Bathroom Scene - A Different Perspective.

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 165181

Carol earlier:
>
> >[after quoting some stuff from the book] I don't know, but somehow
it seems pretty clear to me that the detentions are for being a liar
and a cheat, not for using a Dark spell in self-defense or otherwise.
>
Eggplant:
> Boy oh boy it's not clear to me, nor do I think it's clear to the
other teachers exactly why the Potter boy is being punished!

Carol again: 

Well, canon says that the detentions are for being a liar and a
cheat, as I just demonstrated. *Why* Snape chose to punish him for
those offenses rather than for using Sectumsempra is debatable, as is
how much the other teachers knew. All I know is that Snape, Harry, and
JKR all chose to focus on something other than that curse and its
implications. And not one of them raises the question of self-defense.

Now if Harry thought it was all terribly unfair, he could have chosen
to defend himself to McGonnagall, but apparently, he just suffered
through her fifteen-minute tongue lashing. That he didn't get any more
from it than he got from Snape's detentions seems clear. He's not
defending himself, but he defends the HBP, and he hides his precious
book from Snape and lies about it. And it's that dishonesty, not his
use of the Dark spell, that Snape is concerned about. It's rather like
a kid who takes his parents' car without permission, gets into a
wreck, and then lies about it. It's the lying more than the car
borrowing or the damage to the car that really concerns the parents.
Or it would me.

Carol earlier:
>
> > I would hope that your science and engineering teachers didn't
encourage students to claim the results of other students' research as
their own
>
Eggplant:
> No of course they didn't. Harry wasn't writing a dissertation full
of footnotes, he was simply told to make various potions to the best
of his ability. And he did as he was asked to do. The fact that he
could make those potions in ways that were better than the textbook
ways should be praised not condemned.

Carol again:
But Harry *couldn't* make better potions than the textbook. The HBP
could and wrote his notes in the margins, not intending them to be
used by someother kid twenty years later. Harry has no skill in
Potions. He's done no work. All he's done is take credit for someone
else's ideas. No wonder that Hermione is furious when he gets more
credit for handing Slughorn a Bezoar (not even that is his own idea)
than she does for showing that she's mastered the material in the
book. (Granted, she's not a Potions genius like young Snape, who
experimented outside of class to come up with his improvements, but at
least she knows the material, does the work, and understands
Golpalott's Law.) Harry's getting credit for someone else's work just
as much as he would be if he wrote an essay on bezoars using
Hermione's notes without reading the assigned work. (In fact, there's
quite a lot of intellectual dishonesty of that sort in these books.)
Slughorn thinks that Harry's a Potions genius but the genius is
Teen!Snape. Snape did the work; Harry gets the credit. How is that
commendable? Maybe I should take credit for JK Rowling's ideas if I
can somehow get away with it? I could get some fame and riches that I
deserve as much as Harry deserves his high marks and Slughorn's praise.

Carol earlier:
> > If Draco could successfully cast the spell, it would be the kind
of short-term Crucio that Harry had already experienced
>
Eggplant:
> You mean Crucio where the pain was so hideously astronomically
horrible that Harry wanted to die, the Crucio where he really and
sincerely wanted to die?
>
Carol again:
Yes, that one. The excruciating pain for which Crucio is named. The
torture spell as it's normally used. (Assuming that Draco knew how to
cast it, which Harry takes for granted.)

Carol earlier:
> > not the unique long-term Crucio inflicted by four Death Eaters on
the two Longbottoms that drove them to insanity.
>
Eggplant:
> And how on Earth did you deduce that, and how on Earth did you
expect Harry to figure that out in the 20'th of a second he had to
think about it?

Carol:
He's not *deducing* anything. He's not thinking about the Longbottoms.
He's remembering his own horrible experience. I'm not arguing that
Harry doesn't expect the spell to cause excruciating pain, quite the
contrary. I'm arguing that Harry was not expecting the spell to drive
him to *insanity*. He knows exactly what a Crucio normally does,
having experienced its excruciating pain twice himself. And surely he
wouldn't expect Draco's Crucio to be worse than Voldemort's.

Carol earlier:
> > Harry knows exactly what Crucio is normally about
>
Eggplant:
> Yes, Harry does indeed know what a Crucio is about, and that is my
point. Have you ever been in such pain you wanted to die? Fortunately
I haven't, I hope my good luck continues.

Carol:
Exactly. He's expecting pain, excruciating pain, which he knows will
be short-term as it was with Voldemort (this is Draco Malfoy, after
all) but nevertheless does not want to feel again. He's not expecting
to end up in the closed ward with the Longbottoms. He's expecting to
be tortured. There's no need to exaggerate and say that he's expecting
insanity as well, as the poster I was disagreeing with did.

Carol, who agrees with your point but thinks that you're missing hers
(it's torture, not insanity, that Harry fears)