Hagrid and Draco

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 168720

> 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:
For me Hagrid's animal stuff comes across as too shallow and 
manipulated to mean anything to me. I mean, he's not really dealing 
with real animals, but creatures anthropomorphized to slightly 
different degrees. His constantly seeking out of more and more 
dangerous ones for his collection doesn't bother me, but it also 
doesn't translate into a particularly big heart or love for other 
living creatures, really, given the way it's presented. It's just 
too egocentric for it to be any more admirable as a personality 
trait than to me, say, Harry's being a naturally good flyer.  

I guess that also goes back to what I find so disturbing about this 
whole part of PoA, which keeps it from being a favorite of mine 
despite loving the Sirius Black story. It seems part of a pattern 
when it comes to the way the Slytherins are seen and treated for me. 
One I'm not sure isn't intentional, given the nature of Snape's 
grudge and the reaction to it from others. I don't know...I just 
really don't like it or Buckbeak, which I can't even really think of 
as an animal. Sometimes I think this story makes me feel like Snape 
might have felt about MWPP, or everything they represented, like 
there's something rancid underneath the surface.

Carol:

> 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 

Magpie:
I find that passage funny.:-) The first part, I mean, where Harry 
angrily says he's the groundskeeper and Draco says, "Exactly." 
Because a groundskeeper's a servant--so he was correct. I'm sure 
people are constantly buzzing about Harry and what they've heard 
about how he defeated the Dark Lord etc. Both Draco and Ron are 
reporting stuff that's based on truth, but which can't be verified 
without actually waiting and seeing. 

Sherry:
So, yeah, as an adult, I do like Hagrid. I feel for him. He is 
simple and childlike in many ways. I always thought it was because 
society had never taught him to hide his emotions or to "act like an 
adult". There are many flaws to Hagrid's character, but the fact 
that he cries over his pets and needs the help of children is hardly 
one of them in my opinion. 

Magpie:
I don't think crying over a pet is a bad thing in an adult either, 
though I don't consider Hagrid usually childlike in a very positive 
sense. It seems like Harry himself recognizes that he's very 
manipulative. I guess I just see a lot of his limitations as 
conveniently self-serving. He can be rather clever when he's going 
after something he wants. 

I guess it's because of his childlike persona that he bothers me 
when he's given adult jobs and still gets given the privileged child 
position. I have no patience with Hagrid's job performance being 
blamed on a run-of-the-mill challenge of the job itself. I don't 
mind him getting a chance to develop skills on the job, but it still 
all comes down to him, imo. The problems he has at work all come 
directly from the way he is outside of work and the students seem to 
see that. Needing the help of children doesn't have to be a bad 
thing. But I think using or needing the help of children to do your 
job or get yourself out of trouble indicates something a little 
different. Which again, is fine, if it's acknowledged and 
consistent. I don't think it always is with Hagrid. 

Betsy Hp:
Hee! And see, that was one of Draco's faux pas that I *totally*
related to. When I was around ten or eleven or so I once tried to
impress an older girl by saying that a certain boy looked like a cow
(it seemed very witty to me at the time). Unfortunately for me, he
was her brother.  

Magpie:
LOL! Oh. Yeah, that's a hard one to recover from.

-m