[HPforGrownups] Re: On lying and cheating

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 165405

Magpie" <belviso at ...> wrote:
>> I honestly don't remember what Carol said,
>> but I didn't think there was any question that Harry
>> was making his life easier in terms of fighting Voldemort. I
>> thought he was facing a very limited situation--a regular class in
>> school--and in that situation he's blatantly choosing easy over
>> right by giving himself a secret advantage over other kids.
>
> Valky now:
>
> It is here that you have narrowed down my point for me. This
> perspective of this being a very limited situation, whose perspective
> is that ? Harry's ?
>
> No. It's not.
>
> Is Harry in a regular class in a regular day at school each day he
> grows more attached to the HBP's textbook?
>
> No.
>
> To say he is is just blinkered thinking. To say an academic advantage
> over other kids is anywhere near foremost on Harry's mind is just
> bogus. He admits it feels good to outdo Hermione for once in his life,
> yes, and then shortly after goes right back to thinking about things
> like; Whats Malfoy the DE up to? What's Dumbledore going to teach me?
> Everything is in terms of fighting Voldemort, that is the reality of
> Harry's situation, and the only reason he even stays at school in
> sixth year IMHO.

Magpie:
I don't see that it really matters whether an academic advantage is foremost 
in Harry's mind when he does it. It seems like you're whole argument is that 
things like academic honesty are petty when you're a guy like Harry who's 
got the weight of the world on his shoulders. And that's a possible 
position, but these things being "petty" in Harry's eyes doesn't mean 
Harry's not taking the easy way over the right way in his Potions class 
sixth year. Maybe in your view he's owed this bit of easy because the rest 
of his life is so right, but that's different than it being right because 
Harry's life is hard.

Lots of kids think school is stupid and not worth their time, and sometimes 
that affects how they approach their classwork. But not thinking it makes a 
difference whether you're scrupulously honest about what credit you get 
doesn't mean there's no difference in being honest or not. I think you 
summed it up nicely in speaking to Carol here, when she compared it to her 
student saying she had to plagiarize her essay because her grandmother died 
and schoolwork didn't seem so important to her anymore:

Valky:
Hi Carol. No I disagree with this analogy completely. How is this 
comparable? We're not talking about Harry's "Grandmother" dying, we're 
talking about **him** dying. This is that same as if the girl in your
story has said 'I was told this week that I have three months to live, why 
should I care about your stupid essay whats so important about it? I'm dying 
now and nothing can stop it.'

Magpie:
So Harry doesn't care enough to do it the right way and would rather do it 
the easy way. He doesn't care enough about the stupid class to do it the 
right/hard way. He's doing it the easy way, because it's easy and it's not 
worth doing the right way and he'd rather spend his time focusing on the 
stuff he cares about doing right. The only difference being that you think 
facing a Dark Lord's worse than having your grandmother die. I think most of 
us would agree, but it doesn't change the logic that I can see. (And I 
actually don't see Harry being motivated by this attitude, but for the 
purposes of the argument I'm imagining it to be true.)

> Valky:
> No I'm saying that an undeserved reputation in Potions class is a feel > 
> good side effect of Harry trying to focus in on what he believes is > 
> right and more pressing and important than Potions Marks.

Magpie:
Harry is not using the Prince's book as a way of focusing on Voldemort. He 
likes reading it and getting help from it. He enjoys the book, period.

Valky:
> He doesn't see it as an ultimate advantage to be in the Slug Club or > to 
> get the best marks in the class work, with the exception of > competing 
> for the Felix Felicis (something that *can* be used for a > purpose that 
> will really matter) he isn't concerned if he gets NO > Marks. Isn't this 
> evidenced by him experimenting with the potions > notes to begin with? 
> How was he to know that they would work so
> brilliantly?

Magpie:
The first time he uses the Prince's book it is to get something that 
actually does connect to a larger issue. (And he can easily experiment 
because he had nothing to lose doing it the real way--Hermione's probably 
going to win that way.) But that doesn't explain his later presenting 
himself as a Potions genius, which is a different issue than his just using 
the directions in his book.

His not caring about the Slug Club, which he's in no matter how well he does 
in Potions, doesn't seem all that relevent. If anything it seems to 
undermine your point. What's Harry's reputation as a Potions genius getting 
him in terms of Voldemort? Because it gets him in with Slughorn? If that's 
his goal he'd go to a Slug Club meeting.

Valky:
 The fact is he didn't know they would produce a work of > genius, all he 
knew was that they presented an option to explore in > the course of his 
day, and that is what appealed to him from the
> start. Options. Not advantages in situations that don't ultimately pay > 
> any dividends in his life, just options in a life that doesn't seem to > 
> have any.

Magpie:
Of course he didn't know what they would produce the first time--but 
nobody's accusing him of doing wrong by using them the first time. Or even 
using them at all. We're not even calling for some sort of punishment for 
his keeping the book. We're saying when he pretends to be something he isn't 
and takes credit for things he didn't do, he's pretending to be something 
that he's not and taking credit for things he didn't do.

> Magpie:
>> But I don't think Harry ever presents the
>> situation to himself like that, or that it ever has that effect one
>> way or the other.
>
> Valky:
> I'll have to find the quote, but IIRC, Harry says to Ron and Hermione
> at some stage that it would be a good idea to keep the HBP's text just
> in case it has something extraordinary in it that will help him
> against Voldemort.

