Pansy Asks the Big Questions!

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

I love that Pansy is asking questions about how Mudbloods and Muggleborns are treated.

I love that these Slytherin kids are asking about what Magic is, where it comes from, whether it's a zero-sum game, and how children born of non-magical parents could manifest magical abilities. I love that the questions died out for a while but are cropping up again in a new mind.

And I love that Lucius has to say that the Department of Mysteries is studying how Muggles steal magic for their children: he can't muster an explanation based on "facts" that are already in circulation.

Oh, yeah, and 'Think about it, Harry': you tell him, Pansy!!




ETA. Oh, dear. Lucius concludes the comments with a response to Bellatrix: "I have no idea whence [Pansy] has conceived the notion to be so impertinent, especially on such a fundamental matter, but I will deal with the child - and find the source that is tempting her to perfidy." Cue witch hunt (as it were).

Comments

[jenett]

I'm really starting to like Pansy. (Yay for deep questions that challenge the status quo!)

And I'm fascinated by the fact that the Slytherins are asking, and the other houses (what we can see of them, anyway) are less direct about it - you see Ron and Neville joining in on some threads, but in a very different way.

Part of me is wondering how much of this is the result of what happens if you are in power for long enough (and reasonably secure in it) vs. the books, where the Slytherin approach is pretty much always in the defensive. I'm particularly intrigued by the Pansy/Lucius and Draco interactions, and I'm looking forward to seeing where they go over time.

[queenbookwench.livejournal.com]

I think it's possible that Ron and Neville might have picked up on some level from the adults in their lives (though it certainly seems like Molly and Arthur are quite circumspect when discussing things with the sons) that there can be real-world consequences for disagreeing with the party line, that the Slytherin kids may not have experienced, because they've been in positions of privilege. And I think Neville may be getting an added sense of that from his interactions with Terry (and their consequences)

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

This theory makes sense to me. In this AU, it is the children of the Order whose cradle lessons in equality put them at odds with their peers and at risk in their increasingly repressive society. Ron and Neville do need to be careful. And you are right that Neville is learning some important lessons through his interactions with Terry and Hermione. We haven't really seen Ron test the limits of what he's allowed to say or expected to think, though he has had some interesting exchanges with Harry that identified the gap between their assumptions about Mudbloods and Muggleborns.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

I think you are exactly right about the difference between Slytherins in the books versus their situation here. They come from a comfortable, privileged position, are not afraid to ask questions, and do not expect their peers in other Houses to condemn them for their assumptions about the superiority of Purebloods and the "well bred" (was that Lucius' word for his elite class?).

I sense that sooner or later they are going to face some lessons in not asking questions because the Lord Protector will expect them to discipline their intellects into Correct channels soon. For the moment, however, Lucius seems willing to humor Pansy and to meet her questions with explanations rather than with discipline. Of course, he can leave it to Minerva to point out that Pansy's line of questioning borders on disloyalty to the Lord Protector. (I feel for Minerva, but it seems that she let the thread develop for a decent interval before she stepped in and played her role to shut it down.)

[queenbookwench.livejournal.com]

Have you checked back recently? Now Lucius is shutting her down quite forcefully, possibly in response to some ranting from Bellatrix (I get the feeling that, somewhat similarly to canon, Lucius and Narcissa feel that support for the Lord Protector is all right in its place, but Bella just takes it a little too far).

Something I'm wondering about is how much the across-the-aisle discussions between Ron and Pansy, and Neville and Sally-Anne, are going to affect different characters' views.

I also suspect that Sally-Anne, as a half-blood, is feeling a lot of internal conflict--in Pansy's threat, she compares Muggles to animals, but not terribly long ago she was venturing into Hermione's journal to discuss the meaning of the word "numinous" and its application to Muggle churches.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

Oh, my, yes! I was just coming to say that I've caught up with the most recent turn in the thread with Lucius and Bellatrix threatening fire and brimstone.

Yes, I remembered Sally-Anne's conversation about churches, too. And I'm hopeful that Neville's response to her (I'm not calling your teachers liars, I'm just trying to understand) will have a good effect. After all, Sally-Anne's the one who pointed out to Harry that the jinx he used on Neville robbed Neville of a quality she really admires: that he can almost always be nice. If anyone can talk her around gently to a point where she can question things she's been told that just don't make sense, it's going to be Neville. (And if she can't make that leap it will be terribly sad because she'll probably reject him as weak -- as too "nice" but not "smart" enough to understand the "facts" of their world.)

[qwerty88.livejournal.com]

I wonder how the lessons will impact how they use the journals. I suspect observers will need to get better at reading between the lines (or more crossed out text) as it is unlikely that this group will get an equivalent to "Order Only".

[jenett]

I was thinking this too - there's definitely a tendency on the part of certain adults (Lucius, Bella, etc.) to stick their noses into all conversations if they start veering in undesirable ways.

There's a really interesting pattern of respect of space - it's pretty clear that those in favor/power see everything as 'theirs'. And yet, at the same time, there's the argument that they're public postings, and the students should have no expectation of privacy. (Lucius and Bella and Narcissa are all far more invasive than most parents in our day and age would be, in terms of posting in children's journals.Compare this to Poppy, and McG, who are very all-about-business in public, or the Weasleys, who are friendly, but who aren't randomly posting in even in the journals of their own kids.)

[queenbookwench.livejournal.com]

I was so sad that McG had to come along and tell Pansy to shut it--totally understand why she did, but it has to hurt poor Minerva's soul a little bit.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

I took comfort in the fact that McG let the conversation go for a good while before she squashed it. She let Pansy score several hits on Harry, for instance, and that seems important. As Pansy says, it's important for these kids to talk with each other about these subjects because they don't get much straight talk from adults. It's so interesting that Pansy perceives that lack, though she does seem willing to accept Lucius' genial (and, from my view, guileful) responses as genuine efforts to answer her questions. Still, she seems to have a good head (and a smart doll's head, to boot!) for independent thinking. I hope she finds safe ways to continue to think for herself.

That line of argument suddenly makes me wonder about Pansy's mother: what if her mother is not an addict but a woman whose independent thinking earned her a severe dose of corrective thought-control and/or behavior modification? What if she's not a weak character but one who has suffered the Lord Protector's discipline? /wild theory du jour

[queenbookwench.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting idea--and i keep wondering about the way Pansy relates to Lucius. She clearly respects him, but doesn't seem to see him in quite the fatherly light that Harry and Draco do. I can't quite put my finger on what it is, but there's something disquieting about it.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

For me, the thing that makes me uneasy is the fact that she calls him Lucius and talks to him in ways that come really close to sounding Lolita-ish to my ear. She plays the coquette just a bit in talking to him... and for an eleven year old that telegraphs that something's wrong with Pansy's socialization.