GOF Chapter 3: The Invitation

[oryx_leucoryx]

This is the obligatory Dursley chapter, in which we are treated to the home life of this family and learn how inferior they are to wizard families.

Dudley takes up a whole side of the square kitchen table. Ahem, I doubt a square kitchen table (as opposed to a dining room table) was designed to seat 8 people, 2 on a side. His parents excuse away his teachers' accusations of bullying. As opposed to the Weasleys who never receive reports making such heinous accusations against the twins (we'll see the school does occasionally owl their parents, but I don't see any awareness that some of what the twins do is bullying behavior). (This starts the theme of parents dealing with wayward sons in this book.) Dudley is forced into a diet of fruit and vegetables rather than his favorites. From the descriptions we get of the food Harry eats at Hogwarts I get the feeling Harry's favorites are closer to Dudley's than to the health foods, nor does he limit his intake. But somehow Harry remains thin, regardless of whether he gets starved by Petunia or stuffed by Molly or the House-elves.

Changing the food choices of the entire family is a good thing! However adjusting Harry's serving size to Dudley's (perceived?) emotional needs isn't. I don't begrudge Harry for working around a diet he doesn't need, but then I also sympathize with Dudley who does. Changing eating habits of years is hard.
This is also the place to say Dudley must have grown up as an emotional wreck. Knowing that his parents were capable of such physical and emotional deprivation of someone in their care - what if he ever failed to please them? I think a big part of his misbehavior is both making sure his parents know he *isn't* Harry as well as wanting the reassurance that they still love him, no matter what anyone else thinks.

Of Harry's 4 sources of help only one sends food he appreciates. Odd that even Hagrid managed to send an edible birthday cake. But how edible is it (or any of the others) 3 weeks later?

Harry is surprised that the Weasleys wrote directly to the Dursleys. Vernon is embarrassed that they didn't know how many stamps to use. But really, how hard is it to find out? Didn't they go to the post office to buy the stamps? What does it say about the exchange rate between Galleons and pounds that a family so poor finds it reasonable to spend on so many stamps for one letter? Molly's letter sounds as if she is trying too hard to make the Quidditch World Cup sound special and to make Arthur sound important. And of course she doesn't have enough imagination to realize that sending a letter by owl isn't normal for the Dursleys.

Harry is offended on Molly's behalf when Vernon calls her 'dumpy'. Since Molly likes Harry nobody is allowed to notice she is overweight.

I must say that the scene where Harry threatens Vernon with Sirius looks a lot less humorous now that I have seen Harry enjoy torturing a man for punishment, and Sirius engaging in Muggle-baiting.

If I am correct in my understanding that Ron is claiming that he and Molly wrote their respective letters at about the same time, then I am impressed with the UK post. Molly's letter arrived on Saturday morning. Pig arrived the same morning. Considering the speed of owls elsewhere, it looks as though Ron's letter was sent earlier that morning. So a letter got delivered the morning it was sent?

I am less impressed with the Weasleys. They plan on taking Harry regardless of the Dursleys' consent. One could argue that eventually Molly and Arthur realized their sons were not exaggerating when they said Harry had been imprisoned and starved, but seeing how Arthur views the treatment of Muggles, both in this book and in COS, I doubt this made a difference.

Harry is happy specifically because Dudley is suffering and he isn't. The seeds of the bully of HBP and war criminal of DH.

Comments

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying that using recipes other than the basic textbook ones was cheating, I'm specifically saying that his *taking credit* for them was. Just like turning in answers on a test that you got from your friend or by looking at your neighbor's work or reading a copy of the answers from a previous student without the teacher knowing would be cheating. He is pretending to have done work he did not do and earning grades based upon that work rather than work that he himself is capable of accomplishing on his own. That is more than dishonest, it is plagiarism and any accredited school one can name would consider it a form of cheating.

It would be like research, and fine, had he shown the book to Slughorn and been clear that his results were at least in part due to the work of the previous owner. (And one key difference between the Prince's work and the books in the library is that the latter are known and publicly available for all to use and for the professor to check, whereas the Prince's work is known only to himself and Harry; it's not part of the accepted and known body of knowledge but is new creative work.) Then he would not be receiving *academic credit* for work that he himself *did not do* (the majority of the work, and the difference in his grade, being due to the Prince's experimentation, which Harry blindly takes over instead of even attempting to *understand* so that he could apply the underlying principles to potions.)

