The Code of the Schoolyard and Potential Surprises in Store ;)

[wynnleaf]

No: HPFGUIDX 168019

wynnleaf
If I repeat myself you are welcome to skip the bits you feel are
repetitious.  I sometimes am concerned that, as in formal debate, if
one drops a point people start assuming you conceded it, or begin to
argue as though the point had never been made.  Not that you do that,
Goddlefrood, but it is a common practice.  If you notice my repeating
myself within this post, just chalk it up to bad writing.  I can be a
very convoluted writer.

I must admit, I still don't get how this "code of the schoolyard"
would somehow prevent Lupin from saying to his friends, "hey, guys, I
really don't feel comfortable about running around as a werewolf in
the forest and in the village every month and I want to quit.  It's
just too easy for me to kill people if we were to stumble on somebody."  

The closest thing in real life I could think of to compare this to
would be perhaps if you had a guy in a school culture where weekend
intoxication was common.  This kid has a car.  Those in locos parentis
 (sp?) over this kid make sure he has a cell phone and always has
money to hire a cab or call someone to bring him home.  They stress to
him that even if they can't prevent him from going out and getting
supremely drunk, no matter what, they just don't want him endangering
anyone by driving.  So they've got all these safety measures.  But the
kid has some friends who think it would be a lark to go with him,
while so intoxicated that he is in no control over his actions, and
put him behind the wheel of a car and drive around the countryside and
the local town.  These kids don't just sit around planning their
drinking party (a common teenage thing), their primary focus is
planning how to get the most dangerous person behind the car wheel and
drive all around town.  They do this for literally years.  Each month,
the kid is given all the safety precautions -- the cell phone, the
money for a cab, maybe even someone else to drive him home -- but each
month he secretly ditches all these safety measures and instead makes
premeditated arrangements to go joyriding while drunk.  He is very
much aware that he could kill people doing this, but he does it
anyway.  He  -- the kid himself -- actually gets no personal fun out
of it, since he is never able to actually remember what happened on
those nights.  The reason he keeps up this activity is because his
friends think it's fun.  But make no mistake -- it's not the friends
who are likely to kill someone.  They aren't the one's driving drunk.
 He is.  And he does nothing to stop this for years.  

Yet the whole time, he pretends to everyone else that he's being
perfectly safe, making full use of all the safety precautions in place
for him.

And the "code of the schoolyard" makes this perfectly understandable?

What we don't know is how JKR wants us to view the Marauder's actions.
 Is planning excursions in the woods *and* village with a deadly
werewolf on the same par as Fred and George sneaking to the kitchens
for food and butterbeer?  Or Harry sneaking to Honeydukes for candy? 
  Is Harry and friend's midnight trip to send the baby dragon away on
the same level as endangering the whole community with werewolf
jaunts?  Maybe JKR *does* want us to view them as just all childhood
pranks.  

But to me it's like comparing the kids at our school that went out at
night and removed the clock in the local square and hid it, to another
group of boys who for kicks on a Saturday night go through town firing
off guns.  When does "childish behavior" cease to be "kids will be
kids?"  I'm not sure exactly what JKR meant for us to think, but I am
interested in other comparisons she makes between Harry and other kids
in his year, and I don't necessarily think she intends us to believe
that all of these actions are explainable simply under the banner of
childhood and school culture. 

> Goddlefrood:
> 
> I'll stop you there. I have got the point, your misgrasp of mine
> appears to be causing some difficulty ;)

wynnleaf
Let me go through your points and show you what I don't get.

Goddlefrood:
> That schoolyard code in a nutshell:
> 
> (i) Never, but never sneak on fellow students (Marietta has 
> been referred before)

wynnleaf
Simply telling his friends he wanted to quit wouldn't be sneaking.  


Goddlefrood:
> (ii) Break as many school rules as possible without getting 
> caught. With this one HRH, Fred and George, and many others 
> seem to try their best to comply. The Marauders need have 
> been no different, they enjoyed themselves, iow, and hang the 
> consequences. Not an unfair reading, it seems to be what 
> happened, Remus ignored the consequences, irresponsible, of 
> course, as I said before, but also insufficient to hang a 
> theory of betrayal on. He could have stopped, yes, but he 
> did not ;)

wynnleaf
The problem here is the scale of rule-breaking.  This is not just
sneaking out to the kitchens, or sneaking around to the forest.  This
is actively planning monthly excursions that knowingly risked the
lives of many.  Remus *knows* he can kill people.

