Harry Potter the plagiarist
Jul. 24th, 2006 11:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mary_j_59TitleSo, what's so wrong in Potions Class? (or, Harry Potter and the sin of plagiarism)
Author mary_j_59
category essay, gen
length about 500 words
warnings none - rated G
summary So - what, exactly, is the problem with Harry's use of that Potions textbook? Why am I so bothered by it when many fans don't seem to care? The essay follows the cut-
Many of us fans have commented at length about Half Blood Prince and the moral questions it raises. Is it always wrong to kill; will Harry be doing an evil thing if, in the next book, he AKs Voldemort? Is Snape good or evil? What about Slughorn? Is Harry carrying the last horcrux, or isn't he? It won't be possible to answer many of those questions definitively until the final book is published, but there is at least one question we can answer definitively. Here it is: Is Harry doing anything wrong when he uses the half-blood prince's potions notes? If so, what is he doing wrong?
I am writing this essay because I've been startled at how easily many fans dismiss Harry's glaringly bad behavior with this book. What is so wrong about using someone else's notes, after all? Wouldn't we all do the same thing? Well, yes, I think I at least would be tempted, but I really don't think I would ever have gone as far with it as Harry does - and, right through the end of the book, Harry doesn't see that he has erred in any way. This is a bit scary.
One of the reasons the Potions book is confusing, especially to younger readers, is that Harry uses it in two different ways, one at least partly legitimate and one definitely not. And the legitimate use is the one that has obviously disastrous consequences. This is Harry's experimentation with the half-blood prince's homemade hexes. In trying out these spells on human subjects, Harry is acting recklessly, and there are a couple of times when he is quite cruel. All the same, he is actually learning the spells - which, like all forms of power, have both positive and negative uses. "Muffliato" could be quite useful if one wished to avoid spies, for example, but in a school situation, it could aslo be an aid to cheating. "Levicorpus" is already more problematic. It seems like a joke to both Ron and Harry, and it's a relatively benign way of immobilizing an enemy - but we have twice seen the spell used with malice, once by young James Potter and once, much more disturbingly, by Death Eaters. Hermione is right to remind Harry of this last instance. Since she has reminded him, Harry should realize that these spells are potentially very dangerous, and he is at fault both for seeking out victims and for attempting a spell marked "for enemies" without knowing how to counter it. Still, as I said earlier, Harry does learn the spells and retains what he learns. It's not a bad thing, in itself, to experiment or to try new ways of doing things. What he does with the Potions notes is quite different.
How is it different? Isn't Harry experimenting and trying new ways of doing things? Yes, he is, and that's perfectly fine - at least at first. But consider this scenario: In the pensieve scene in OOTP, it's easy to visualize Peter Pettigrew squirming in his seat and trying to peer at other students' test papers. What if he had succeeded? What if he'd been able to copy young Severus Snape's paper, or James Potter's, or Sirius Black's, and had thus gotten an Outstanding grade on the exam? Would he have merited that grade?
The answer is obvious - of course he wouldn't! If Peter had copied all his answers, the person who merited the grade would be the student whose test he copied. Peter wouldn't merit any grade at all - he would simply be a cheater, wouldn't he? How is Harry's behavior with the Potions textbook any different than Peter's hypothetical behavior during the exam?
Some fans have argued that Harry is simply following the right instructions - and, after all, he does follow them. He does the work. So why shouldn't he get the credit for it? Here is another example which I hope will make things clear.
Imagine you are in high school; you definitely want to go on for advanced training, and one of the courses you have to do well in is English literature. You don't much like English lit, and it doesn't have a lot to do with your future major, which is law enforcement - but you have to take the class. What's more, you have to study the plays of Shakespeare. You are given a used textbook which has copious notes taken by the previous student. The notes strike you as brilliant. You have to write a short paper on a Shakespeare play every week. So you copy the notes, word for word, and hand them in as your paper. The first such paper you hand in gets an "A" from your teacher; you have never in your life gotten such a high grade, so, every week, you simply copy the former student's notes and hand them in, in your own handwriting, as your paper. Is this an okay thing to do?
Well, you spent the time to read the notes and copy them. You had to understand them well enough to modify them. Why didn't you earn that "A"? You worked, didn't you?