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

If Harry's grades were higher because of Slughorn awarding credit for the Prince's recipes then I agree, that would be 'cheating'. I'm not sure that's the case; well, it never came across like that to me. Although what you're saying makes perfect sense.

As I think about it, though, there were clear cases of Harry *hiding* the Prince's book from Slughorn, weren't there? Which means that Harry knew it was 'wrong'.

While I don't think it's perfectly clear cut I can certainly see your point (and have drifted closer to it :-)). I just wish we saw an example of Harry's receiving that 'academic credit' for the *content* of the recipes he followed. He was Slughorn's favourite and presumably top of the class because he produced superior potions; I never saw anything concrete regarding the 'rules' of what the students could or could not do in brewing those potions.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

He produces those superior potions because of and only because of the Prince's recipes! He has not learned anything new about potions in general that would enable him to create those same potions on his own; it's pointed out IIRC that he *can't* do the same level of work when he has to hide the book. Had he never had it he would never therefore have achieved the grades in Slughorn's class that he did.

So he *is* getting credit for the Prince's recipes (he is getting credit for better potions, which is made possible only through the Prince's work), just in the form of the brewed potion not the text. (And that is what I meant: I didn't mean credit specifically for the written form of the recipes, but for product as a whole, for producing a potion brewed according to a recipe whether textbook or one's own experimentation with it.)

The *content* of those recipes is precisely what he is getting graded on and what he takes credit for: the improved potion that the better recipe enables one to brew. And that is precisely what he did not create and what he cannot recreate on his own. The understanding of the subject matter and creative application of that knowledge was the Prince's; the learning and creative work was the Prince's; Harry was just the hands that brewed the potion, but he pretended to be *responsible* for making whatever alterations to the class's recipe that enabled him to produce a superior potion even though he did not materially contribute to the work that made the superior potion *possible* and did not even understand *why* it worked better.

I'm sorry, but that is cheating.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Well - we did. He won the Felis Felicis by composing Draught of Living Death from the Prince's book. Had he not used young Sev's recipe, he would not have won.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Had he not used young Sev's recipe, he would not have won.

Right. But it's not clear to me that Harry's victory was against the rules.

Slughorn: Whoever brews the best potion wins!

Harry: [uses Snape's instructions]

Slughorn: Harry's potion is the best, Harry wins!

Nothing there about "you can only use the textbook", etc.

Sure, over time it's clear that Slughorn is assuming that Harry's a potions genius ... and it's also clear that Harry is sly and dishonest in allowing him to form that impression. Harry hides the book from Slughorn's sight (I'm pretty sure that's the case, right?), he never owns up to the source of his brilliance.

I just can't see that there's a hard and fast 'rule' in the Potions class that constrains the students from using any and all resources to brew their potions. If Hermione had found a superior textbook in the library and brought it in, wouldn't things have gone like this?

Slughorn: I'll be awarding marks on the quality of your potions!

Hermione: [uses library book's superior instructions]

Slughorn: Hermione, your potion is the best, you get top marks!!

Slughorn: Oh, by the way, how did you do it?

That's how it seemed to me when I read the book. I'm in full agreement that Harry is dishonest, disingenuous in allowing Slughorn to hold him to be a potions whiz, et cetera. I just don't think he's technically cheating.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Ah. I see where the source of disagreement here might lie. You're taking 'cheating' in terms of whether or not Harry is following a certain set of rules pertaining specifically to the contest that Slughorn stated, it seems to me. Whereas I and mary are considering it more broadly, in terms of the context of school in general and what is acceptable academic behavior.

You are correct that nowhere in the text does Slughorn say "you aren't allowed to use any recipe but the textbook" or some such thing. But that's not the ground on which we are critiquing Harry as having cheated. The contest is held as part of a lesson, in an academic context. It therefore seems to me obvious that all of the normal academic rules apply to it whether explicitly stated or not. Nothing in the books indicates that the need to be intellectually honest about where one gets information helping with the work one earns grades for (as well as special prizes like in the contest) is so very different in the WW as in ours that claiming that someone else's work is you own isn't considered cheating in that broad sense. It seems to me that their concept of schooling is close enough to ours that doing that would be considered cheating academically. (And going to the library would be cheating in this sense also *if* Hermione did not specify where she got the information she used, but claimed she came up with it herself. THAT is where the difference between this sort of cheating, formally known as plagiarism, as research lies.)

