second task points

[quigonginger]

No: HPFGUIDX 152028

> Hickengruendler:> 
> Here is the quote, and something that's IMO pretty important:
> 
> " "Most of the judges" - and here Bagman gave Karkaroff a very 
nasty 
> look - feel that this shows moral fiber and merits full marks. 
> However ... Mr Potter's score is fourty-five points" "
> 
> IMO, this indicates that the judges marked the same way they did 
> after the first task, namely that everyone gave their points and in 
> the end the points were just added together. Based on Bagman's 
words 
> and gestures I assume that Dumbledore, Bagman, Percy and Madame 
> Maxime all gave Harry 10 points and Karkaroff gave 5. Which means 
> that if it weren't for Karkaroff, Harry would have gotten full 
marks. 
> Seeing that even the morally ambigous characters Percy and Bagman 
> agreed with this (even though Bagman had ulterior motives), and 
only 
> evil Karkaroff didn't want to give him full marks, I assume that it 
> is JKR's opinion, that he deserved the full marks for his decision. 
I 
> think it is very arguable, if he deserved it, because I still 
> consider it very stupid, that he honestly thought the judges would 
> let the hostages die like that.  

Ginger again:

Drat!  I was going to touch on this in my original post and blanked 
it out.  Thanks for bringing it up.

You are absolutely correct about the scoring, although I think that 
Percy is not morally ambiguous in this situation.  I think Percy is 
striving to be fair as fair can be.  He was concerned about his 
brother, of course, but I don't think that what we've seen of him so 
far makes him out to be someone who would give out points where they 
weren't merited nor would he withhold them if they were deserved.  He 
is aware that the eyes of the WW are upon him and this is a great PR 
opportunity for him.  I'm sure his goal is to execute his duties with 
the utmost of integrity.  Not that he isn't a prat, just not in this 
case.

Bagman did indeed have ulterior motives.  I can just imagine that he 
was squealing on the inside when he heard that the other judges were 
impressed with Harry's moral fibre.  (He's starting to sound like a 
breakfast cereal.)

I would bet that the original 5 judges had some conversations about 
scoring.  (Percy would have been briefed when he took Crouch's 
place.)  The ones who gave Harry full points all seemed to think it 
was within the rules.  I doubt that "moral fibre" per se had been 
discussed, but given the nastiness of the WW in other areas, they may 
have thought to allow for docking points should a contestant attempt 
to sabotage another, which would open the door for points for or 
against a contestant's sportsmanship, under which moral fibre (I'm 
giggling every time I type that now) would certainly apply.  Given 
Karkaroff's ex-DE status and Durmstrang's Dark Arts focus, it would 
not be unreasonable to assume that the other 4 judges would want 
something that would temper a desire to do some harmful cheating.  
Karkaroff may have been in the minority when that decision was 
reached in the first place, and would certainly not be giving points 
for it at this point, as it moved his Champion from 2nd to 3rd.

I absolutely agree with your assessment of JKR's intentions and 
beliefs.

My point in breaking down the scores was to point out that Harry's 
full 45 points were not for moral fibre (snigger), but that he got 
some additional points (I estimated 6-10) along with what he has 
already earned by deciphering the egg, being able to breathe 
underwater (which the judges would have no way of knowing that he 
didn't do on his own) and rescuing his hostage.  

The moral fibre points were only a small part of the total, and made 
up for only part of what he lost for being late, which was due to 
moral fibre.

As long as you brought up Krum, I looked at how they scored Harry in 
the first task.  We don't hear how each judge scored the other 
competitors individually, but for Harry, he got a 10 from Bagman 
(ulterior motives), an 8 from M Maxime, 9 from Crouch and DD and 4 
from Karkaroff.  The final result was that he tied with Krum.  Note 
that Karkaroff was the last to show his score, and it was after a 
pause that he revealed his results.  I think he was doing some fast 
math to assure that whatever he gave Harry didn't put him ahead of 
Krum (to whom Karkaroff had given the full 10 points).  So since we 
have a previous record of Karkaroff scoring Harry low to keep Krum's 
advantage, it doesn't surprise me that here he only gave Harry a 5.  
Heck, for Karkaroff, that's almost generous.

