Hagrid the animal abuser (was:Hagrid and Draco WAS:Re: Dumbledore...

[houyhnhnm102]

No: HPFGUIDX 166156

Katie responds: 

> I think you're taking a hard line against Hagrid. 
> I agree that he is often less than concientious 
> about his "pets", but I don't think he's an abusive, 
> off-balanced animal hoarder.  Let's consider this 
> - if Hagrid were so awful and abusive, would his 
> "pets" be so loyal to him? Aragog and Buckbeak love 
> Hagrid and are loyal and faithful to him.

houyhnhnm:

It is impossible to say whether or not Hagrid is an 
animal abuser in a real life sense because there are 
no real animals in HP (even the non-magical ones) , 
only anthropomorphic cartoon animals.  Real owls are 
not smart, for instance.

It's one of my biggest annoyances with HP, but it is 
a characteristic of most children's literature.  I 
thought it was dumb even as a child and I've never 
understood what the point is supposed to be.  Teaching 
very young children to regard animals as having thoughts 
and feelings exactly like their own is supposed to 
encourage empathy, I suppose, but a great many people 
never evolve beyond it and learn to respect the fact 
that animals have their own natures which are very 
different from those of humans.

As a high school science teacher, I find that 
anthropomorphic attitudes persist into adolescence 
and are almost impossible to eradicate.  In the real 
world, anthropomorphism does lead to animal abuse.  
How many pets are abandoned every year because their 
owners expect them to understand and respond as human 
beings would?  How many are beaten or made sick by 
improper diets for the same reason?

Hagrid's affection for his pets would clearly be 
anthropomorphic if they were real animals (Norbert's 
teddy bear, for instance), but since they are not, 
maybe we can't judge him by RL standards.  Firenze 
commends Hagrid for the care he shows all living 
creatures.  Maybe in the Potterverse, we are not 
supposed to look beyond that.