Buckbeak and Draco/ Intelligent animals in phantasy and fairy tales

[dumbledore11214]

No: HPFGUIDX 176920

> 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.
><SNIP>


Alla:

I understand, I just disagree. Although there is a really wonderful 
post in the recommended posts about Draco doing what he did to 
Buckbeak as sentinent being, highly recommend it.

Buckbeak is an intelligent **magical** animal, I disagree that his 
intelligence is nearly as high or even close as to consider him to 
be **humanised**. His instinct is to attack those who insult him. 
That means that he is human - like and has to take responsibility 
for what he did?

There are plenty of magical creatures in Potterverse and mythology 
who show the intelligent behavior, in a sense their magical quirks, 
no?

Phoenix sings for pure of heart, doesn't it? Soooo, if he suddenly 
decides to **attack** somebody who is not pure of heart, does it 
mean that phoenix should be held responsible for that?

Sphinx is dangerous for those who want to take a treasure sphinx is 
guarding, so if sphinx attacks them, sphinx is responsible as human 
now?

Hmmm, Unicorns were brought before, but I will just say again, since 
I think it is a great example. What if they decide to attack 
somebody who wants to catch them, because that somebody is not a 
virgin?

Um, bad unicorn, but still not human like at all to me - animal 
acting because of instinct IMO.


Now, I certainly saw the humanised animals in fairy tales. Like when 
in russian fairy tales supremely intelligent wolf or stallion helps 
the hero on the quest to save the girl from captivity or get the 
resurrection apples, or something like that.

Sure, absolutely, those animals act and think like humans in 
animal's skin. They tell hero what to do, how to act, save him 
because he saved their life and do it because they chose to do so.

I do not see Buckbeak doing anything like that. I see him acting per 
his instinct _ **magical instinct** to be sure, but instinct 
nevertheless.

JMO,

Alla