The other key issue that pertains more directly to the contest is the fact that none of the other students have access to the Prince's recipes (because he keeps the book secret instead of saying it's not his own work), whereas they all have access to the information in the library if they want it. That is an unfair advantage on Harry's part specifically in regard to the contest. Consider if your scenario above went all the way to Slughorn asking Harry how he did it: he can't answer honestly without revealing the fact that he had an unfair advantage over everyone else and kept it secret, tilting the playing field in his favor from the start.

He did not keep the playing field even going into the contest, and by the understood rules of every contest I've ever encountered that is certainly cheating even in the narrower sense you mean the term in.

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

I agree that Harry's behavior in Potions that year is dishonest, and that his winning the contest involved an unfair advantage.

Harry's use of the Prince's book, over the course of the year, causes Slughorn to think that Harry is brilliant. Harry never explains that his successful brewing is due to having better instructions which he uncritically obeys. That's definitely dishonest.

The contest, though... Harry had an unfair advantage, but I'm not entirely sure it's cheating. Harry has instructions that the rest of the class doesn't have access to in the library, but... none of them is in a position to go to the library at the moment, anyway. What if Hermione had brought along another book on potions with helpful tips -- would that be unfair? She would have done her own work finding that source, but she'd've had an unfair advantage in having access to a source that the other students didn't have time to get from the library during class. Maybe that's fair, maybe it isn't.

What if another student had been handicapped by something like not having gotten a good night's sleep? What if yet another student benefited from being able to afford better-quality ingredients? The students usually do buy at least some of their potions supplies for themselves in Diagon Alley. Or another student is disadvantaged by old scales that are no longer as precise as when they were new?

If the students had known about the contest, they might have prepared, made sure that they were well-rested, etc. An impromptu contest like that is one that's less likely to have an even playing field. Slughorn didn't try to make it a formal contest that would reduce these inequalities.

Admittedly, if I were the one running the class/contest, and I found out about Harry's using the notes, I would probably suggest a rematch for the prize, to avoid too uneven a playing field. Still, I think that Harry *could* have told Slughorn he'd used notes in the textbook he'd been given, and that Slughorn might still have given him the prize. On the other hand, Slughorn might well have taken the book back out of interest in seeing those notes himself, and given Harry a different book.

So, while I don't approve of Harry's behavior that day in class, I wouldn't condemn it *too* strongly. His overall behavior in Potions that year was disgraceful, though.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

The night's sleep and suchlike aren't things that can be controlled by a professor very well, so they generally aren't taken into account. Yes, they do tilt it slightly theoretically.

But with regard to information that is available, theoretically any student who wanted to could have read the books in the library or checked them out at any point beforehand; the Prince's book was *never* available to them. Also, Slughorn could have told Hermione not use whatever book she had theoretically brought with if he wanted; whereas the notes were *in Harry's textbook* - so he wouldn't have seen Harry using another source (to tell him to put it away) and couldn't be put away at all.

Ingredients, scales, etc: such things could be pointed out to the professor if the student desired, opening up the possibility of fairness coming into play by allowing them school equipment of ingredients comparable to others' if they so significantly different as to cause a noticeably different result. Information on the other hand - research that *directly* and *to a significant extent* affected the quality of the potion - can't be compensated for the same way except by it having been available at some point in the past or present to everyone involved.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

You're taking 'cheating' in terms of whether or not Harry is following a certain set of rules pertaining specifically to the contest that Slughorn stated, it seems to me.

Yes. There are no rules against using source material other than the one set textbook. So Harry wasn't cheating within the scope of his potions work. Bot for that Fidelius contest and also his regular classes.

He was dishonest and disingenuous in allowing his teacher to credit him with the praise for his work, though.

The contest is held as part of a lesson, in an academic context. It therefore seems to me obvious that all of the normal academic rules apply to it whether explicitly stated or not. ... Nothing in the books indicates that the need to be intellectually honest about where one gets information helping with the work one earns grades for (as well as special prizes like in the contest) is so very different in the WW as in ours that claiming that someone else's work is you own isn't considered cheating in that broad sense. It seems to me that their concept of schooling is close enough to ours that doing that would be considered cheating academically.

See, this is where we differ in our real-world experience.

If I was doing a mathematics or physics exam at high school or university my exam paper would be marked on the accuracy of my answer. In the case of getting a wrong answer I would be given partial marks depending on my working on how I got there. (I'd also need to clearly show my work in supporting a correct answer too, of course.)

Now, in almost all cases the students will all use the same methodologies to calculate their answers. But not all the time. And it's not required that this should be the case.

