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fubarobfusco comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 8 - Less Wrong
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While I like that Hermione is getting her own story-arc, there's something about the "Self-Actualization" arc that really doesn't work for me.
It's increasingly seemed as if "bullies" are being portrayed as an interest group or even a subculture: In MoR, it seems like bullies think of themselves as bullies, and stand up for the common interests of their group by perpetuating bullying as a social institution and singling out for attack those who have challenged other bullies. Even if those other bullies are of a different House, year, or social circle.
This makes Hogwarts' bullies out to be an Evil League of Evil, a cross-House union of Bad Guys who know they're Bad Guys. But at the same time we're expected as readers to take Hogwarts bullying to be some kind of mirror of ordinary real-world school bullying, which doesn't exactly work that way.
The idea of bullies standing up for bullying as an institution, or even thinking of themselves as bullies, reminds me too much of the scene in one of Kevin Smith's movies in which it is revealed that streetcorner drug dealers are unionized.
That doesn't sound wildly different from the online troll subculture.
Yeah, the I've enjoyed the arc well enough, and there were some great bits in this chapter, but it's been a bit small-potatoes compared to some of what's come before, and there's definitely a sense of "just how many bullies are there at Hogwarts, anyway?". It's almost like SPHEW is literally grinding bullies for XP.
How about, SPHEW is inspiring bullies to declare themselves, or non-bullies to become bullies, for the challenge of battling SPHEW? (I'd like this hypothesis better if the bullies weren't older, since even acknowledging first-years as a challenge is quite a status hit.)
From the sounds of this I might have to start reading MoR again. So Hermione doesn't start knitting for house elves, instead she goes around beating the crap through bullies? That's awesome.
This seems like what is currently happening in the latest chapter.
Neatly sidestepped in Quirell's explanation.
I can agree with your sentiment but there's plenty of evidence from canon that bullying is seriously endemic to Hogwarts, not to mention the Morcanon point of view where slytherins have found themselves gaining status predominantly from racism against and bullying of mudbloods/hufflepuffs. The entire hogwarts system could almost seem to be DESIGNED to generate ingroup/outgroup hostility in huge amounts to layer on top of the basic cliquishness and age-based splitting of regular school.
also, it's strongly implied in this chapter that the enemies hermione is making now are NOT fighting her because they think of themselves as bullies, but because they view themselves as proud slytherins/griffyndors, and see hermione insulting their entire houses.
I don't really think racism is the right word here. Well at least no more than say classism (in general reading HP its very hard to miss the obvious parallels between the divide among muggles and wizards and the class divisions there).
You can have both! Malfoys hate slytherins because they're lower class, but they never claim they aren't even people, because they're pureblood. But they actually want all mudbloods to die, because they're of a mixed breed with the lesser race.
I think its more like hating people with a congenital defect or people of poor breeding who aren't from noble or prestigious families.
Are you talking specifically about the bully whom the SPHEW took out (barely) ? Because I'm pretty sure that particular individual was deliberately proclaiming himself to be a bully in order to provoke Hermione's attack. Hermione figured it out, too, but just a second too late...
My impression was that there wasn't a League of Bullies, but that SPHEW might have brought one into existence.
That is, while most of them might not proudly label themselves "bullies", they share a common quality: people who have been embarassed by Granger & co. As it became clear that they would need to band together to redeem themselves, a loose coalition was formed.
So I think of it simply as a bunch of otherwise unaffiliated individuals realizing that they have a common problem and goal, and temporarily banding together to achieve it. Which seems at least more plausible.
Right, they're not the league of bullies; they're the league of innocent people slanderously identified as bullies by SPHEW (the LIPSIBS).