Dark Book

[Carol]

No: HPFGUIDX 177104

lizzyben wrote: 
> 
> I can maybe offer one answer. In that scene, JKR wasn't interested 
> in examining the roots of mob violence, the dangers of scapegoating, 
> the need to balance security & protection for all the students.
> 
> No, that scene was all about proving & *ranking* the virtue of each 
> of the Houses. JKR doesn't care about math, but she wrote that scene 
> w/mathematical precision - First, we are told in *exactly* which 
> order each House raised their wands, then, exactly which order the 
> Houses evacuated Hogwarts, finally, the exact ratio of 
> students that stayed behind from each House to fight the Death 
> Eaters.  And unlike most of the math, these 
> ratios & ranking are actually consistent: Slytherin are scum, 
> Ravenclaws are sketchy (too independent), Hufflepuffs are loyal (but 
> still duffers), and Gryffindors are the BEST, the Elect, the most 
> noble & virtuous House. 
<snip>
> 
> The soul scores are in:
<snip>
> HOGWARTS LEAVING - "Thank you, Miss Parkinson." said Professor 
> McGonagall in a clipped voice.  "You will leave the Hall first with 
> Mr. Filch.  If the rest of your House could follow." 
>  Harry heard the grinding of the benches and then the sound of the 
> Slytherins trooping out on the other side of the Hall.
>  "Ravenclaws, follow on!" cried Professor McGonagall. 
>  Slowly the four tables emptied."
> 
> - Slytherins leave first, then Ravenclaws, then Hufflepuffs, then 
> Gryffindors. Leaving the battle is a bad thing, so can judge the 
> Houses by the Order in which they abandon Hogwarts. We can also tell 
> which Houses McGonegal doesn't like (Slyths, Ravenclaws), which is 
> another reliable marker of their lack of virtue. <snip>

Carol responds:

A technicality here. We're told more than once that the Gryffindor
table is farthest from the doors of the Great Hall and the Slytherin
table is the closest. The Hufflepuff table is next to the Gryffindor
table, which would place the Ravenclaw table between the Slytherin and
Hufflepuff tables, or second closest to the doors. 

Whatever McGonagall's faults in this scene (and I am *not* convinced
that she handled it as well as possible--she *does* imply that
Slytherins are all Voldemort loyalists who will follow Pansy's lead,
but possibly she's just averting violence, as others have succested),
she is evacuating the tables in the order of their closeness to the
door: Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor. It has nothing to
do with the relative virtue of the houses.

And, of course, the younger students from all four Houses are being
evacuated in any case, regardless of whether they stood up at pointed
their wands.

What disturbs me in this scene is that the wands are not pointed at
Pansy, which I could understand if not appreciate, but at Slytherin in
general. No one is seeing the Slytherins as individuals capable of
independent choice, and had any of them stood up, they'd have been
regarded as traitors by their own House. If any had remained behind to
fight, the other students and McGonagall would have assumed that they
intended to fight for Voldemort.

She was right to order Pansy to leave, but she ought to have told the
students to sit down and offered the Houses a chance to unite against
Voldemort rather than assuming the worst of the Slytherins. Then she
should have evacuated the younger students by table, allowing any
older students, including Slytherins who openly declared their loyalty
to Hogwarts, to remain behind. 

Unfortunately, once the other students had pointed their wands at
Slytherin as a House, the chances that any of them would want to stay
with a group of students and an interim headmistress who regarded them
as enemies were almost nil.

Carol, who dislikes McGonagall's conduct from the comment about the
"gallant" Crucio almost to the end of the book