On lying and cheating

[houyhnhnm102]

No: HPFGUIDX 165426

Valky:

> Harry uses the book initially because its all 
> he's got in the classroom, he has to use it and 
> in some cases te notes are clearer than the 
> original text; he uses it later because its 
> interesting and like Steve noted, because the 
> book is more friendly and open with him than 
> he believes the adults around him are, but 
> seemingly as wise as them. 

> Not one of these things is what you would call 
> a willful decision to gain an unfair **academic 
> reputation**. [...] so how in any way can choosing 
> an easy path to that end apply to his situation ?

houyhnhnm:

Exactly.  Harry used the book initially because 
it was all he had.  He used the Prince's suggestion 
for chopping sopophorous beans because the Prince's 
glosses obscured the text.  I agree entirely with 
this description of Harry's moral trajectory.  
Following the Prince's annotations won him the Felix 
and he didn't say anything about using a different 
technique because, at that point, well, who would.  
Little by little, over the course of the school year, 
each tiny lie of omission gots him in a little deeper 
until finally, he had gained for himself a reputation 
for brilliance and originality in potions that was 
wholly undeserved.

Harry never chose to cheat, but isn't that the very 
essence of the Easy Path--not choosing.  I don't think 
that what Harry did was academic cheating in the 
strictest sense, nor do think that he set out to gain 
a reputation for originality in potions that he didn't 
deserve, but that is where he ended up. He ended up in 
a dishonest place. 

I don't think that most people who end up in a moral 
quagmire choose it as a destination.  Rather at each 
point along the way it is easier to remain silent, to 
ignore the still, small voice, and to keep sliding down 
the Easy Path.  That's the most important lesson Harry 
needs to learn from the Half Blood Prince.

Valky:

> And later he uses the reputation he has earned 
> through it as an advantage in the cause of his 
> mission to defeat Voldemort, as Mike noted;

houyhnhnm:

I don't see this at all.  Slughorn was fascinated 
with Harry before the two of them ever met.  Why else 
would Dumbledore have used Harry as a lure to get 
Slughorn to come back to Hogwarts.  Harry needn't 
even have taken potions to have had an in with Slughorn.

Here is what perplexes me, though.  In spite of being 
in the Slug Club as the result of being the famous 
Harry Potter, in spite, even, of his reputation as 
a potions genius, Harry had no success obtaining the 
memory from Slughorn until he drank the Felix Felicis 
which he won quite by accident, courtesy of the 
Half Blood Prince.  What does one make of the moral here?