Magpie:
But there's no problem with Harry's having the book, keeping the book, or 
learning from the book. The issue is just putting one over on the teacher 
and giving himself a shortcut other students don't have and pretending it's 
just natural talent. It's not a horrible thing for Harry to be doing, just 
run-of-the-mill teenaged dishonesty. It has nothing to do with keeping the 
book for Voldemort-related reasons. He's not forced to give himself a secret 
advantage in class and let the teacher think he's a genius in order to keep 
the book.

> Magpie:
>> It sounds like you're saying
>> Harry's difficulties in life put him above right and wrong, or turn
>> everything he does into something right.

Valky:>
> No, that's not what I am saying, it's missing the point completely.> I'm 
> saying he makes his choice from his perspective, and his> perspective is 
> that he's probably going to die before he's an adult.> He can't escape 
> that to care about whether he is being Percy Weasley> perfect on his way 
> to the gallows. It seems to me that both you and> Carol think somehow he 
> must be psychologically above the pain of> facing this reality at sixteen 
> years old. How can he be? Would you be?> Why is it such a bad and wrong 
> thing to have empathy with Harry's> situation? It's a bleak day the kid 
> faces, why is it so hard to just> consider his attachment to Snape's notes 
> as a blunder made by a child> under enormous pressure rather than some 
> plan he concocted for an end> that doesn't even matter to him.

Magpie:
Nobody's telling you you can't have empathy for Harry. Though I still don't 
think you're describing Harry's attitude in the book at all (I do think that 
of course his destiny is a big thing for him, but he doesn't bring it into 
every situation and I don't know that it's quite as real to him as you're 
making it), I certainly don't have a problem with empathizing with Harry. 
The trouble is that at times you seem to be--to me--crossing the line from 
empathy for Harry into saying Harry can't be wrong because you empathize 
with him. I guess that's also why I don't understand the distinction you 
make between this and Carol's analogy. She, too, gave an example of a 
teenager overwhelmed by life and so not caring about school. It seems like 
you're saying that the difference here isn't that Harry doesn't have that 
attitude, but in Harry's case the teacher should agree with him because 
facing your own death is an appropriate reason for plagiarizing when facing 
your gramma's death isn't.

And I just don't see that it works that way. It's not that I don't 
understand that attitude. If I were dying in a week yes, I don't think I'd 
care about my grades in school (perhaps not enough to give myself a secret I 
have to worry about getting out to the teacher I'm fooling). But as I said 
to Steve, not being overly harsh in my judgment of Harry here is not the 
same as saying that Harry can't be described as doing anything unflattering 
here because he's got a lot to deal with. It seems like we start out arguing 
that Harry isn't doing anything wrong, and then it switches to "but can't 
you understand why he's doing something wrong?" And those are two different 
things. It's like trying to argue that Hermione wasn't doing anything out of 
order when she Confunded McLaggen and when people say yes she is flipping 
over into saying "but can't you empathize with a teenaged girl watching the 
boy she likes being humiliated?" as if that's the same issue.

Mike:
IOW, what comes across as Harry's oppurtunistic cheating to some, comes 
across as an apathy towards correcting Slughorn to others. Harry has never 
seeked out praise, Harry doesn't particularly like Slughorn, Harry is aware 
of Slughorn's collecting talent motif, and Harry doesn't particularly care 
what Slughorn thinks of him.

Magpie:
Whether it's apathy or opportunistic teaching doesn't change what Harry's 
doing, though.

Mike:
Why did we miss this? Here we all are trying to defend Harry's use of the 
book, while Harry isn't. Why isn't Harry? Maybe because Harry doesn't feel a 
need to. Maybe because Harry just thinks of the book's potions brilliance as 
relieving him of one more nuisance, namely studying for potions work. Harry 
does have a twinge of conscience after he wins the Felix, but after that he 
simply wants Hermione to
stop with the nagging. He defends the "Prince" with regards to his 
dodginess, but not himself for using the book. That's what Valky is trying 
expkain to us.

Magpie:
Yup, that's my question too--what's with the defending? See, I don't think 
it is what Valky is explaining. To me, it sounds like he's doing what Harry 
isn't (which is what it seems like others are doing when they're saying 
Harry is experimenting or acting like an A-student or getting 
tutoring)--they're trying to make Harry's reputation as an exceptional 
student somehow more real (while also arguing that he shouldn't have to be 
anyway). That's the same flip I was trying to describe above.

I don't think less of Harry for doing something cunning and tricking his way 
into better grades in class. I actually think I would think less of him if I 
thought he was claiming this really does make him an A-student better than 
others, or that every time he did it it was for a higher cause. That sounds 
like the "Saint Potter" Malfoy talks about.

Betsy:
Though, to be honest, Harry knows what he's doing is a form of cheating and 
lying.  It's why he doesn't verbally share the Prince's notes with Ron (to 
avoid Slughorn's catching on), and it's why he doesn't relish the "potion's 
genius" title.  It's all of his listie parents who keep twisting things into 
a "not *my* son" direction. <beg>

Magpie:
Shares the <veg>. That's the Harry I see as well.

-m