My favorite subversive, Eric Oppen of "Frank Longbottom Was Judge Dredd On Acid!" fame, wrote:
Somebody above (forgive me for not remembering who; I get this list as a digest) said that she didn't like the Weasley twins, Gred-and-Forge.
That was me. No, I really don't care for the twins at all, although I do appreciate their kindness to Harry. But I can't help it. I simply loathe practical jokes, and pranks, and pranksters.
Well...all except for those named "Eric Oppen," that is.
It occurs to me that they might be prime candidates for the role of Next Evil Overlord. I've never been fond of practical jokers—Remember, Batman's worst and most frequent enemy is called the Joker. Sure, they're popular and well-liked now, but apparently so was Tom (Lord Voldemort)Riddle when he was at Hogwarts.
Ah, and you will notice that both Tom ("I Am Lord Voldemort") Riddle and "Gred-and-Forge" have been known to play word games with their own names.
Coincidence? Oooooh, I don't think so.
I'm not saying that they will turn evil—I'm just saying that the possibility is definitely there...
At this point, I'd call it a well-nigh canonical certainty.
Barb, on the other hand, remains unconvinced:
Plus, if pranks were a sign of basic inner rottenness, it is doubtful that JKR would have related Sirius' youthful indiscretions, which make him look far worse than the twins (Snape could have been killed). And yet, he's just a peach of a guy now.
Indeed, it is quite clear that JKR labors under the sad delusion that practical jokes are ::shudder:: funny. I do believe, in fact, that she's even been suckered into believing that they are fundamentally good-humored. "No harm in it, honest." "It's all in fun." "What's the matter, can't take a joke?"
Bah.
Of course, we know that in actuality, the practical joke is a particularly vile and passive-aggressive form of sadism which operates by forcing its victims to actively collude in their own degradation by pressuring them to swallow down humiliation with a shaky laugh and a strained smile. We know that prank-pulling is really nothing more than a form of bullying which hides its true malice behind an unconvincing mask of jollity and good-humor. We know that there is really nothing in the least bit amusing or good-natured about the practical joke, that far to the contrary, it is just one of the many means by which the socially popular assert their dominance over their less charismatic peers.
But apparently JKR doesn't. And since she's writing the books, not us, the pranksters get to be the canonical Good Guys.
Pah.
I know that I, for one, detest practical jokers. My hatred for them runs all the way to my very marrow; I will bitterly resent them until the end of time; I will...
If anything, it's folks who carry grudges to the nth degree that consistently get painted as evil in the HP books, not pranksters.
<Elkins blinks, then looks away from the computer screen, suddenly terribly preoccupied with the apparently difficult task of lighting her cigarette>
Actually, I'd say that it's not so much grudge-holding as envy that is the Grand Sin of the Potterverse. Holding grudges is certainly bad, but envy (itself often one of the underlying reasons for the grudge-holding) seems to me to be the Potterverse's real corrupting force. Its effects on Snape are obvious, but there's also Crouch Jr., whose hatred of the other DEs seems to be primarily motivated by his bitter envy of their relatively suffering-free lives, and Draco Malfoy, whose envy of Harry seems at times to be pushing him to something close to derangement, let alone Darkness. And while Pettigrew has never 'fessed up to envy as a prime motivating factor in his betrayal of the Marauders—preferring to stick closely to the Cowardice Defense—I think that most readers assume that envy played a not-inconsiderable role there, as well.
Envy's the real spiritual killer in the HP books, I think, and I found it interesting that both Ron and Harry spent large portions of GoF—the "turning point" of the series—wrestling with it. Harry's problems with Cedric are really far more envy-based than jealousy-based, IMO, and of course, Ron's difficulties with envy are painfully apparent.
I find myself wondering when Hermione's going to have to stare down envy.
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ON GHOSTS
Unc Mark and his niece, who sounds like a wonderfully compassionate and caring individual, were wondering if poor Moaning Myrtle could ever be laid to rest. He queried:
What would Myrtle's unfinished business be?
Why, she has to stop holding grudges, of course! She has to forgive Olive Hornby and all of those other rotten kids for picking on her back when they were students.
Maybe Snape could give her a few pointers there. ::snerk::
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ON LIBRARY POLICIES
On the question of Hermione keeping the Moste Potente Potions book out of the library for months on end, Jake wrote:
Well, maybe the Hogwarts library has a more liberal checkout policy. You can keep the book until another student needs it...
I don't know if this is typical of all British universities, but when I briefly attended the University of Wales, the library allowed books to be kept out for the entire year, provided no other student requested them.
Hogwarts' library probably works the same way.
—Elkins
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