This happened to me once or twice; I'd read ahead and use a method, a principle, a theorem that we hadn't yet been taught to arrive at the correct answer. And I'd get the full marks for that correct answer.

At no time did the teacher state, did the exam paper say, "you can use only the methods that you were taught in the last six months in the subject Mathematics 101 and in no other class nor media nor textbook nor ...".

And it seems that simple to me. As is the source of where we differ in our analysis of Harry's situation - "It seems to me that their concept of schooling is close enough to ours .... Well, my 'concept of schooling' - from my direct real life experience - is as per what I've written above. And thus I can state, in the absence of any conflicting canon rules stating otherwise, that Harry did not, technically, cheat.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

I'm a little taken aback at the hostility I perceive in your first line, since I've no clue what I've done to you to provoke it. Just because we don't agree doesn't mean you aren't welcome to share your opinion; this is an open forum. We'll just have to agree to disagree on whether or not it is cheating.

And no-one has stated that his cheating is *equivalent* to war actions, so please don't set up that straw man. We (or I at least) simply don't see why the fact that a war was going on excuses what I and others see as an ethical violation that is completely unrelated to the war. The war does not change the nature of his action, it does not create a necessity for it, and it does not excuse it. Nor does it mean that we shouldn't interrogate the ethical status of actions taken during it no matter how small or unrelated; it's all part of Harry's character, which is among the subjects up for debate here. There's my opinion whatever you think of it.

[cured4life.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how Harry's work in school relates to any war effort. however, I will say the "little" things give us clues as to the ethics of individuals.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Ah, ok. The perils of text format, lol. Hope no offense taken.

And while I see you point about the *practicalities* of the situation in so far as what people might *do* (though I don't really think so many people see it that way anyway), the mere fact that people might do it more often doesn't change it's ethical status *as an action,* in and of itself (it doesn't make it more right or wrong), whatever one thinks that status to be. IMHO. (The use of 'ethical violation' by me doesn't indicate a particularly high *magnitude* of wrongness, it's merely a descriptive term indicating that I'm talking about how one treats other people and generally acts rightly or wrongly on any scale and in any situation. It's the *aspect* of his action that I'm concerned with in particular. It's marking the fact that I'm not critiquing his action in terms of, say, practicality, or believability, or some other way of talking about it. And I'm probably getting too long-winded here.)

And just because it's a common feature of people, doesn't mean it's not a *critiqueable* feature of Harry's character in particular ('everybody else does it' is not an acceptable defense for any action; how many people do something not change how right/wrong it is). I'm saying that Harry doing it is one instance of it, so it is a feature of Harry's character as well perhaps as of human nature; it's how human nature plays out in Harry's personality and he is responsible for the actions he takes whether they are 'human nature' or not. IMHO.

I'm not saying Harry is totally unlike anyone else in this or that it makes him the omg worst villain ever in history, I'm simply pointing out that (according to my understanding of ethics and academics) what he did is wrong and deserving of critique as an action, and why I think that. My opinions on the matter.

As to it not 'harming' anyone: well, perhaps we're talking about different relative levels of harm, but to me the fact that Harry won the Felix with the help of material nobody else had access to and that let him do work that he wasn't otherwise able to do (it's not his natural skills or knowledge giving him the edge, it's artificial) harms the others to a degree. It's the same principle as that at issue in the banning of steroids in athletes, except there the stakes are a bit higher in terms of money, etc. But the magnitude of the stakes doesn't change the essential features of an action that make it morally or ethically acceptable or not. (It's wrong to steal 30 million dollars in the same way it's wrong to steal the neighbor's silverware, for example; both are theft.)

This choice on Harry's part does not allow the others in the class a fair shot at a rare commodity, it distorts the teacher's ability to judge his students and rate them fairly in comparison to one another and the general level of work the class is capable of, and in essence tells me he does not consider his classmates his equals with whom he must deal fairly. His grade in his mind is more important than being honest with his professor or classmates. They are merely obstacles to be gotten around in whatever manner necessary to achieve personal satisfaction, not beings with rights fully equal to his that he must respect.

