Sadism or not ? McGonagall and her punishments

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 186700

> Shaun:
 
> ornament on a formal occasion.
> 
> As for Luna - some people seem to be under the impression that Luna is 
> always wearing something odd. Reading through the books, I don't think that 
> is the
> 
> case. We are told she is wearing her radish earrings (actually they are 
> dirgible plums, IIRC) on precisely one occasion that I can find. We are told 
> that she
> 
> is wearing a butterbeer cork necklace on only one occasion that I can find. 
> We are told she is wearing a set of Spectrespecs on only one occasion I can 
> find.

Magpie:
Nobody said she was always wearing something odd, we said that she was obviously allowed to wear little ornaments like her necklace and earrings--which are no more elaborate than Parvati wearing a hairclip.

You seem to be interpreting the scene by saying that if McGonagall told Parvati to take out her hair clip therefore there must be a rule against them that McGonagall is just following objectively. I see the scene as showing McGonagall's personal aversion. The hair regulations at whatever schools you have studied are not canon, and as two people have pointed out, there are of course examples of schools with strict uniform codes, even concerning hair, that allow butterfly clips.

Shaun: 
> And that's it. There's no real reason I can find to suppose that Luna 
> constantly goes around wearing odd things. She does so sometimes, but on 
> none of the
> 
> three occasions that are mentioned is it an unusually formal school 
> occasion, as it on the occasion we see Parvarti reprimanded. I'd also point 
> out that

Magpie:
I don't see why the fact that she doesn't always get described as wearing odd things negates what anybody's said. Luna's shown casually wearing ornamentation in class that's no less elaborate than a hair pin shaped like a butterfly so why would we think that was against the rules? We know it's not a formal school occasion. It's a reason for us to see that at least in everyday wear, this is fine. Hermione's bushy hair is also fine even on a formal occasion.

My point in reading the scene has nothing to do with rules at Hogwarts or other boarding schools. I'm just talking about how McGonagall is characterized. You say that you can't remember her ever breaking the rules. She is shown letting her personal desires to interfere with the rules, most blatantly when she swoops in after watching Harry flying around against the rules in his first flying lesson and instead of giving him detention she eagerly breaks another rule to get him on her Quidditch team. And lets him have a broom as a first year. One of the first times we get to know McGonagall we see her putting her desire to win at Quidditch above the rules even if it's unfair to other first years. 

I think she's consistently shown as more like Hermione--she in general thinks rules should be followed, but will break them when something more important to her comes up (whether something ethical like standing against Umbridge or something personal). More importantly for this discussion, which was originally about the feelings she's acting on, she has been known to let her emotions effect how she's punishing people. She makes personal remarks about Neville. She's angry and afraid about someone getting into the Tower and gives him a particularly humiliating punishment in response to it, not really caring if the constantly changing passwords probably insured that Neville wasn't even the only person writing them down. 

And in the scene with Parvati, she snaps about her having a "ridiculous" thing in her hair when she's nervously awaiting teachers with whom she has a rivalry (just as she has a rivalry in Quidditch). She doesn't tell her to take out the clip because it's not regulation, she snaps that it's ridiculous-looking as well. I took from the scene that she's annoyed that a girl is wearing a clip that indicates she's not a serious student but a girl hoping a boy from another school will notice her. That will make her school look bad. But whether or not she's got an actual rule here that she's enforcing (which she doesn't say she does), her insult is showing her emotions about it, imo. She's not saying the clip's not regulation so take it out: "Patil, you know no hair ornaments are allowed with dress uniforms" or even just "Patil, remove that hair clip." She's irritated by the sight of the clip and so tells Parvati it looks ridiculous. That doesn't read to me like McGonagall's following some textbook teaching method. It just seems like one of the many instances where we see what McGonagall is feeling and how she feels about the student by the way she deals with the student in front of her. It seems like the students pick up on this early on.

-m