Prettyveela's Poll - long!

[sistermagpie]

prettyveela has put up a poll here asking people to pick a side in various HP canon conflicts. As usual I have trouble actually picking a side, but I did eventually vote in all of them. What I keep thinking about after doing it, though, is not which side I chose but exactly why I picked one or the other. All the situations are so different that although it seems like it should be easy to come up with rules for all of them, that's not what happened. Reading the comments it wasn't usual to for instance, see two situations judged in ways that seemed completely opposite (I do it too). In situation A X acted with malice but Y was really stupid! So Y is at fault. But in situation B Y was stupid but X acted with malice. So X is at fault.



You can see the canon quotations for each conflict in the original post, so I'll just name it by incident. I seem to have the most to say about Percy and Arthur.

Arthur vs. Percy
I've always been totally with Percy on this one even though it's a fight and probably both say things they don't mean. Part of it is probably that I don't see any reason Percy couldn't have been promoted on his own merits (at least he deserved to be) while I see truth in some of the criticisms Percy has for Arthur. But probably it's more that I feel like there's more at stake for Percy in the scene, and that it's more painful for him to be yet again dismissed as foolish while Arthur should be able to deal with Percy's criticism. But of course not actually reading the fight it’s hard to how it went down.

Maybe beyond that there's something satisfying to me in Percy challenging the Happy Weasley Family myth. Not that I think they're a hotbed of discontent, but especially in GoF I feel like there is real hostility directed towards Percy and it's just unspoken. The Twins always have their jokes as an easy cover for aggression--any questions of why they always go after Percy because he doesn't think it's funny just show one doesn't have a sense of humor. Arthur, too, is in a comfortable position. I don't think he likes Percy much. He loves him, of course, as his son, but I think he possible doesn't care for him much personality-wise. But it's easy for him to just brush him off and laugh when the Twins joke with him instead of really dealing with him.

I don't mean to paint Percy as some big-eyed toddler pulling on Arthur's coattails for attention and getting ignored. I just mean...well, Percy is the son who followed in Arthur's footsteps and he does seem to want to be able to bond with him as one Ministry Official to another. I think Percy probably really is disturbed by the way Arthur works, and Arthur doesn't appreciate that judgment. But maybe even more than that again I like Percy being a squeaky wheel in the family. Arthur's got 7 kids and 6 of them seem to do nothing but bring glory to his name. Sure there are moments where they misbehave, like the one time he yells at the twins for Mugglebaiting. But in general the family all agrees with Molly's view that Arthur is very talented and is only held back by prejudice, they don't complain about being short of money much, understanding that it would hurt their parents (though they may be focused on making it themselves). Harry fits in completely here, since that's a natural way to show affection for him too.

So Arthur seems like he's generally very proud and pleased with all his kids. He's really only got one child with whom there's a problem (personally as well as politically), and he doesn't handle it well. I'd say the way he deals with Percy goes along with his basic personality--he's a bit passive, doesn't much like that kind of conflict. When Percy challenges him openly (and while I hate to use "all teenagers are like that!" as an excuse for anything because it's not, many parents have faced similar outbursts from kids, and worse) Arthur's just as stubborn. Of course there’s the political stuff too, but I can’t help think the way of dealing with the politics has more to do with the personalities.

I can't help but feel like that fight is less about what's going on in the moment than years of building resentment which, imo, Percy is far more aware of than Arthur, who would have preferred to keep telling himself he had no problems with Percy. So given Arthur's mostly smooth-sailing experience as a parent yeah, I think he could make the effort. Percy's brought the anger of the entire family but Molly down on his head, something I think he did knowingly, but still I think he knows it's 7 against 1 for him (as Percy may have felt it's been for a long time). So yeah, if Arthur wants to be such a great dad he can actually reach out to a son with whom he has a painful, troubled relationship. That's part of parenting too. And I think I get some satisfaction out of Percy blowing the lid off the whole thing.

Snape vs. MWPP in the Pensieve
Pretty much everything that happens in the scene happens because James makes it happen, and all of Snape's reactions are fairly predictable.

Hermione vs. Umbridge-the Centaurs
As bizarre (but in character) as it is for Hermione to in retrospect treat this like all she did was make Umbridge look bad at her job, and despite Hermione's strange (but also totally in character) decision to walk past a roomful of people who could help them with Umbridge in favor of her more elaborate Centaur plan, I still go with Umbridge on this one. Hermione is acting defensively in improvising her plan, and once they meet the Centaurs Umbridge provokes them on her own. Hermione might have foreseen that Umbridge would do that, but it's definitely a situation where Umbridge had the ability to see a reason to keep her mouth shut and chose not to do so.

