Draco and Buckbeak

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 176916

> Random832:
> What most people on Draco's side in this thread are saying is: the 
fact that
> he's intelligent enough to be able to take Draco's words as an 
insult means
> he is morally obligated to have a certain degree of impulse control 
in his
> reactions to those words.
> 
> 
> Sherry:
> My experience with animals, 32 years working with guide dogs, a dog 
who is
> not only constantly with me, but dependent on me to direct, 
correct, praise
> and care for it, I can say that I never once thought Buckbeak 
reacted to
> Draco's mere *words*.  Animals respond to tone, to body language, 
things
> like that.  

Magpie:
That's adding things that aren't necessarily there, because I believe 
all we're told about what Malfoy is doing is that he's petting him. 
Your dog doesn't react to "insults" at all. S/he can only react to 
tone of voice and body language that come across as animal things--
dominance, aggression etc.--though s/he might recognize certain words 
s/he knows already. 

Buckbeak is actually supposed to react to *insults* because he is 
*proud*. That's absolutely not what you're describing. Buckbeak is 
acting on totally human-like emotions and understanding in the scene 
according to that warning--he's proud and you've insulted him. Not 
tone, not body language--more importantly, not provocation or threat. 
He's insulted because of his pride, which only humans can be. There's 
no indication at all that Draco's tone or body language is anything a 
real animal would have a problem with or not. And if it was, then his 
problem wouldn't be that he insulted him!

Now, that doesn't mean that I'm saying Draco is completely innocent 
because obviously he did the thing that had he listened he would know 
was the thing that would cause an attack. But I still see the same 
bait and switch in the animal's creation--he's doing something that 
implies higher thought but it's being called an instinct. It's like 
having an animal who attacks if you disagree with his opinions about 
art. It's taking a human behavior and pretending it can exist without 
human understanding of language. 

-m