Slyths, Gryffs, & Chivalry/Map/Doge/Alastor/Countercurses/NHN/Marietta/Hagrid

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 176897

Prep0strus wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/176617>:

<< '.... Those cunning folks use any means
To achieve their ends.'

This is the 'ambition' people speak of. but it's not just ambition.
'use any means to achieve their ends'. that goes way beyond
ambitious, and is unable to be interpreted any way bug negatively. >>

Would it scan to say 'use creative means'? Because, to me this is a
reference (albeit negative) to a Water characteristic that I called
'versatile' in my previous post. Water uses a lot of means to achieve
its goal of seeking the lowest level. It runs downhill until it
encounters an obstruction (a dam). It might overpower the obstruction
and carry it downhill along with the water. It might go around either
side of the obstruction and seek new channels, which then deepen by
use. It might, eventually, rise high enough to simply flow over the
top of the obstruction. It might wait patiently to be able to do one
of those things, and meanwhile it might leak into the ground and ooze
circuitously through allegedly solid Earth and reach the water table
and flow through dirt UNDER the bed of a western river or creek until
it is consumed by plant roots or emerges as a spring .... That's
without getting into ice. Because water expands as it freezes, simple
little ice in the soil can push boulders out to the surface, and
simple little ice in cracks can split boulders or concrete structures.

Of course, even if Crabbe 'n' Goyle's ambition was to be valued
servants of a leading Bad Guy, we haven't seen them trying diverse
methods to achieve that goal.

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/176619>:

<< Romilda Vane and Cormac McLaggen won't win any prizes for courage
or loyalty or any other virtue >>

Physical courage is one thing that the loathsome McLaggen doesn't
lack. I can easily imagine him dying heroically on a battlefield,
perhaps while trying to recover the body of a fellow soldier killed in
the previous combat round. If it were his book, the kind of courage he
would need to learn is strictly mental, the courage to say and mean:
"I was wrong. I'm sorry." If it were his book, the other thing he
would need to develop before the end is to value other people's input.
Even Lockhart valued their input enough to steal it!

As it is not his book, he is a thorough example of when Gryffindor
traits are bad, such as foolhardiness, recklessness, inconsideration
of other people, craving for fame. (Craving for fame is one of the
traditional knightly-chivalrous characteristics. A big ego was viewed
as a sign of a noble soul, a defect only for the lower classes, not a
defect in its own right.)

We don't know whether Romilda would volunteer for an almost-suicide
attack on the enemy, or whether she would leap in front of an AK aimed
at a child who is, for example, one of her students, rather than her
own child. She does have enough courage (of an admittedly crude,
McLaggen-like type) to have broken school rules and risked the
embarrassment (as well as detention) of being caught, when she sent
the Love Potion to Harry. Maybe she wanted Harry to be her escort just
for prestige, or maybe she had a crush on him because of his heroic
reputation that did not include having respect for his free will, but
neither proves that she is not utterly loyal to her friends, nor that
she won't truly love and value and be exasperated by the person she
eventually marries.

<< The one Slytherin we see from that early era, the Bloody Baron, was
motivated to commit a murder/suicide by unrequited love and spent the
next thousand years or so as a ghost wearing chains to symbolize his
repentance. >>

Behavior that does not seem all that cunning, and did not achieve his
goal. 

<< And what's interesting *to me* is that the Slytherins have their
virtues, love and courage for Snape and Regulus, family solidarity for
the Malfoys, loyalty for Phineas Nigellus, and a kind of genial coming
through in a pinch for Slughorn. >> 

The phrase 'Or perhaps in Slytherin,  you'll find your true friends'
right before the couplet that I quoted Prep0sterous quoting, makes me
think that solidarity with fellow Slytherins and serious loyalty and
love for close friends and family members are Slythie traits. That
would include all those examples except maybe Slughorn supporting his
fellow Hogwartians instead of his fellow Slytherins.

Zgirnius wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/176622>: 

<< I think she meant it as a stand-in for, basically, violence/the use
of force, in real life. It is the jinxes, hexes, and curses that we
constantly see witches and wizards of every stripe use in combat.
Good wizards who use Dark Arts are like good Muggles who use violence
reluctantly, tend to choose limited force when this is feasible, and
use it only under special circumstances. >>

But the knightly-chivalric noble soul yearns for violence and combat,
in tournaments (which IIRC had a higher death rate than American
football) and duels if wars and quests aren't available. 

Sali wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/176625>:

<< Of course, this then raises the question of how Fred and George
worked out how to activate it correctly. I could explain it away but I
suspecting it was just something else that wasn't thought through. >>

We've been always wondering what Arithmancy is. Some say it is
Numerology, because that is what Muggle dictionaries say, probably
because 'mancy' means divination, but you can't always tell what a
word means from its etymology. Others have suggested it is
mathematics. Perhaps all are wrong and it is a set of structured
methods for finding out the spell that is on an object. Then Bill
would use it on cursed objects to find out how to dismiss the spell on
them and the Twins used it on the Map to find out how to use it.

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/176703>:

<< I was surprised at the nicknames Rita uses for Doge ("Dodgy" and
"Dogbreath") because "doge" (related to "duke" and derived from "duc,"
Latin for "leader") is pronounced with a long "o." >>

Was the Doge of Venice Dohdjz or Doh-Gay? Or Doh-Jay? I've always
assumed the first.

Dahdgey Dohdge is sufficiently alliterative, better than Dahdgey
Doh-gay. Dawgsbreath is a little off with Dohdge or Doh-gay, but the
Brit I knew best didn't pronounce 'aw' in dog. Maybe Doge as a
wizarding surname is pronounced differently from the Doge of Venice.
If it were pronounced 'doggy' would that work better for you?