Goddlefrood:
> (iii) Prefects can have limited exceptions to the above, so 
> if the whole argument is relative to Remus's having been a 
> prefect then it may have some merit, but not a great deal, 
> as prefects ultimately remain students themselves.

wynnleaf
We're really not talking about Remus' actions as a prefect.  This is
his control over his *own* rulebreaking I'm talking about.

Goddlefrood:
> (iv) The Head Boy or Girl should show no favouritism, but 
> within acceptable bounds not rat out their friends and other 
> fellow students except where not to do so could come back to 
> haunt them. They should not be seen to be breaking school
> rules themselves.

wynnleaf
This has nothing to do with ratting anyone out.  So it doesn't apply.

Goddlefrood:
> (v) Look out for members of your own house above all others. 
> This hardly needs examples from canon as they would be far too 
> many to go into :). This also remains after school, what is 
> often referred to as the old boy's network or old girl's 
> netwrok as applicable.

wynnleaf
This perhaps can apply to why Remus didn't do anything (or even ever
*say* anything) about the Marauder's bullying of Snape.  I did not
count that as his betrayal of Dumbledore's trust.  It was to a small
degree, but nothing like the werewolf escapades.  Besides, even Harry
can see that the Marauder's actions in bullying are without excuse and
Remus doing nothing about it is also without excuse.  Harry doesn't
view all that and think anything of it as understandable within school
culture.

Goddlefrood:
> (vi) Goad the teachers wherever possible. This is a regular
> occurence in the HP world too :)

wynnleaf
Not sure what this has to do with any of the Marauder's actions, as we
have no mention of their ever goading teachers.

Goddlefrood:
> (vii) Never, but never sneak on fellow students. This one is 
> so fundamental it bears repetition. Draco has broken this on a 
> regular basis, and for that alone he deserves a painful death ;)

wynnleaf
You keep going back to this one -- sneaking on fellow students,
ratting people out -- as though I or anyone has suggested that Lupin
should have done that when in school.  Which I haven't.  Telling
Dumbledore as an adult in POA is completely different.

Goddlefrood:
> There are other less serious ones, but these about cover it.

wynnleaf
Okay, please tell me which of those points above prevented Lupin from
telling his friends "I don't want to run through the forest and
village as a werewolf anymore.  I could kill someone.  You guys aren't
going to kill anyone, but I could."

I'm curious as to what specific actions a student could take with his
friends which you would *not* consider understandable under this
school "code?"  If Lupin had actually killed someone in the village,
would their actions have still been considered understandable?  At
what point would their actions be indicative of a major character
flaw, even if they could be explained by "school code?"

Or perhaps I misunderstand you.  Perhaps you are only explaining *why*
it occurred.  But my feeling is that you are trying to explain why it
is not a terrible character flaw for Lupin to have done these things,
because explaining it under "school code" makes it so understandable
that any kid might have done these things.

I don't agree.

I teach at a college level, but I have 3 teenagers 14-19 and we have
lots of kids in and out of the house quite a bit, and I'm pretty
involved with the kids at school.  I understand about not ratting on
your friends, and not always telling your friends when they do
something you think is wrong.  I understand about the fun of breaking
minor rules or thwarting the teachers occasionally.  But there reaches
a point -- especially when you're consistently endangering the lives
of others (not just involved in personally risky behavior) -- when I
don't think such a "code" is really any justification or excuse.  It
becomes a true character issue.  A person is choosing to endanger
innocent people on a regular basis in order to not jeopardize his
friendships.

Goddlefrood:
> Many children, and that is after all what we are dealing with 
> in respect of the Marauders and HRH, have little regard for the 
> school rules.
> 
> JKR also had this to say when questioned about adults' perception 
> of what is essentially a children's world (the school part of it 
> anyway):

wynnleaf
You're excusing here, imo.  It's one thing to use that explanation for
why kids might sneak out at night for a bit of fun.  It's another
thing to actively plan activities that are known to be seriously
dangerous to innocent people.  Sure, we can say that the boys thought
they could control it, wouldn't hurt anyone, etc.  But there reaches a
point where the danger is so extreme that it's no excuse.

Goddlefrood:
> " ... adults surprise me by appearing to forget how powerless you 
> feel as a child, how despairing... and just... enormous pressures 
> on you as a child, even a happy child..."

wynnleaf
I honestly don't think JKR means us to consider Lupin's running around
as a werewolf -- even through the village -- for years as just
something any child might do given the pressures of childhood. 
Besides, she speaks of this as Lupin's particular weakness, not a
weakness common to all.

