CHAPTER DISCUSSION: PS/SS 15, The Forbidden Forest

[Catlady (Rita Prince]

No: HPFGUIDX 188615

Potioncat discussed PS/SS Chapter 15 in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/188603>:

<< Harry and Draco witness a hooded figure drinking unicorn blood. Draco screams and runs away. The figure looks up at Harry, then comes toward him. Harry cannot move for fear >>

Some people have claimed that this shows that Harry is brave because he didn't run away, but I believe the text shows that it wasn't courage that prevented Harry from running away. 

I admit that Draco is cowardly in this chapter, but I think that running away should not be too strongly stigmatized, or we'll get people who refuse to evacuate from a house on fire because they're too proud to run away from danger.

<< 1) McGonagall is very angry. Is her anger justified? Do you think she recalls a similar situation between James and Severus? >>

She said: "Four students out of bed in one night! I've never heard of such a thing before!" Some of her statements in later volumes indicate that "I've never heard of such a thing before!" is just a phrase she uses, not a statement of fact, not even an exaggerated statement of fact for some that occurs only rarely. 

She said "especially these days, it's very dangerous." I don't think she knows that Voldemort is on the campus, so I don't think she has any particular reason to believe that it's more dangerous now than usual.

In general, I'm inclined to think that she gets this angry and says almost exactly the same things approximately once per school year, when Gryffindors are caught out after midnight. Later volumnes don't mention other Gryffindors being harassed for losing points for curfew violation, but they probably lost only 50, not 50 each, because they didn't protest it in front of a student from a different House.

<< 3) What do you think of Hagrid's attitude about the punishment? 4) What do you think of this punishment? How does it compare to the punishment Headmaster Snape will give in DH? >>

Hagrid of course knows this is his fault: the reason his young friends are being punished is because they helped him. (It occurs to me that this is an example of vicarious punishment, so Christian literary analysis would view it as a very dim echo of Christ's sacrifice for humankind, which would make it a faint foreshadowing of Harry's sacrifice that is a much louder echo of Christ's sacrifice, and thus add some value to it being Hagrid who carries Harry's dead body into the clearing, which in turn might provide some speck of value to Hagrid being called Keeper of the Keys.)

Hagrid certainly can't explain this situation to McGonagall to ask her to go easy on them; first, it would throw away what they had given him by their sacrifice (i.e. throw away his secrecy), and second, it would get them MORE not LESS punishment, because it would add breaking a wizarding law to their offenses.

So he intended to get them out of the detention part of their punishment and instead thank them with a treat, to save them from having to scrub bedpans without magic or whatever by instead taking them on a nice outing to the Forbidden Forest. But he hadn't expected to get Draco as well as the Gryffindors. It seems that Hagrid dislikes Draco as much as Draco despises him.

"I'm not going in that forest", [Malfoy] said, and Harry was pleased to hear the note of panic in his voice.

"Yeh are if yeh want ter stay at Hogwarts," said Hagrid fiercely. "Yeh've done wrong an' now yeh've got ter pay fer it."

"But this is servant stuff, it's not for students to do. I thought we'd be copying lines or something, if my father knew I was doing this, he'd --"

"-- tell yer that's how it is at Hogwarts," Hagrid growled. "Copyin' lines! What good's that ter anyone? Yeh'll do summat useful or yeh'll get out. If yeh think yer father'd rather you were expelled, then get back off ter the castle and pack."

For a long time I took that dialog as fact, and believed that at Hogwarts, all detentions were spent doing chores. When Umbridge assigned lines in Book 5, she was not Hogwarts and they were not normal lines. Then in Book 6 we had students assigned to do lines for detention all over the place!