Meritocracy: House points in Harry Potter

Nov 01, 2010 18:10

I was surfing HP links and found an old discussion about house points and playing favourites in the Harry Potter books. Now, I really do sympathise with ickle firstie Draco in Philosopher's Stone--I watched the movie long before I read the book and Tom Felton's crushed expression tugged at my heartstrings--but having become familiar with the Potterverse as a whole and having finally read (most of) the books, I feel that we do a disservice to Dumbledore to say that he was biased towards Gryffindor and stacked points in their favour.

I think we need to first agree on the reasoning behind the house points system. Ideally, the actions/behaviour of students determine how many house points are awarded or deducted. Dictionary.com defines meritocracy as:
  1. an elite group of people whose progress is based on ability and talent rather than on class privilege or wealth.
  2. a system in which such persons are rewarded and advanced: The dean believes the educational system should be a meritocracy.
  3. leadership by able and talented persons.
In many ways, the house points system is the opposite of the pure-blood ideology. It's not about your dad's job at the Ministry or the size of your Manor or how many generations you can trace back on the family tree. It's about smarts and talent and how hard you work to succeed. Not to say it's a perfect system, but I prefer it to inherited privilege.

What I find fascinating is how much JKR reveals about the Hogwarts professors through their giving and taking of house points. As early as Philosopher's Stone, we hear complaints that Snape is biased towards Slytherin, while McGonagall is very much not biased towards Gryffindor. But if we examine HP Lexicon's house points tallies by school year, we will find no evidence that Snape favours Slytherin... except perhaps in contrast to his attitude towards Gryffindor. That is, we never see him give or take points from Slytherin, regardless of good or bad behaviour, while we do see him take points from Gryffindor for arbitrary reasons.

In the first Double Potions class, Snape takes 1 point from Harry for "cheek", another 1 point for not helping Neville. It's stupid and petty and entirely about Snape's issues, not Harry's behaviour. He takes 5 points because Harry had a library book outdoors, a rule he had made up on the spot. In PoA, he takes 5 points from Hermione "for being an insufferable know-it-all". Charming.

Compare Snape to McGonagall: she takes 5 points from Hermione for going after the troll, and awarded 5 points each to Harry and Ron for defeating the troll. She takes 50 points each from Harry, Hermione, and Neville, and 20 points from Draco for being out of bed at midnight. McGonagall does not flinch at deducting points from her own house. If a student has behaved badly, they lose points. If they perform admirably, they get points. End of story.

So: Snape is petty, biased, and emotional. He will occasionally takes points off for stupid reasons just because he's feeling pissy. McGonagall is harsh, but fair. She gives and takes points for valid reasons, and does not show favouritism. She didn't give Luna much attention at the end of OotP, but Luna still got her 50 points, same as the others.

(Oh, Snape. You really, really shouldn't be working with children.)

Now for Dumbledore! There are plenty of Slytherin fans, and non-Slytherin fans as well, who hated that Dumbledore awarded last-minute house points to Gryffindor in order to "steal" the House Cup in Books 1 and 2. But if we remember that the house points system is a meritocracy, that it's about awarding students for behaviour that teachers want to encourage, and punishing them for behaviour that teachers want to discourage, then it all makes perfect sense.

In Philosopher's Stone, three 11-year-olds stopped Voldemort from becoming immortal. In Chamber of Secrets, Harry and Ron saved Ginny's life and stopped Voldemort from returning. In Order of the Phoenix, the actions of the Ministry Six forced the Wizarding World to face up to the truth of Voldemort's return.

Think about that! The points awarded for these actions were not arbitrary. When Harry, Ron, and Hermione stopped Voldemort from becoming immortal for the very last time in Deathly Hallows, we can assume they received Orders of Merlin in recognition. How could Dumbledore and McGonagall have not awarded them points when they were still in school? In fact, I would argue that they were quite restrained with those last-minute points, in PS and OotP.

What Dumbledore does here is send a message to the students: knowledge and talent are important (books and cleverness), and yes, being good at Quidditch always helps. But our best virtues are the ones you don't learn in a classroom. Courage. Loyalty. Tenacity. Faith. Giving Neville 10 points for standing up to his friends? Was in the true spirit of the books and a beautiful, beautiful moment.

Harry and the others deserved every one of those points. They earned them, fair and square.

*pets Slytherin* Perhaps the real crime here is that JKR never gave us clear instances of cunning and ambition being used for good, so that we could see students being rewarded for those qualities. There's Snape, of course, who is cunning as a fox, but obviously he can't earn house points.

There doesn't seem to be a Harry Potter meta/essay community on Dreamwidth. Hmm.

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