Goddlefrood:
> I also agree with the point that Remus is weak-willed, but I 
> can not extract from that a situation where it would mean he 
> were evil, as it appears to me even wynnleaf concedes :). If 
> it turns out Remus is some kind of hindrance then it would be, 
> IMO, through inadvertance rather than any other motive.

wynnleaf
Well, his putting Harry and the kids at risk during POA wasn't
inadvertent.  So I think it perfectly in character for him to
knowingly make more bad choices that put people at risk.  He might not
mean them in evil intent, but I wouldn't go so far as to say they'd be
inadvertent.
> 
> > wynnleaf
> > Your argument earlier was that Harry wouldn't get any *more* 
> > surprise problems (other than he's already got at the end of 
> > HBP), and therefore Lupin wouldn't betray Harry. No unexpected 
> > problems for Harry equates to no major suspense. I don't buy 
> > that. JKR loves it too much.
> 
> Goddlefrood:
> 
> This you mean?:
> 
> "There will be quite enough problems for Harry to face without 
> one more he was not expecting."

wynnleaf
Yes, that comment, as it was in your earlier post.  

Goddlefrood:
> There certainly will be surprises. Here's a few I expect:
> 
> (i) The person who will perform magic later in life will be 
> surprising, whether it is Mrs. Figg, Filch or whomsoever as it 
> will surprise Harry ;)
> 
> (ii) I anticipate that at least one of the Horcruxes will be 
> surprisingly easy to find ;)
> 
> (iii) There will be surprises in the quest for the Horcrux, 
> where they are, what they are is a possibility too and also 
> whether the numbers add up.
> 
> (iv) Harry will be surprised to find out who R. A. B. is, even 
> if we here appear now to have resolved to accept that it is 
> Regulus.
> 
> (v) There will indubitably be surprise attacks on Harry, one 
> of which may be at Privet Drive.
> 
> (vi) Aunt Petunia will surprise us all and Harry further.
> 
> (vii) The mystery to be left at the end :)
> 
> (viii) and
> 
> (ix) the
> 
> (x) list goes
> 
> (xi) on and on :)
> 
> Clear enough now?

wynnleaf
Sure, I see that you expect surprises.  But I expect Harry to run into
surprises that cause him some major difficulties and *especially* that
cause him some major *inner* difficulties.  After all, that's where
the growth of a character is -- within.  Learning about RAB, or 
horcruxes, or who does magic late in life is interesting, but those
are unlikely to cause inner change in Harry.  It's inner conflict,
more than anything, that will build the character.  So, imo, Harry
will need to have some of his inner attitudes and assumptions changed
in order to grow.
 
>Goddlefrood:
> What I do see in these arguments to Remus being other than good 
> is a singular lack of any speculation as to how this may affect 
> Deathly Hallows, even if it turns out to be correct, which I 
> highly doubt.

wynnleaf
Oh, I have a lot of ideas about that, but find it unproductive to
speculate too far out on a limb -- out onto the twigs, as it were,
when you go too far into DH.  If practically no one even thinks Lupin
has done anything very appalling in the past and will certainly never
do anything wrong again, it makes little sense to expound on how I
think his wrong actions in DH will endanger others or betray the Order.  

My personal guess is that Lupin has already betrayed the Order,
without intending the damage that occurred.  I have a theory that
Fenrir came to Hogwarts that night because Lupin leaked the info among
other werewolves that Dumbledore was leaving the castle that night
(Lupin would have known ahead of time, since he was called in from his
undercover position).  Therefore the DE's were ready and waiting the
moment Draco got the cabinet fixed, and invaded the castle.  I don't
think Lupin expected Dumbledore to be killed.  I think he was probably
trying to play both sides.  When Lupin heard of Dumbledore's death, he
expressed far, far more emotion than we've ever seen from Lupin. 
Lupin never exhibits a lot of emotion, not even when his great friend
Sirius died directly in front of him.  Yet Harry felt Lupin's grief
was almost indecent to see.  So why did cool, collected, Lupin fall
apart?  I wonder if it was guilt.

If that theory were correct, we wouldn't have to have Lupin do much
more in DH.  We and Harry could just discover his part in the attack
on Hogwarts.  Just one of many theories...

wynnleaf