Of course this doesn't leave out Hermione's culpability for her own problems in the scene, for which she is responsible for deciding to use the Centaurs as a goon squad. And she puts herself in that situation partly by overreaching and needing to go for the fabulous secret Hermione plan, which goes beyond being desperate to help Harry.

Ginny and Ron's fight in HBP
This one doesn't really feel like anything about blame, it's just a fight between a brother and sister. Which Ron starts so he's responsible for that, but I think Ginny's response is OTT and comes from her own issues, not his. It's interesting to me sometimes that Ron is faulted mostly for almost calling Ginny a slut as opposed to Ron almost using the word slut. He claims he's worried that other people will call her...something he himself doesn't say. He seems to be voicing the common attitude in the Weasley house to me (we've already gotten Molly's "Scarlet Woman" comment, and the twins, too, offer judgments on how many boyfriends are too many). Just in general when I read the scene I felt like Ginny's anger came out of someplace else or was just too much. So while Ron gets responsibility for speaking up to begin with, Ginny's escalation seems to be more her own thing than something Ron couldn't help but provoke.

Sirius vs. Snape-The Prank
This is one where Snape seems to be getting some points for being stupid and for trying to get MWPP in trouble. To me it's more like the first MWPP scene. Sirius sets things in motion to happen exactly the way they do (save for Snape being saved). I don't think the werewolf was a foreseeable consequence for Snape in taking the bait. There are certain limits within which students expect to operate, and Sirius' deciding to make the thing deadly is all his own. Snape could have been expecting something, just not that. Also, on the "Snape is stupid" side, we probably have to see exactly how this was done to see how stupid it was. As people have pointed out, Snape knows Sirius means him no good, so why listen to him? Sirius must have taken that into account when placing the bait.

Harry vs. Draco - Sectumsempra
I love that this one's neck and neck. It's what makes it a cool scene. Draco starts the fight and escalates it with Crucio, though for once Draco's starting the fight is understandable even to Harry, so for once Harry isn't actually angry at Malfoy when he's fighting him. It's Draco who's desperate and emotional in the fight, not Harry. I know a lot of people think Crucio makes it Draco's fault, full stop, and there's been some interesting discussions about which is worse, Crucio or Sectumsempra. ( I can't help but feel that Crucio thrown by teenaged boys (Harry or Draco) isn't the same as the one thrown by Bellatrix. It's a spell where you want to throw your pain at someone else and make them hurt. Draco's not in a sadistic slow torture state of mind in the bathroom any more than Harry is at the end of OotP.) So while Draco still escalates the fight in using it and so causes Harry to reach for the spell he does, I don't think it explains away Sectumsempra completely.

I guess because the Sectumsempra comes not out of just that moment in the fight but the whole HBP storyline. Harry's been wanting to use it, he knows the Prince's spells always offer just what they promise, only better. This is why I don't agree with the defense that as far as Harry knew the spell might have been another toenail grower--Harry knows the Prince and goes to the spell because in a moment of desperation he trusts him to end the fight for him by taking care of his enemy. If there was any true thought in his mind that the spell wasn’t incapacitating why use it to stop a Crucio? The results of Sectumsempra are so surprising to everyone involved I can't see it as a predictable result of Draco starting the fight. It's imo intentionally different in that way from the train hexings and beat down in OotP. So while Draco starts the fight, Harry's decision to reach for Sectumsempra was all his own.

Sirius' Death - Dumbledore, Bellatrix, Harry or Sirius?
There's a lot of things that get everyone where they are in that scene, but I don't feel like there's any reason to go back any further than two people facing off with one killing the other. This is another malice vs. stupid one. Yes, Sirius was arrogant, but Bellatrix did what she meant to do and it worked. The actions of other people like Kreacher, Harry and Dumbledore may have been part of getting them to that place, but there were plenty of chances to go a different way even with them. With Percy and Arthur the fight seems to actually be about the past, so it's more relevant.

Phew! So that's all of them--I don't know if there's a pattern. The first one seems like I'm just emotionally leading towards one more than the other, with maybe a side of seeing Arthur has having always had more power in his house and having more responsibility as the father. Most of the others are mostly thinking about which person took actions in order to reach the outcome that happened and whether the results were predictable enough that I thought they should have been considered by everyone involved. And then there's the Ron/Ginny fight, where it's more emotional again, figuring out what's really motivating the different characters and what results they are trying for with what they say. Also remembering how many other options the person ignored in order to go for the thing they chose. For instance, saying that Hermione or Harry had to do something in their scenes is not necessarily justification for whatever they did.

