Sportsmanship/legitimacy

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 151960

> >>Betsy HP:
> > What they *did* do was increase Harry's personal glory.  

> >>Jen:
> You know, as a mother myself I can quite honestly say that rewarding 
> my child for showing such strength of character would be FAR more 
> important to me than rewarding him for following the rules at the   
> risk of discarding any sense of humanitarianism and care for other   
> human beings...why should that be ANY different in this situation?

Betsy Hp:
Okay, what about this:  Your child is a cross-country runner and is in 
a big meet.  You're standing at the finish line, and here she comes, 
ahead of the pack.  She's won.  Except, hang on, behind your daughter 
another runner had gotten into trouble.  Another racer abandoned the 
race to help the injured runner and the judges declare the runner who 
stopped to help the actual winner.  Because they were so very 
humanitarian.

Would you feel your child had been treated fairly?  Would you be 
comfortable with the implication that your daughter *wasn't* a 
humanitarian?  And what if one of the judges was the grandfather of 
the "humanitarian" winner?  Would you still see this as an example of 
good sportsmanship?

I'd also add that good sportsmanship is supposed to be it's *own* 
reward.  That's the whole point.  That's why I think the actions of 
the judges actually *cheapened* Harry's decision.  They turned it into 
a question of winning or losing, when good sportsmanship should be 
above such petty things.  "It's not whether you win or lose, it's how 
you play the game" is not empty rhetoric.  And one shouldn't do 
humanitarian things for the reward.

> >>Alla:
> <snip of history of Pierre de Coubertein medal for true
> sportsmanship>
> Of course, nobody awarded him the second place in the race, which he
> abandoned, but he did not leave without recognition and that
> recognition IMO was rightfully his, just as Harry's points for moral
> fiber were IMO rightfully his.

Betsy Hp:
Which would mean then, that there is a competition over who has the 
most "moral fiber".  Which means that rather than judging someone on 
their sport abilities the Triwizard Tournament judges people on their 
actual worth as people.  Which means we've just found out that Harry 
is a better person than Krum, Cedric and Fluer.  Does anyone else see 
something intrinsically ugly in that sort of competition?

Because the Olympics don't try and decide which Olympian is the better 
person.  They look for the fastest, the strongest, etc.  The 
sporstmanship medal is something else entirely.  And it is (correctly) 
held apart from the actual sporting events.

> >>bboyminn:
> I really have a problem with people using standard sports analogies 
> to describe the Tri-Wizards Tournement.
> <snip>
> The tasks were conceptual and the judging was subjective.
> <snip>
> I'm not denying anyone the right to think otherwise, but so far, no
> one has convinced me, and so far, I haven't seen any evidence that  
> the rule of play for each task were as precise as is typical in a    
> muggle team ports. These were very much freeform tasks, that only   
> had basic conceptual rules as guidelines. COnsequently, the judges  
> were well withing their rights to award points as they saw fit.

Betsy Hp:
Honestly, I think you're right.  Sport is clean (or strives to be).  
The Triwizard Tournament is ugly, and seems to take pride in that 
fact.  It's a political sham where the three headmasters use their 
students as pawns to futher their own glory.  No wonder sportsmanship 
goes out the window.  Wizards don't understand the concept.  So they 
come up with the silly "moral fiber" points.  If this were a sport, 
that sort of "judging" would never fly.  It's unfair.  In every 
possible way.  And it cheapens (or attempts to anyway) Harry.  The 
Triwizard Tournament tried to turn Harry into a typical corrupt 
wizard.  (Part of the reason Voldemort was eager for Harry to compete 
maybe?)

> >>houyhnhnm:
> This is the conclusion I have been coming to as I have followed this
> thread.  I have been flipping back through some of the earlier books
> (at random, not any systematic way) and I have been struck several
> times by Harry's fundamental decency in his early confrontations with
> the Wizarding World...
> <snip of examples>
> It is not Harry who shows unsportsman-like proclivities, but the    
> world of which he has become a part.

Betsy Hp:
We do see this time and time again.  The WW is the epitome of unfair, 
where the rules apply differently depending on who you are.  Sometimes 
the unfairness works in Harry's favor, sometimes it doesn't.  The good 
thing about Harry, is that he (for the most part) does recognize when 
he's been given an unfair advantage.  Not all the time.  But he has 
still managed to maintain a basic sense of fairplay.

> >>houyhnhnm:
> I have been wondering whether or not the corruption in the WW is
> somehow connected with the moral fragmentation in that world as
> evidenced by the House divisions at Hogwarts.  Just as ambition is
> apportioned solely to Slytherin (and is allowed to be expressed in a
> debased rather than a virtuous way), so the concept of fair play is
> allotted solely to Hufflepuff, rather than being integrated into
> Wizard culture as a whole.

Betsy Hp:
Ooh, interesting!  Especially since it's a Hufflepuff that's chosen as 
the Hogwarts champion (Cedric had a strong sense of fairplay).  And 
since Hufflepuff is a house pretty universally looked down on it 
suggestive that fairplay is looked down on as well.  It also explains 
the Hufflepuff distrust of outsiders.

It will be very intersting how JKR ends the books.  We've already seen 
that the MoM is a mess.  I can't imagine that she'll show it fixed, 
but will she be able to show the WW starting to head in the right 
direction?  

Betsy Hp