryffindor colors) than JKR is supporting bigotry.  
Because I'm quite sure the Nazis made similar arguments.  So many 
stories about underhanded, greedy, grasping Jews can't *possibly* be 
built on nothing, right?  It just sends alarm bells off in my head.  
Evilness determined at the age of eleven just doesn't strike me as 
right, somehow.

> >>kchuplis:
> <snip>
> To me, there is a difference of punishing someone because someone  
> else did something good, or rewarding what seems like altruistic  
> behaviour. The tasks do pertain to sportsmanship, in one way,     
> because sportsmanship has to do with the participants. Had Harry   
> gloated about the fact he was rewarded that would be bad           
> sportsmanship, but he doesn't. In fact, he seems to feel vaguely   
> guilty through most of the tournament...
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Because Harry is getting a massive amount of help compared to the 
other Champions.  He should feel a bit guilty.  It speaks well of 
him that he does feel guilty.  That he doesn't like Bagman giving 
him undeserved high scores, that he's not totally comfortable with 
Fake!Moody's little nudges.  Harry *does* have good instincts.  They 
just get undermined by Fake!Moody, who specifically works around 
Harry's guilt because he also recognizes that Harry is uncomfortable 
with all the help.

> >>kchuplis:
> Sportsmanship doesn't pertain to the judges. None of the          
> participants seem like bad sports. A lot of the adults do.        
> Karkaroff in particular.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
Oh, I think Bagman is the worst of the judges.  He's actually trying 
to throw the game to make a profit.  Doesn't get much worse than 
that.  But yeah, it's definitely the judges that make sure these 
games have nothing to do with sportsmanship.  The Champions try to 
be good sportsman, and the judges make sure they don't have the 
chance.
 
> >>Betsy Hp:
> > I think this is exactly JKR's thinking.  It's the only          
> > explanation that makes sense, IMO.  Because Harry is going      
> > through so many other rather horrific adventures (especially as 
> > the books go along) she makes his school life a breeze.

> >>kchuplis:
> It's probably also DD's thinking.
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
As JKR's avatar, yes, Dumbledore is the worst at making sure Harry 
feels as little pain as possible when he makes the difficult 
choices.  And it keeps Harry a child.  Hence the disaster of OotP.  
By the time HBP comes around I don't think Dumbledore does anything 
to shield Harry from the harsher realities of life. Though JKR does 
step in and makes sure Harry's team wins at quidditch.  Again.

> >>kchuplis:
> I'm also not sure I would call what Harry has gone through at      
> school "a breeze" either, no matter what help he has received. In 
> that way, JKR failed him in order to keep the "entertaining"       
> aspect of the books. It isn't a breeze to be stared at, sniggered 
> at, routinely turned upon, chosen as THE whipping boy for potions 
> class.

Betsy Hp:
There's a reason Harry sees Hogwarts as his sanctuary, his home.  He 
doesn't really suffer there.  The closest he comes is PS/SS when he 
goes through that massive point loss after the Norbert incident.  
And Dumbledore provides clean-up at the end of the year so Harry's 
popularity is restored.

And yeah, you're not going to sell the "whipping boy" thing for 
potions to me.  Snape is hard, he ain't that bad, IMO.  Not even 
with Harry.  

Yes, being pointed at by people in other houses isn't fun.  But 
Harry's core group stays true.  And when they don't (in OotP with 
the rogue Seamus) his best friend is Prefect and not afraid to throw 
his weight around.  

> >>kchuplis:
> They like it when they get to share in the glory of his winning   
> house points, or a quidditch match or whatever, but they don't    
> seem to hesitate in "casting him out", as it were, when they think 
> he is the heir of Sytherin or when he gets entered into the       
> tournament (and various other times that we kind find) in other    
> words, when Harry doesn't do something *for them*.

Betsy Hp:
See, that's absolutely true.  And Harry *always* wins.  That's what 
I mean about him being sheltered.  I think he can handle the crowd 
turning on him when he loses, and I think it would have been nice to 
see him do it.  (Of course, the good thing about Harry, his 
strength, is that he does see that most of the people standing 
behind him are only doing so because he wins all the time.)

> >>kchuplis:
> Soooooo how much more does Harry have to do to show real moral     
> fiber?  

Betsy Hp:
I'd love to see him take something and pay for it.  I mean, really, 
really, pay for it.  Not think he's going to pay for it and then 
have Dumbledore save him.  (Ooh, hey!  Maybe that'll happen in book 
7?)

> >>kchuplis:
> He rejects evil.

Betsy Hp:
Evil killed his parents.  I'm not sure how this shows moral fiber on 
Harry's part.  I mean, yes it's good to reject evil, but it's not 
like it was a hard call on Harry's part.

> >>kchuplis:
> He staunchly stands by friends that no one else seems to like     
> (Hagrid, Hermione).

Betsy Hp:
Huh?  Who dislikes Hermione?  And for that matter, who dislikes 
Hagrid?

> >>kchuplis:
> He (correctly or incorrectly) sacrifices his chances at the       
> tournament (whether he had help or not) when he chooses to stay    
> and make sure the others are gotten out of the lake (remember,     
> Harry did not expect any kind of reward for this, that I can       
> tell...
> <snip>

Betsy Hp:
I *know*!  He was so close!  But then the judges had to go and give 
him enough points to bump him up to second place.  They took his 
hard choice and made it easy.  Ron was upset with him for his choice 
until he realized it gave Harry the win.  It's just too darn easy.  
It undermines the entire point of the choice Harry made.

> >>kchuplis:
> I guess I don't know just what he is supposed to do to show  
> his character in a truer light. I know that I've seen it in       
> action many times throughout the entire series. What more does he 
> need to do?

Betsy Hp:
Harry has shown himself to have good character.  But it's never 
really been tested.  He's good, his friends are good, his enemies 
are bad, and his difficult decisions are never allowed to end in 
disaster.  Even the end of OotP gets explained away by Dumbledore.

I'd just like to see how Harry handles being wrong, or how he 
handles making a difficult (and right) choice that costs him 
something.

Betsy Hp