Because these are children who have been force-matured by both becoming (kind of fake) child soldiers and death, because the agreement specifically was created by two of said children, because all of the parents have other things to do, because the children are already there, because part of the theme of the first half of this story if you remember was “Children are people too, and not subhuman simply because of their age”.
Susan Bones is giving the Aurors orders because it is her Aunt that runs the Auror office. She’s basically the stand-in. The kids are the few actually sane people in Hogwarts.
Oh, sure, I’m not saying the kids aren’t capable of performing the actions they did. What I’m wondering about is why the rest of the world is playing along. Even if these children − 11 year olds if I have that right—are the sanest people in Hogwarts, does the Hogwarts faculty recognize this, and the Auror office, and the Board of Governors, and their own parents? Or are all these people magically aware of the story theme that you mentioned, and the title of the last few chapters.
Susan Bones is giving the Aurors orders because it is her Aunt that runs the Auror office.
I don’t think that’s how police forces generally work...
It isn’t, but keep in mind that this is still a pseudo feudal system, which still has existent Noble families with laws favoring them on the books. In a feudal system, that is absolutely how a ‘police’ (private army) force actually works. If you’re the Prince, you can command them. In such a system, it wouldn’t seem as strange that the daughter of the house is giving the commands. You’ll notice they also all announce themselves by House first.
As an aside, if you are Amelia Bones, and you have to give one person preferential treatment, control, and ease of communication with your Aurors (and by extension, yourself), who do you pick from the group of kids who are making the announcement? Which one do you trust most?
I notice you are confused. I think you’ve made two questionable assumptions;
Assumption 1. Wizard Children are not generally treated as competent at age 11.
Assumption 2. The children making the announcement at Hogwarts are responsible for brokering the deal.
I.e. they aren’t just mouthpieces for their respective families.
Assumption 2b. The Hogwarts staff is aware of 2.
Assumption 1 might be true—but I note that the age of majority has been increasing over time, and wizarding society is in many ways old timey.
It seems reasonable to me that allowing a child of 12 to command a wizarding army is no stranger in wizard society than allowing David Farragut to command a ship at age 12 was during the war of 1812.
Also, we haven’t seen the reactions of the wizarding world in general—maybe everyone who isn’t on the Hogwarts staff is scandalized. For that matter, maybe the staff is too, they’re just not openly scandalized.
But assumption 2 seems completely wrong to me, and likely the main source of the confusion.
No, I’m not assuming that children brokered the deal, but I can see that it may have looked that way, especially if you miss the context (that I was responding to the specific things EternalStargazer said).
To some extent, yeah, wizard children are, and are treated as being, more competent than muggle children. But there’s still a very real difference between an adult and a child. For example, Harry Potter still needs a legal guardian. And I assume that McGonaggal’s “She is a twelve-year-old girl, Albus!” isn’t strongly atypical.
Anyway, no matter how mature they are (read the various dorm and SPHEW scenes for some sanity checks on that idea), they still don’t have any authority; there are people whose responsibility is to make announcements such as these, and to have the kids do all this posing instead makes it a bit farcical to me.
I think if they really wanted to, the parties involved could make this happen, but why would they want to? I don’t expect the world to be scandalized, I just expect some eye-rolling and mild incredulity. Not something you want if you’re making a political move and want to be taken seriously.
But hey, I’m one of the probably small minority of readers who’ve never quite accepted things like, say, how easily Harry Potter gets away with being rude to Dumbledore.
Seconded. It is repeatedly implied in MoR that a noble child is, by default, a legitimate representative of their family, and anything that they do, or is done to them, is as if it was done by/to the family. For example, noble Slytherins get private chambers, even though they’ve done nothing to earn them within the context of the school’s own regulations. Pretty much everything Draco does is considered to be a reflection on the House of Malfoy. It is considered natural for prepubescent children to know spells and rules of challenge designed for formal duels between noble houses.