Actually, if you simply copied the notes and palmed them off as your own work, this is exactly the same thing as copying another student's final exam word for word. It is theft, and also lying, and for those who aren't familiar with the American academic system, it is a crime for which you can and will be expelled.* It's called plagiarism. This is what Harry does with those Potions notes.
That Harry is simply stealing someone else's work without having thought through their conclusions or in any way made it his own is obvious when, toward the end of the year, he hides the Potions textbook from Professor Snape. All of a sudden, Harry is a mediocre student. He cannot get the brilliant results he's been getting all year, because he has no idea how the half-blood prince achieved those results. All he can do is blindly follow the inferior instructions in the textbook and hope for the best. It isn't very good. If Harry had really been studying the Potions notes and experimenting on his own to see if they worked, and why they worked, he would have some right to take credit for the results. But all he has done is copy someone else's work.
Back to the Shakespeare example: suppose, as you began work on that first paper, you went to your teacher and said to him or her: "There are really good notes in this textbook. I'd like to cite them for my paper. Do you know who had this book before me so I can give them credit?" If you did that, it wouldn't be such a problem. You still wouldn't be able to copy the notes wholesale - you need to do your own work and come to your own conclusions, after all - but, if the professor knew who the former student was and got permission from them, you would be able to use their notes to back up your own conclusions.
This is what Harry probably should have done in Slughorn's class. There was no harm in trying out the alternate instructions; that showed a healthy intellectual curiosity. But there was harm in taking credit for the result without explaining how he achieved it - and then in continuing to copy the prince's notes and taking credit, throughout the year, for the results. I repeat - that is lying, and it is theft, and it will get you expelled from every American college or University I attended or taught at. It is not an innocent mistake - not after the first time. And the real corruption I see coming from the half-blood prince's textbook is not the hexes, not the Potions notes themselves, but rather the practice in dishonesty Harry gets in using them in Slughorn's class. And that - whatever one thinks of hexes such as "Levicorpus" or "Sectumsempra" - is not the prince's fault. It is Harry's, and Harry's alone - and, at the end of HBP, the boy still does not realize he has done anything wrong at all. He has.
Author mary_j_59
category essay, gen
length about 500 words
warnings none - rated G
summary So - what, exactly, is the problem with Harry's use of that Potions textbook? Why am I so bothered by it when many fans don't seem to care? The essay follows the cut-
Many of us fans have commented at length about Half Blood Prince and the moral questions it raises. Is it always wrong to kill; will Harry be doing an evil thing if, in the next book, he AKs Voldemort? Is Snape good or evil? What about Slughorn? Is Harry carrying the last horcrux, or isn't he? It won't be possible to answer many of those questions definitively until the final book is published, but there is at least one question we can answer definitively. Here it is: Is Harry doing anything wrong when he uses the half-blood prince's potions notes? If so, what is he doing wrong?
I am writing this essay because I've been startled at how easily many fans dismiss Harry's glaringly bad behavior with this book. What is so wrong about using someone else's notes, after all? Wouldn't we all do the same thing? Well, yes, I think I at least would be tempted, but I really don't think I would ever have gone as far with it as Harry does - and, right through the end of the book, Harry doesn't see that he has erred in any way. This is a bit scary.
One of the reasons the Potions book is confusing, especially to younger readers, is that Harry uses it in two different ways, one at least partly legitimate and one definitely not. And the legitimate use is the one that has obviously disastrous consequences. This is Harry's experimentation with the half-blood prince's homemade hexes. In trying out these spells on human subjects, Harry is acting recklessly, and there are a couple of times when he is quite cruel. All the same, he is actually learning the spells - which, like all forms of power, have both positive and negative uses. "Muffliato" could be quite useful if one wished to avoid spies, for example, but in a school situation, it could aslo be an aid to cheating. "Levicorpus" is already more problematic. It seems like a joke to both Ron and Harry, and it's a relatively benign way of immobilizing an enemy - but we have twice seen the spell used with malice, once by young James Potter and once, much more disturbingly, by Death Eaters. Hermione is right to remind Harry of this last instance. Since she has reminded him, Harry should realize that these spells are potentially very dangerous, and he is at fault both for seeking out victims and for attempting a spell marked "for enemies" without knowing how to counter it. Still, as I said earlier, Harry does learn the spells and retains what he learns. It's not a bad thing, in itself, to experiment or to try new ways of doing things. What he does with the Potions notes is quite different.