<< According to Shelley's friend Peacock, "Alastor" means "an evil
genius" (in the sense of evil spirit) or avenging daimon (attendant
spirit). Should have been a bad guy with that name. >>

Back when we were discussing GoF, I read web pages that phrased this
information about 'alastor' differently. One said that an alastor is a
male nemesis, both named after gods, Alastor and Nemesis. That struck
me as a fine reason for JKR to give that name to a stubborn Auror. 

It occurs to me now that some of the other things on those pages then
are also relevant. One spoke of an alastor being the personification
of the skeleton in the closet that curses an entire family lineage --
and a secret fondness for the Imperius Curse is what cursed the last
two generations of the Crouch family.

And IIRC there was something about an alastor pursuing a person
represents the person is suffering from schizophrenia hallucinations
-- not TOO far different from Real!Moody's paranoia.

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/176730>:

<< (as for "counterjinxes," what the heck are they?) >>

I believe that counterjinxes are the same as countercurses.

Wilbert Slinkhard was simply *factually wrong* when he wrote that
"'counterjinx' is just a name that people give their jinxes when they
want to make them sound more acceptable." In Potterverse, a
countercurse/counterjinx is NOT a curse/jinx; it is a only a defense
against a curse/jinx.

One that comes immediately to mind is Fake!Moody teaching the about
the Killing Curse (Avada Kedavra): "Not nice," he said calmly. "Not
pleasant. And there's no counter-curse. There's no blocking
it. Only one known person has ever survived it, and he's sitting
right in front of me."

Also in GoF, we have Hermione helping Harry prepare for the Third
Task: "He was still having trouble with the Shield Charm, though. This
was supposed to cast a temporary, invisible wall around himself that
deflected minor curses; Hermione managed to shatter it with a well
placed Jelly-Legs Jinx. Harry wobbled around the room for ten minutes
afterwards before she had looked up the counter-jinx."

PS/SS: "At that moment Neville toppled into the common room. How he
had managed to climb through the portrait hole was anyone's guess,
because his legs had been stuck together with what they recognized at
once as the Leg-Locker Curse. He must have had to bunny hop all the
way up to Gryffindor tower.

Everyone fell over laughing except Hermione, who leapt up and
performed the countercurse. Neville's legs sprang apart and he got to
his feet, trembling."

And Quirrelmort's confession: ""No, no, no. I tried to kill you. Your
friend Miss Granger accidentally knocked me over as she rushed to set
fire to Snape at that Quidditch match. She broke my eye contact with
you. Another few seconds and I'd have got you off that broom. I'd have
managed it before then if Snape hadn't been muttering a countercurse,
trying to save you."

In the latter three examples, the counter-curse removes the effects of
its specific curse (Jelly-Legs Jinx, Leg-Locker Curse, broomstick
curse). The broomstick example shows Snape's counter-curse can remove
the effects of Quirrelmort's curse while that curse is still being
cast. Presumably if the counter-curse was cast powerfully enough and
fast enough, it could remove the effects of the curse before they even
occured, thus serving to *block* the curse entirely. So Fake!Moody's
"no counter-curse, no way to block it" would be repetition for
emphasis.

Lizzyben wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/176797>:

<< And [Nick] was so sorry, and cried, and tried to correct the spell,
but he was still put to death. And we think wizarding justice is bad
*now? Jeez. >>

I thought it was the Muggles who beheaded him, as it was a Muggle
whose teeth he messed. This was before the Statute of Secrecy;The
Statue of Secrecy was 1692, according to Lexicon time-line. To me, Sir
Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington was hanging out at the Muggle royal court
with Muggles who knew he could do magic and requested some. 

I think it was Elilzabeth I's court, because he wears an Elizabethan
starched ruff. That doesn't go with 1492, but it does go with 1592 and
a 400th deathday party. 

Eggplant wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/176829>:

<< And right after that Marietta would have walked straight to Umbrage
and told her everything. >>

I don't think there was anything Marietta could have told Umbridge
about DA right after the Hog's Head meeting that Umbridge didn't learn
from Wally Widdershins anyway.

Magpie wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/176845>:

<< No responsibilty for Hagrid at all (no surprise--this is the guy
who sternly gives kids detention for saving his own a**). >>

The only time I remember that kids got detention for saving Hagrid's
bacon, it was not Hagrid who gave them detention. McGonagall gave them
detention for being dashing all over the castle after curfew. She
didn't believe that Harry was taking a dragon to the Astronomy tower;
instead she thought it was a tale that Harry had put around to lure
Malfoy out of bed to get caught and punished but that caught Neville
as well. I don't know why she thought Harry and Hermione were out
after curfew in that case.

It is entirely possible that Hagrid felt guilty about Harry and
Hermione and Neville getting detention for his sake, and tried to make
it better by arranging for them to have a *pleasant* (in his opinion)
detention. Altho' he couldn't have believed it would be pleasant for
Neville to be teamed with Draco.

What if McGonagall had known the real story, what if Hagrid had rushed
in saying: "Don't give them detention, they were doing it for me!"? I
think McGonagall would have given them detention anyway, because they
WERE out of the House after curfew without a written pass from a
teacher. But part of that is to not back down: if she had known the
real story from the beginning, perhaps she would share their
soft-heartedness about Hagrid and not give them detention, saying it
was because they had verbal permission from a teacher, Professor
Hagrid, to be out after curfew.

I don't think McGonagall would turn Hagrid in to whoever enforces the
law against dragon-keeping; at most, she would have told Dumbledore,
who might have already known.

But if Hagrid had rushed in to confess to save H&H from a detention,
H&H would have been very irritated at Hagrid sacrificing his secrecy
that they had sacrificed to protect.