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

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

Argh!! He is *plagiarizing*!!! Does that word make you happier than 'cheating'?! If you plucked a former students essay from the internet, printed it out and handed it in, claiming it as your own work, you'd be *plagiarizing*, which is considered *cheating* in the academic world, and any school or university would *expell* you for it!!

I think that one of the reasons why some people don't see Harry's use of the Prince's book as plagiarizing is that plagiarism is usually discussed in the context of papers.

And writing papers isn't like brewing potions.

With papers, there's no such thing as following a formula verbatim, *just* following instructions, and getting anything acceptable (unless you plagiarize). There's *always* something original about a (non-plagiarized) paper.

That isn't true of brewing potions, though. Admittedly, in the NEWT class it appears that the students are encouraged to go further than following instructions, but Potions class isn't all about being original. For years, Potions class was about following directions in order to produce an expected result, and that was a useful, desirable thing to do. It's worth something, in class and in the outside world, to be able to follow directions ploddingly and produce potions that work.

There's nothing like that when it comes to writing, unless you're talking about photocopiers. There's no skill to writing letters on paper -- not for teenagers, anyway; we aren't talking about calligraphy. In Potions, there is a skill to even following directions. Harry did a lousy job of following directions well for years.

Even in the NEWT class, originality isn't *demanded*, although it's applauded. Hermione isn't original, and Slughorn approves of her work.

So, I don't think that the "copied paper" metaphor is helping, here.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

I think you're right about why some people see this as cheating and some don't. We usually think of papers when we think of plagiarizing (it may be that the word itself indicates writing) but, in the broader sense of intellectual property, Harry used someone else's. The Oxford English Dictionary (yes, I will use any excuse to access it while I still can! I love the OED) says that 'plagiarize' was originally considered only for writing but has expanded to include thoughts, writings, inventions, literary output and ideas of another person "improperly or without acknowledgement." So one component of the debate may be the changing use of the word itself and the "feel" that goes along with usage.

For 'cheating' I found several definitions for the verb form. To defraud, to deprive by deceit, to impose upon, to trick, to deal fraudulently, to practice deceit, etc. It's related to 'escheat,' where an estate reverts to the state or crown if an owner dies intestate and without qualified heirs. Odd how words change in meaning over the years.

I think Harry cheated because he 'deprived' another student by deceiving Slughorn into thinking the improvements were his; because he dealt fraudulently with Slughorn as well as with the other students who were vying for the Felix in that particular case; because he deliberately hid the Prince's notes from Slughorn after the contest; he used Snape's ideas without acknowledgement. He took unfair advantage of the Prince's notes in regards to his classmates since he was the only one with access to them and he did not make them available to anyone other than Ron and Hermione. Evidently, everybody's mileage varies to one extent or another.

It would be interesting to get the take of someone in the sciences as to whether this might be considered cheating (or plagiarizing) in that world, since Potions seems to take the place of a Muggle school's science class.

On the issue of Advanced Potions going beyond the earlier classes, I think the impetus to be more original or creative is building on the essays the students were assigned, like the several uses of Moonstone that was assigned in one of the books and a few others that I can't remember now (I was reading Wilkie Collins's Moonstone when I read that assignment in HP so I remember the subject, at least.) The essays and homework papers were all about how various ingredients interacted with one another, what their uses might be in a potion, more theoretical things which would, of course, be used in the advanced course.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

It's also plagiarism to take credit for another person's *original scientific research.* In all academic disciplines one is expected to cite where one accessed material developed by others.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

I don't know if anyone ever saw the movie Noble Son, I think thats the name of it. Alan Rickman plays a rather crude/rude professor. A worse sorta fellow than Snape really.

I've never seen the whole movie, only bits of it but I believe the Professor uses research done by another professor, pawns it as his own and wins the nobel prize, etc.

I think we're sort of dealing with something similar, not exactly the same thing but not unlike what we're discussing. Using someone elses work as your own to achieve a better goal for yourself. That is what Harry did, no matter what we deem it to be. He used someone elses work, presented it as his own without giving credit to the original creator.

Everyone had a text book to use. Each student could purchase or borrow a text book for the offical class. This text book had someone elses information in it. Reguardless of what we want to call it, HE did take credit for it being his own work and not the actual person that created the ideas/concepts.