How is it different? Isn't Harry experimenting and trying new ways of doing things? Yes, he is, and that's perfectly fine - at least at first. But consider this scenario: In the pensieve scene in OOTP, it's easy to visualize Peter Pettigrew squirming in his seat and trying to peer at other students' test papers. What if he had succeeded? What if he'd been able to copy young Severus Snape's paper, or James Potter's, or Sirius Black's, and had thus gotten an Outstanding grade on the exam? Would he have merited that grade?
The answer is obvious - of course he wouldn't! If Peter had copied all his answers, the person who merited the grade would be the student whose test he copied. Peter wouldn't merit any grade at all - he would simply be a cheater, wouldn't he? How is Harry's behavior with the Potions textbook any different than Peter's hypothetical behavior during the exam?
Some fans have argued that Harry is simply following the right instructions - and, after all, he does follow them. He does the work. So why shouldn't he get the credit for it? Here is another example which I hope will make things clear.
Imagine you are in high school; you definitely want to go on for advanced training, and one of the courses you have to do well in is English literature. You don't much like English lit, and it doesn't have a lot to do with your future major, which is law enforcement - but you have to take the class. What's more, you have to study the plays of Shakespeare. You are given a used textbook which has copious notes taken by the previous student. The notes strike you as brilliant. You have to write a short paper on a Shakespeare play every week. So you copy the notes, word for word, and hand them in as your paper. The first such paper you hand in gets an "A" from your teacher; you have never in your life gotten such a high grade, so, every week, you simply copy the former student's notes and hand them in, in your own handwriting, as your paper. Is this an okay thing to do?
Well, you spent the time to read the notes and copy them. You had to understand them well enough to modify them. Why didn't you earn that "A"? You worked, didn't you?
Actually, if you simply copied the notes and palmed them off as your own work, this is exactly the same thing as copying another student's final exam word for word. It is theft, and also lying, and for those who aren't familiar with the American academic system, it is a crime for which you can and will be expelled.* It's called plagiarism. This is what Harry does with those Potions notes.
That Harry is simply stealing someone else's work without having thought through their conclusions or in any way made it his own is obvious when, toward the end of the year, he hides the Potions textbook from Professor Snape. All of a sudden, Harry is a mediocre student. He cannot get the brilliant results he's been getting all year, because he has no idea how the half-blood prince achieved those results. All he can do is blindly follow the inferior instructions in the textbook and hope for the best. It isn't very good. If Harry had really been studying the Potions notes and experimenting on his own to see if they worked, and why they worked, he would have some right to take credit for the results. But all he has done is copy someone else's work.
Back to the Shakespeare example: suppose, as you began work on that first paper, you went to your teacher and said to him or her: "There are really good notes in this textbook. I'd like to cite them for my paper. Do you know who had this book before me so I can give them credit?" If you did that, it wouldn't be such a problem. You still wouldn't be able to copy the notes wholesale - you need to do your own work and come to your own conclusions, after all - but, if the professor knew who the former student was and got permission from them, you would be able to use their notes to back up your own conclusions.
This is what Harry probably should have done in Slughorn's class. There was no harm in trying out the alternate instructions; that showed a healthy intellectual curiosity. But there was harm in taking credit for the result without explaining how he achieved it - and then in continuing to copy the prince's notes and taking credit, throughout the year, for the results. I repeat - that is lying, and it is theft, and it will get you expelled from every American college or University I attended or taught at. It is not an innocent mistake - not after the first time. And the real corruption I see coming from the half-blood prince's textbook is not the hexes, not the Potions notes themselves, but rather the practice in dishonesty Harry gets in using them in Slughorn's class. And that - whatever one thinks of hexes such as "Levicorpus" or "Sectumsempra" - is not the prince's fault. It is Harry's, and Harry's alone - and, at the end of HBP, the boy still does not realize he has done anything wrong at all. He has.