On lying and cheating

[lealess]

No: HPFGUIDX 165424

> > Valky:
> > 
> > In this, I guess, most simply I see 'credit' as a loaded word, 
> > it's just academic credit. The word credit has positive 
> > connotations, but to the Harry Potter of sixteen years old, that 
> > *Academic* credit isthe currency of kids with "Normal" lives. Its 
> > the positive connotations that don't apply to him, not so much the 
> > rules of attainment. He offers no defense for having it, and he 
> > knows it's not rightfully his, but that doesn't wipe out the fact 
> > that no matter how much he has it's ultimately a useless 
> > attainment, he doesn't really intend to use the academic credit   
> > for anything.
> 
> Pippin:
> Academic credit and academic responsibility aren't as important as
> saving the world -- until they are. Do you want your kids' meds
> prepared by somebody who faked their way through
> Chemistry the way Harry is faking his way through advanced Potions? 
> 
> Somebody who's just pretending they know about side effects and 
> interactions, or how to prescribe antidotes? 
> 

Medicine is an excellent analogy.  Here is another:  Let's say your
dad is President of the United States, and all your life, you have
been pretty sure you'd be President one day, too.  This is something
your family seems destined to do.

Being President is a lofty goal!  It requires self-sacrifice to public
service and tons of responsibility for many lives.  So you're facing
that future: why not avail of every advantage you can now?  You're
going to be a world leader.  You are not the brightest student, but
you get into great classes where your family history is well-known. 
Once in class, you always have friends to help you out with homework.
 Later on, friends will cover your errors in judgment, pulling strings
to make sure you don't get detained by the authorities when you might
have deserved it.  Sometimes they set you up in even better
situations.  You're a "normal" boy, so you like sports and lead a team
-- but that doesn't turn out so well, because your attention's on
other things.  You get into scrapes.  Still, you have special friends
who smooth your path.  You even get into cool secret clubs.  You're
going to be President one day and held to a higher standard, so you
deserve to party now.  You almost never have to think for yourself! 
It's wonderful.

And what is the end result of all this?  You fulfill your destiny and
lead the free world, of course!  But you never read a newspaper or
listen to anyone who disagrees with you anymore, because that's just
too unpleasant.  Once you choose a course of action, you are
completely unable to alter it, because you know you're always right. 
You lead your people into war that is a legacy of your father's era. 
You refuse to publicly acknowledge those who have died in that war,
even if their deaths might touch you personally.  You reach for
unforgivable means such as torture to destroy those you see as your
enemy.  You cannot possibly see how any of this might be considered
wrong, or how you could be held accountable, because you are the
Chosen One.  That is merit enough.

And so on, and so forth.  The point being, taking the easy road is not
likely to lead to strength of character in the end, nor will it lead
to acquisition of the skills that one needs to do a good job.  It
might lead to calcified thought processes, to further dissembling, to
too much reliance on others to help with decision-making.  But some
will argue that the ends justify the means.  I would argue that the
means shape the ends.

Harry flat-out lies many times, and when he is caught, he never seems
to integrate an understanding that he might be doing something wrong
into his personality in such a way that he ends up telling the truth
the next time.  His lies graduate from the trivial, a trip to
Hogsmeade, to the consequential, the source of information on a
murderous spell.  In allowing Slughorn to believe he is a Potions
prodigy, he is lying, to his own disadvantage.  If this lie falls to
the trivial side of the scale, it is still part of a continuum, one
that will leave him unprepared for being an Auror, let alone facing
Voldemort.

I don't think Harry accepts credit for the Prince's Potions
innovations because he feels his unique fate places him apart from
others.  He does it because it is an easy course of action, one that
comes naturally to him.  I can see where an insecure family background
would lead to lying.  More importantly, he has a role model for this:
 Dumbledore, who encourages him to lie to Umbridge (when, ironically,
he hadn't been), and who takes the fall for the D.A. so Harry doesn't
have to... all because of Harry's future role, which Harry doesn't
even fully know about at the time.  Harry mostly knew he'd been in
some terrible situations, and overcame them by luck or having good
friends.  At the end of HBP, however, Harry feels quite privileged,
enough to complain about a detention given for lying, of all things.

Harry's learning to take advantage of his status as much as he is ever
angsting over it.  He's played Slughorn; now he has Scrimgeour trying
to secure the Chosen One's influence.  He can brush off McGonagall's
questions.  Harry is Dumbledore's man through and through, whatever
that means, but is Harry prepared to lead a fight when he lies to
himself, refusing to acknowledge his role in the deaths of Sirius
Black and, perhaps, Dumbledore?

lealess