Sadism or not ? McGonagall and her punishments

[jkoney65]

No: HPFGUIDX 186706

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "sistermagpie" <sistermagpie at ...> wrote:
>
> > 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.
> 

jkoney:
I also saw the scene the same way that Shaun did. I also went to 12 years of school with a dress code and there were rules for hair and what you could or could not wear in your hair or on your body.

When I read the scene I think that the hairclip itself is ridiculous in some way. Not the fact that it is a hairclip but the design, coloring, or something else makes it ridiculous based upon school rules.

Yes, even at my school you could push the dress code and the teachers may not have cared all of the time, but when there was an event especially where visitors would be there you had to follow the letter of the rule.



> 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:
> snip>
> 
> 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. 

jkoney:
As far as we know there are no rules against a first year being on the quidditch team. There is a rule against first years bringing brooms. With no broom, I doubt very many first years tried out for the team.

While we don't know for sure, it would be logical to assume that if a first year made the quidditch team they would be allowed to have their own broom as an exception to the no first years with a broom rule.

> Magpie:

> 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. 
> 

jkoney:
Her remarks to Neville while harsh are grounded in the fact that someone had already got in to the tower and the list was from Neville. 

Don't write down the passwords is a very direct instruction. Neville disobeyed the instruction. The why he wrote it down isn't as important as the fact that a supposed mass murderer got into a dorm full of children.