[HPforGrownups] Re: Sportsmanship/legitimacy

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 151922


> Pippin:
> Foul play could not be proved, it was only suspected. There
> was no proof that Harry hadn't got around the age line or asked 
> someone else to put his name in the goblet. Harry was a victim of 
> identity theft -- a crime of which wizarding law may not be 
> cognizant.

Magpie:
That story about your SIL makes me break out in boils!  Grrrrr!  I'm so sorry you had to go through that.

And yet, it still makes more sense to me than Harry in the TWT, perhaps because at least there there's a beaurocracy to cover it.  In Harry's case there's a small group of people in charge who know all the facts and they still don't do anything.  Harry's already disqualified by the "rules" since he's 14.  So you've got an ineligible contestent becoming eligible because of a contract he didn't sign.  Frankly, in the real world I think there would be more people to go after. Dumbledore, for one. He's supposed to be in charge of the "security," making sure people can't enter the tournament if they're too young.  Then he seems to suggest that anyone at all could have entered had they just asked their older brother to put their name in the Goblet.  You'd think he'd have something in place so you could only enter your own name!

Plus there's the other rule of one champion for each school. It's not just that Harry's name goes into the Goblet that's a problem, it's the fact that his name comes out of the Goblet since Moody invented a fake school.  So Harry's the Champion of nothing, a school that doesn't exist.  

Pippin:

> In Harry's case, there was no way to let the Goblet know it had
> been defrauded, and therefore presumably no way to keep it
> from enforcing the penalties on Harry. Possibly they could have
> called off the whole contest -- but how could Dumbledore be
> sure that wasn't what the enemy wanted? 

Magpie:
I'd think that even if the enemy did want that it would be a better thing to do than risking Harry's life, but everyone seems to be under the impression that Harry is, indeed, in the tournament because someone wants to kill him (though oddly people don't think of Voldemort being behind it as much as they should).  Ironically, I'm sure late in the year Rita Skeeter writes some article that seems to suggest Harry could get out of the tournament somehow, though I don't remember it now.

Of course, I also can't help but think how I would have gotten out of it if I were in it. Surely Harry could go through the motions without actually risking anything.  They could have had Harry simply swim in the shallow part of the lake and allowed the other contestants to get their hostages, then retrieve Harry's later.  They could have had him just run out his time with the dragon.  He could have just stayed just inside the maze.  That makes a lot more sense to protect him.   It doesn't happen basically because the "magical contract" is really a magical plot device.  JKR just wants something that says Harry is forced to compete as best he can in a contest.  It's like the Pensieve--any child can understand wanting to be able to just "show someone a memory."  It's only when you think about it more critically that the logic of it breaks down and you start asking exactly how it works.  Same with the Goblet, I think.

Pippin:
Dumbledore's fairness (and I do believe
> he thought it was only fair to credit Harry in the spirit of the
> rules) actually worked against his interest, assuming he
> was more interested in keeping Harry alive than in having
> him win a contest he didn't want him to have entered in the
> first place.

Magpie:
But that still goes to a_svirn's point, which is not that Harry is a big cheater himself.  It's that Dumbledore gets to meddle in things when he thinks they need evening up but at other times--times when things are a lot more blatantly irregular--he doesn't do anything.  For instance, his school having an extra champion is far more unfair and not in the spirit of the rules than Harry getting fewer points because he took the most time to come out of the lake.  I don't even think the latter is not in the spirit of the rules any more than it would be in the spirit of the rules of basketball to say that someone should get points for scoring a basket after the buzzer because they stopped to help someone up who had fallen on their way to the basket.

-m

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