When they get to the 3rd task, we are told that Harry and Ced were 
tied with 85 points, Krum had 80 and they didn't give Fleur's total, 
only mentioned that she was in last place.  

Here we go with maths again ;D  We know Harry got 40 for the first 
and 45 for the second, and that does indeed equal 85.  Ced had 85 
total and received 47 for the second task, so his first task score 
was 38.  Krum tied with Harry on the first task (40) and got 40 on 
the second task, so his total was 80.  Wow!  JKR's maths work out!  

Ok, back to the first task.  If Krum got 40 points, 10 of which were 
from Karkaroff, then the other judges gave his an average of (hang on 
here) 7.5.  Harry's average, minus Karkaroff, was 9 per judge.

Had Harry not gotten his moral fibre points (I'm basing this on my 
reasoning in my previous post) he would have likely ended up scoring 
somewhere in the 35-39 range.  With his first task points, that would 
have given him 75-79 points going into the 3rd task.  He's have been 
slightly behind Krum, but only by a bit.

See how Karkaroff's scoring set things out of kilter?  If he had 
scored the same as the average of the other judges on the first task, 
Harry's score would have been 45 and Krum's would have been 
(um...dratted decimals) 37.5.  This would have put the total points 
(minus moral fiber) at 77.5 for Krum and 80-84 for Harry.  

But Karkaroff had deliberately scored Krum high and Harry low in the 
first task.  The moral fibre points just set that straight.  I think 
that's where JKR's point about moral fibre comes into play.  What 
comes around, goes around.  Karkaroff was not fair, Harry was, 
and "fate" sorted it out for them.

Yes, to be precice, it was the other judges who set it straight with 
their scoring for moral fibre, but I doubt that the other judges were 
sitting with quill and parchment doing sums on the shore.

I think it was indeed, as you say, JKR sending a message that making 
the hard choice is a reward in and of itself, but that if one takes 
the high road, sometimes one gets unexpected surprises.  I would 
equate it with being up for a promotion against someone with more 
experience, but you have a record of moral fibre.  The boss is going 
to look at that when deciding.  It may not seem fair to evaluate your 
moral fibre when the other person looks better on paper and may feel 
more deserving, but it is something that a boss might take into 
account.  I've done it myself when asked for recommendations.

I guess I'm not as hard on Harry for thinking that the hostages were 
in real danger.  I freak out in arcade games when my car crashes, 
even though I have every reason to believe I haven't actually hurt 
anyone, much less myself, and that the car will back in driving shape 
just as soon as I get more quarters.  (Not that I frequent arcades 
much any more at my age.)

I don't think it was a case of him not trusting the judges, but 
rather that he was so immersed (teehee) in his virtual game world 
that he entirely forgot that it was, indeed, a game.  When he gets 
back above water he chides himself for that very thing.  To 
quote: "Harry felt both stupid and annoyed.  It was all very well for 
Ron; *he'd* (emphisis JKR) been asleep, he hadn't felt how eerie it 
was down in the lake, surrounded by spear-carrying merpeople who'd 
looked more than capable of murder."  Later, on the shore:  "Harry's 
feeling of stupidity was growing.  Now that he was out of the water, 
it seemed perfectly clear that Dumbledore's safety precautions 
wouldn't have permitted the death of a hostage just because their 
champion hadn't shown up."

Ooh, another thing popped into my head (sorry, I know this is getting 
long).  He didn't just sit and wait for the other champions, nor did 
he just untie Gabrielle and drag her up, but he actually fought and 
threatened the merpeople.  They were holding him back to prevent him 
from freeing the other hostages.  I don't know about you, but I'd 
think that facing scary-looking, spear-carrying people who outnumber 
you by far, and are physically stopping you from your goal of saving 
people is certainly worth an extra few points.

Ginger, who needs a nice lie-down for after all those numbers.