Which Harry Potter character you would have wanted to bring home

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 185986

> > Magpie:
> > Only if by "standing up to bullies" you mean insulting or hexing 
> people 
> > who have said something you don't like. 
> 
> Potioncat:
> Ginny and Hermione are real witches aren't they? Hexing, cursing, and 
> retaliating against anyone who crosses them. I'm not sure how much of 
> their character is "standard drama" of teenaged girls-with-a-wand and 
> how much is standard folklore-based witch.

Ceridwen:

This is shifting the discussion.  This particular quotation is about
standing up to bullies.  Hexing, cursing and retaliating against
someone who crosses them is not all "standing up to bullies."  Someone
saying something you don't like is not bullying.  Standing up to
bullying is the issue, not hexing.  Standing up to bullying is the
subject.  Hexing is one method to do so.  Hexing is also a method to
intimidate people who say something you don't like.  Simply because
the person says something you don't like and you hex them, the fact
that you hexed them does not prove they bullied you.  It does mean you
hexed them for a different reason than you hexed the person who
bullied you.  I would even suggest that witches (and wizards) hex
people who neither bully nor say things they don't like.  In other
words, hexing can be used by bullies as well as against them.

Witches (and wizards) hex people.  Not all the people they hex are
bullies.  Sometimes the use of the hex shows annoyance.  Sometimes the
use of the hex shows that the hex-caster is a bully.  Muggles of
either sex do not hex.  They are incapable of hexing.  They can stand
up to bullies, show annoyance, and bully, without hexing.  So can
witches (and wizards).  So both magical and Muggle can stand up to
bullies, show annoyance, and bully without using hexes.  Only witches
(and wizards) can use magic in the form of hexes to stand up to
bullies, show annoyance, and bully.  Since they can use hexes for at
least three different things, then the fact of their using hexes does
not necessarily mean that they used a hex against a bully when they
used a hex.  Ginny hexing Zacharias Smith because he asked her a
question is not standing up to a bully.  It is either showing
annoyance or it is intimidation, a form of bullying.

Ceridwen.