Harry's resourcefulness in the Second Task (Was: Sportsmanship in Harry Potter)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 151884

Carol earlier:
> <snipped by kchuplis>
> In any case, regardless of what Harry did once he was under the
water, all he did to enable himself to compete in the task in the
first place and prevent himself from drowning was to chew on and
swallow a rubbery plant suggested by a DE in disguise and provided by
a house-elf. No resourcefulness on Harry's part is involved. Surely
any credit for resourcefulness here belongs partly to Dobby but mostly
to Crouch!Moody, who despite being a fanatic and a madman is
apparently also a brilliant and gifted wizard like his father.
> 
>   Carol, who hopes she doesn't sound like a fan of Crouch!Moody as
she's nothing of the sort
> 
> 
kchuplis wrote:
> 
>   At the risk of repeating myself (bear with me elves. Maybe
Yahoomort lost this: Here is my lonely take on it: if you showed every
student what happened to Harry at the Graveyard  and said, "you can
have all kinds of help and a nice broom and be given extra points in
games, but you have to go through that or you can skip having to
experience that and not get quite so much help" how many students  
would choose to be tortured, cruciated, terrorized, humiliated and
have people  killed in front of them, (only because they are who they
are) and the person  "came with" in order to get help and extras? I'm
thinking mmmm....no one would  trade for that?
> 
>   It's just a thought to put this in perspective.

Carol responds:
Forgive me for not responding sooner (the three-post limit, you know),
but I don't see the relevance of your point to mine. As I stated in
the disclaimer that you snipped, I'm not taking a stand on the
sportsmanship question (note that I altered the subject line this time
around to emphasize the shift in focus, as I should have done before).
Nor am I talking about extra points or nice brooms or whether Harry
deserves the extra help extended to him throughout the TWT and
elsewhere in the books. (I'm quite happy that Fawkes appeared in CoS
and Dumbledore arrived to fight LV in OoP, to give just two examples.
As for the TWT, considering that Crouch!Moody entered his name against
the rules in the first place, it's only fair that he would help him
survive it, if only for his own evil ends.) 

But I wasn't talking about fairness or sportsmanship, much less
Harry's suffering in the graveyard scene, which no one who's read the
books would think of denying. I was merely responding to Geoff's point
about Harry's resourcefulness and noting that it failed him *in this
specific instance* (figuring out how to survive the Second Task).
Please note that I'm not questioning Harry's resourcefulness in
general or his courage or his moral fiber or any other qualities or
virtues required in a hero. I am not talking about whether he deserved
extra points for moral fiber (though any points awarded for
resourcefulness would have been undeserved.) Noting one instance of
failure on Harry's part does not indicate dislike or disrespect for
him, nor does it in any way detract from his suffering in the
graveyard or elsewhere. In fact, failure makes him human. If he didn't
fail on occasion, it would be difficult for those of us who do
sometimes fail to empathize with him.

Nor am I in any way implying that any other student would like to
trade places with him (whether or not that's the case, and I rather
think that Draco for one is jealous of Harry, it has nothing to do
with my post). So, in essence, I don't see how your post (which I read
and agreed with the first time) puts mine "in perspective." We appear
to be talking about completely different things. Perhaps you had me
mixed up with someone else in the thread?

Carol, noting that any interested person can go upthread to read the
snipped portions of her post and perhaps find the connection that
she's overlooking