This choice then, IMHO, demonstrates arrogance on Harry's part, a setting himself above others that develops over time and that enables him to go from not caring about being fair with others, to not caring about truly harming others - Draco, Amycus, Filch, etc. I am not saying that every instance of this arrogance is *equal* (nearly killing someone is not the *equivalent* of cheating to get ahead of them), or that the one necessarily and directly *leads to* the others. But the same *mindset* is in play in all of them, and becomes more and more acceptable to him and ingrained in him with every repetition, small or large. It's a gradual process of dehumanizing people whom he does not like or who are otherwise inconvenient to him and I'll decry every instance that he is permitted to get away with it, no matter how small or large, because IMHO the little things matter too; they psychologically set the stage for and if not dealt with *can* (not must, but can) contribute to worse things being able to happen later.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

I think Dumbledore, over the course of the books, did Harry no favors by allowing him to get away with minimal or no punishment many times and never thinking that Harry needed to really face up to the things he did do wrong. He harmed Harry in this way just as Petunia harmed Dudley. In PS/SS Harry was not perfect, but he was a generally likeable little boy with some clear good qualities along with the bad ones. By DH he's far less likeable and his worst traits have developed considerably. His dealings around the Prince's book simply mark one part of his development on that front.


Oh, and if Harry had shown someone in authority - like Slughorn - the book as soon as he discovered the notes in it, even if just to ask if he could use them as he ought to have done, they might have noticed the spells in the margins and taken the book away, thus preventing Draco from ever having been sliced up by Harry. (If feeling reckless, insert very wild speculation about the possibility of Harry having cut off a possible change of heart in Draco here. ;) ) That's another aspect of harm that comes from Harry's *keeping the book secret;* but it's not otherwise directly related to my argument about cheating so it's rather incidental in that respect.

*restrains self from launching into Snape-centric rant about Harry's treatment of the Prince himself for the sake of readers* Sorry for length and thanks for sticking with me. I'm not sure we will come to much agreement (maybe so?) but it's useful to have to try and put into words what bothers me about the incident.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

"IMO for most ordinary people war and similar extreme situations change exactly these “little things” – even for otherwise very honest people it suddenly isn't so much of a problem not to tell the truth, steal a little thing, or cut a few corners via the Prince's book..."

But Harry's not a normal person -- he's the hero of the series and JKR's chosen Christ-figure. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned in my literary tastes, but I've always felt that protagonists should be slightly more moral than the average person, to give readers something to aspire to (while not, obviously, being so moral as to seem annoying and priggish, or impossibly, Mary-Sue-ishly pure).

Also, as Condwiramurs says, "everybody does it" is not a valid excuse, especially in a series which supposedly supports questioning authority and thinking for yourself. "The one thing that doesn't abide by a majority vote is a man's conscience," and all that.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Exactly - he's not an everyman no matter how much JKR wants him to be that. And while I'm personally fine with antiheroes and less-than-saintly protagonists, it doesn't work here IMO precisely because, as you point out, he's supposed to be the Christ-figure of the series. He's supposed to be *better* than the normal guy, at least in so far as being tolerant and loving and treating the people around him with basic human respect. That's supposedly the way he's to defeat Voldie. And for me at least that image of him is seriously undermined when he can't even be bothered to make the effort to treat the people around him with basic decency over relative trifles. If he can't be bothered to do it on the small scale (and it's repeatedly; one or two isolated lapses would be more understandable) how am I to believe that he's suddenly willing to die for them all out of pure love and the cause of tolerance and respect for differences? As opposed to getting revenge on his enemies and all that.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

If Harry had cited his work, it would not have been cheating. Harry did not cite his work. He allowed Slughorn to believe that he came up with it on his own. The penalty for academic dishonesty is a re-do of the class and a wiping of the grades for that class at the least, expulsion and a permanent mark on one's academic record at a more extreme end. You said you teach. Would you allow your students to use someone else's academic work and pass it off as their own?

[oryx_leucoryx]

Because honestly, how could I fail a student just for working with a book that has the mistakes in it corrected?

If the source isn't cited? Writing a proper bibliography is just as much part of the work as any other stage.

Besides, the original book isn't mistaken. Following the instructions correctly results in an adequate product, as Hermione's brewing demonstrates. We do not know if there is no trade-off between the two sets of instructions. For instance, while Severus' instructions tend to result in a superior product we don't know if the brewing itself may be more risky.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

If they found the resources you weren't aware of and used them but did not cite them, would you mind?

I'm back in school, too. :P Getting geared up for the new semester after three glorious weeks of nothing academic to do is a real chore.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Yes. I agree with you completely, as you know - I have an essay on this on my livejournal.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Yes, I probably ought to link to it! I haven't commented nearly enough on your essays, but they've been very thought-provoking for me.

The essay:

here (http://mary-j-59.livejournal.com/4720.html)