Conclusion: it's hard to place blame in verbal fights, even if you side more with one side of the argument or think one person's meaner than the other.

Comments

Re: Too long!

[kerosinkanister.livejournal.com]

I agree with all of yours except Ron/Ginny and Sirius's death (I picked Harry).

See, here is where my emotional reaction trumped my intellectual one. I want to blame Ginny, because Ron's reaction at least indicates affection and concern on some level. However, I would be outraged if my brother interrupted me simply kissing my boyfriend and freaked out and seemed to be about to call me names. I might even blow my top and say inappropriately horrible things.

For me it was the opposite and I clicked blame Ginny. I think he was out of line because it wasn't his business, especially not to discuss in front of others. But my emotional reaction was Ginny was hit was too harsh. And Hermione is really the third party to all of this, even though she wasn't present. Ron probably felt somewhat betrayed and extremely foolish, especially since Ginny and even Harry seemed to know more about her and Krum than he did.

Anyway, it's late and I'm getting off-topic!

Re: Too long!

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

The whole 'Ginny blabbing about the Krum/Hermione kiss' kind of shows how her character has gradually become more dislikeable, imho. In GoF, she won't reveal who Hermione is dating, even though she knows, because it's Hermione's business. (Mind you, in CoS, she told Percy's secret by the end, so maybe she's always been prone to gossiping.)
By HBP, her loyalty appears to be to Harry as a would-be boyfriend rather than Hermione as her closest friend (as far as we know), not just by telling Hermione's business to Ron (which is understandable, since she's emotional at that point, but not terribly nice.) but by putting Hermione in her place and insulting her personally when she thinks Hermione may be questioning Harry's right to flay whoever he wants.

Re: Too long!

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

That scene was the one where I decided that Ginny was the worst possible love interest for Harry. I have no interest in relationships where I think they are going to bring out each other's most awful sides. Descending to childish invective when Hermione is rightly pointing out that flaying someone is uh, not cool?

I had to banish fevered thoughts of Hermione scribbling 'BITCH' over Ginny's face by reminding myself that Ginny has (uh, aside from the Dark Lord possession) been sheltered and is immature, scared for Harry to whom she has an unhealthy attachment, and hoping that had she actually seen the evisceration she would have been horrified. Oh Ginny. I try so hard, Ginny.

Re: Too long!

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

I love that icon, btw!

Well, being this series (even Snape's not annoyed over the near killing, just that Harry's cheating and lying), Hermione's worry seems to be that Harry's now in trouble (yeah, those detentions were really unjust) and anyway, he beat her in Potions! rather than that he came so close to taking a human life and doesn't even seem to feel bad about that on any level than a self-centred one.

I do, however, fanwank that when Hermione says 'Look what it's done to your chances for Quidditch' that Ginny's pissed off at the implication the team can't win with her as Seeker instead of Harry. Just because it's a reaction independent of her crush on him, which seems to be the root of all her characterisation.

Re: Too long!

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

See, I can never believe in Ginny being into Quidditch, either, given the fact that she fell asleep during Quidditch talks in GoF and in PoA does not try out despite the fact that Oliver Wood is desperately scouring the kitchens for house elves who won't faint when the Dementors come round. So unfortunately I read her Quidditch enthusiasm as another way of bagging the boy who lived, and avert my eyes from it in some pain.

As for Snape and Hermione - well, I was just pleased to see some people telling Harry it decidedly wasn't OK, and fanwank that since Harry must realise the level of this uncoolness in book 7, JKR did not want to make him realise in book 6. However, had people actually said to him 'DO YOU REALISE YOU ALMOST KILLED SOMEBODY? KILLED, WITH DEATH?' and he'd said 'Yeah, but it was only Malfoy' he would've looked like a sociopath. Hence the fact they're ... all... avoiding the killing subject because... they none of them want to face it... killing, so horrible... tears your soul. That's it. Really.

Thanks, slytherincess gave it me. I need to give more love to the girls.

Re: Too long!

[slinkhard.livejournal.com]

Is it from the movie, or a model? (The lighting looks different. Bravo slytherincess, either way!)

Yeah, I hope Book Seven is going to deal with it in someway, but I guess Book Six being a bridge to it means we're left on the cliffhanger of 'Is Harry and everyone else around him a sociopath?' in the meantime.
(Mind you, B7 has a lot of characters to alter if every instance of a good guy being remorseless about going too far is going to be addressed...
It'll be probably be fatter than all the others put together!)

Re: Too long!

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

A general sort of 'actually, other people are human and should be treated as such' with instances of Draco actually learning that Harry was not intentionally a stone cold killah and Marietta's face getting healed would do me. See how reasonable I am, JKR? Come on!