Hagrid and Draco

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 168700

Alla wrote:
> 
> <snip> Eh, sure. I think Hogwarts demands from the students, including 
> Harry obviously. Doesn't Snape constantly keep reminding Harry to 
> call him Sir? Doesn't DD tell him to call Snape professor?  So, 
> yeah, I think Professor Hagrid should be heard from Malfoy's mouth 
> as well.
> 
Carol responds:
Possibly, Draco doesn't consider Hagrid a professor because he's not a
fully qualified wizard (just as, in the U.S., not all college
instructors are professors, only those with PhDs and a tenured or
tenure-track position). Hagrid was expelled in his third year at
Hogwarts. None of the other kids call Hagrid "professor." Why should
Draco be any different? Hagrid himself doesn't expect it. Snape, OTOH,
is not only fully qualified and an expert potion-maker, he's been
teaching for eleven years as of SS/Ps and is Head of Slytherin House.
His rank alone entitles him to be called "professor" or "sir." And
note that Dumbledore expects that same courtesy from young Tom Riddle.
> 
> Alla:
> <SNIP>
>  At the same time I wish I could feel more for Hagrid's anquish over
 Bucky's possible execution. Strangely, on the hurt comfort level his
anguish is a bit blah for me. Wierd. <snip>

Carol:
Maybe because Hagrid is *always* shedding tears, so his anguish is old
hat by the time of PoA? He blubbers like a child over his monsters
from SS/PS (Norbert) onward. Anyway, that's how I feel about it. I can
see eleven-year-old Neville crying over his lost toad, but Hagrid is
sixty-something and nine or ten feet tall, so his tears (for me) are a
bit much. I don't even like Dumbledore's single tear, which (IMO) is
badly timed, at Ron's expense (I wante Ron to be made prefect for
*Ron's sake). In contrast, when Harry, who never cries,
surreptitiously wipes his eys on his sleeve, it's moving. For me, anyway.

Magpie:
> > I also don't have a big problem, it's true, with Malfoy having an
opinion about Hagrid before he met him--it happens all the time. <SNIP>
> 
Alla:
> 
> Right, and I have huge problem with it. That is how I started 
> despising Malfoy on the spot.

Carol responds:
But Draco at this point is an eleven-year-old boy. His experience is
different from Harry's, but in some ways just as limited. He's an only
child whose contacts are other pureblood families (and possibly an
occasional half-blood, like Snape. (I'd love to read the scene between
him and Theo Nott that JKR wrote but couldn't find a place for,
possibly because, after SS/PS, she decided to limit herself almost
exclusively to Harry's pov.) His ideas and values reflect those of his
family. He doesn't even have television to expose him to other ideas.

Notice that he says, not contemptuously but matter-of-factly, "I've
heard of him. He's a sort of servant, isn't he?" (SS/PS Am. ed. 78).
And then he adds juicy tidbits that he's heard, some of them true or
not far from fact," I heard he's a sort of *savage*--lives in a hut on
the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do
magic, and ends us setting fire to his bed" (78). Draco's source for
this partially accurate, partially exaggerated information is almost
certainly his parents, but he doesn't seem to have Lucius Malfoy's
sneering attitude until Harry says coldly, "I think he's brilliant,"
to which Draco replies "*Do you?" with a slight sneer and changes the
subject. If Harry had defended Hagrid more politely, saying something
like, "Actually, he's quite knowledgeable and interesting," Draco's
reply might have been "Really? Why do you think so?" Yet another
opportunity for communication lost. Or I should say, the first of many
such lost opportunities involving Harry and other characters. But, of
course, Harry is also just eleven. Neither of them has any tact or any
real interest in the other as a person with feelings.

And I really don't see any difference between Draco's repeating gossip
about Hagrid and Ron's repeating gossip about Snape, whom he also has
not met: "Snape's Head of Slytherin House. They say he always favors
them" (135). Ron's source of information is probably Fred and George,
from whom Snape (quite understandably) is "always" taking points;
Draco's is probably his parents. He's reflecting their upperclass
prejudice against "servants" (paid laborers?); Ron is reflecting the
general prejudice against Slytherin (reinforced for Harry by Hagrid's
own remark that every wizard that went bad came from Slytherin--a
statement Hagrid *knows* to be untrue, even though he's mistaken about
the identity of the bad Gryffindor).
> 
Alla:
> 
> When did Ron say such a thing? I do not remember at all. Didn't 
Percy talk to Snape about Harry? What Percy said is totally different
for me because he met Snape already. And if whoever says something
about person in a bd way, person they never met, yes, it annoys me a
lot. <snip>

Carol:
See above. Percy only says that Snape is after Quirrell's job, which
may or may not be true, and that he knows a lot about the Dark Arts
(125), which evidently causes Harry to associate Snape with Voldemort
in the unremembered dream, which occurs before the first Potions
lesson (130). Percy says nothing about Snape's unfairness. So Ron,
too, is speaking of a teacher he hasn't yet met though, to be fair, he
does say that they can see if it's true. (Unfortunately, IMO, the
preconception is already in place. Harry might have reacted
differently to the class if Neville hadn't melted Seamus's cauldron
and if he hadn't already met Draco and if Hagrid hadn't told him that
Slytherin is the Dark wizard house or he hadn't felt the pain in his
scar when Snape looked at him--coincidence, of course).

Characters are always talking about other characters, knowledgably or
not, causing Harry to form preconceptions about everyone from Quirrell
(based on Hagrid's misinformation) to Fake!Moody (based on the real
Mad-Eye's reputation for eccentricity). Ron has preconceptions about
giants (valid in most cases) which shape Harry's and Hermione's
reactions to Grawp. His own preconceptions shape his initial reaction
when he finds out that Lupin is a werewolf. Harry's view of his father
is shaped by the fond recollections of Black, Lupin, McGonagall, etc.
(as opposed to Snape's equally valid recollections of James's
"arrogance").

True, Harry doesn't go around saying, "I've heard that So and So is
such and such," but that's only because he's in the WW, where he
hasn't heard of *anybody.* He does, however, talk about the Dursleys,
shaping F&G's view of them. (They justify their use of magic on
Dudley, a helpless Muggle two years younger than they are, because of
what Harry has told them. They don't wait to see his bullying firsthand.)

I guess you must be frequently annoyed in both the HP books and RL
because people *do* say bad things about people they've never met and
know only by reputation (George Bush, anyone?). And it's quite true
that Hagrid lives in a hut on the grounds and gets drunk rather
frequently. If Ron rather than Draco had told Harry the story of
Hagrid trying to do magic and setting his bed on fire, chances are,
Harry would have believed it, even after he'd met Hagrid.

Carol, who has never met any of the characters in the WW but forms
judgments about them, favorable or unfavorable, all the time