[HPforGrownups] Re: Bathroom Scene - A Different Perspective.

[Bart Lidofsky]

No: HPFGUIDX 165200

Oryomai: 
> Um...this is not well-known. I have just lost pretty much all respect 
> for MLK Jr. now. Academic cheating is not something that people 
> should admire in anyone. I'm not sure who you're talking about 
> when you say that we make allowances for presidents and famous 
> celebrities -- but I attempt not to make any exceptions on cheating 
> (but I am human!). While I don't think Harry should be stoned to 
> death or anything for his use of the Potions Book, I think that we 
> cannot look beyond the fact that Harry cheated. Harry even seems 
> to know this -- when Severus asked for his book, Harry took Ron's 
> instead. That seems to indicate a guilty conscience to me....

Bart:
I have brought this up before, but it bears bringing up again. Traditionally, a hero is not a person without flaws; it is a normally flawed human being who manages to, in spite of these flaws, accomplish great and good things (I say great and good because I just re-read Ollivander's channeling of Louis Farrakhan in Book 1). I see nothing about Martin Luther King's plagarism in college that, in any way, negates the good he did later on. 

Harry has more thrust upon him than any human being should have. So, he takes shortcuts. He knows what he wants to do, and, if what he needs to do is too difficult, distasteful, or boring, he sticks with what he wants to do. This attitude resulted in his failure to learn Occlumancy (and the death of Sirius), delays in getting a key memory from Sluggy, and, of course, using shortcuts in Snape's old textbook and claiming them as his own innovations.

The key is not whether or not he gets away with it. The key is whether or not he can surpass this tendency, and do what it is he needs to do.

Bart