In general, Rowling’s universe assigns improbable values of agency and responsibility to children (socially speaking), and Eliezer only enhances this trend. Let’s not forget that the Wizengamot doesn’t blink an eyelid at sentencing a twelve-year old girl to die of slow torture for her crimes, or at a twelve-year old boy spontaneously giving away one of Britain’s bigger fortunes to settle a blood debt. Death is an acceptable risk in exchange for having your child study at a wizarding school, with Hogwarts’s no-deaths-for-fifty-years being seen as an amazing exception rather than a reasonable standard. Powerful magics are taught to children as soon as they are physically and mentally capable of casting them, with no reference to issues of maturity.
This may reflect the relatively slower pace of cultural development inside the Wizarding World : it’s actually a rather recent change for young children to be treated as Western Civilization treats them. There are still people alive today who remember being allowing to carry rifles to school, as long as they kept the guns in their lockers between classes.
There are many plausible explanations for that other than Harry’s age, though. I suspect they’d have reacted the same way were he an adult giving a way his entire fortune in one fell swoop to save a Muggleborn attempted murderer.
Seconded. It is repeatedly implied in MoR that a noble child is, by default, a legitimate representative of their family, and anything that they do, or is done to them, is as if it was done by/to the family. For example, noble Slytherins get private chambers, even though they’ve done nothing to earn them within the context of the school’s own regulations.
Noble Slytherins are accorded privileges based on their noble status, thus being treated as representatives of their noble families, rather than just children who happen to have important parents and have to earn things on their own merit (as non-noble children would).
I think you are bringing “parents” into this unnecessarily. If there were Gryffindor noble chambers, I doubt anyone would deny one to Harry on the grounds that he was an orphan. Conversely, if a hypothetical Malfoy of lesser parentage (a cousin X removed, perhaps) were to enter Hogwarts, I doubt they would be denied noble chambers because their parents were low down within the Malfoy hierarchy. For as long as they bore the Malfoy name, any discourtesy to them would be considered an insult to the House of Malfoy.
It’s not about inheriting parents’ status, it’s about membership of a noble house. Membership of a noble house confers the right to noble chambers where they exist. It confers a bunch of legal rights, as we saw with the Wizengamot, which again are not restricted to adults. It apparently also confers the right to speak on behalf of the house. Most children do not do so, probably because they have no reason to, and are aware that they will get into terrible trouble if they end up saying anything that embarrasses their house. On the other hand, someone like Draco, who has been groomed for this sort of thing extensively, never for a moment hints that his words don’t carry the full authority of his house (and is ever mindful of what his father will think of his words and actions as a result).
I think you are bringing “parents” into this unnecessarily. If there were Gryffindor noble chambers, I doubt anyone would deny one to Harry on the grounds that he was an orphan.
He’s still inheriting their status. The fact that they’re dead is immaterial.
Conversely, if a hypothetical Malfoy of lesser parentage (a cousin X removed, perhaps) were to enter Hogwarts, I doubt they would be denied noble chambers because their parents were low down within the Malfoy hierarchy.
Being a Malfoy is apparently higher status than being a commoner.
It’s not about inheriting parents’ status, it’s about membership of a noble house. Membership of a noble house confers the right to noble chambers where they exist. It confers a bunch of legal rights, as we saw with the Wizengamot, which again are not restricted to adults. It apparently also confers the right to speak on behalf of the house.
One of these things is not like the others. Being a US citizen also confers a lot of rights. That doesn’t mean you have the right to negotiate treaties on behalf of the US.
Because these are children who have been force-matured by both becoming (kind of fake) child soldiers and death, because the agreement specifically was created by two of said children, because all of the parents have other things to do, because the children are already there, because part of the theme of the first half of this story if you remember was “Children are people too, and not subhuman simply because of their age”.
Susan Bones is giving the Aurors orders because it is her Aunt that runs the Auror office. She’s basically the stand-in. The kids are the few actually sane people in Hogwarts.
Oh, sure, I’m not saying the kids aren’t capable of performing the actions they did. What I’m wondering about is why the rest of the world is playing along. Even if these children − 11 year olds if I have that right—are the sanest people in Hogwarts, does the Hogwarts faculty recognize this, and the Auror office, and the Board of Governors, and their own parents? Or are all these people magically aware of the story theme that you mentioned, and the title of the last few chapters.
I don’t think that’s how police forces generally work...
It isn’t, but keep in mind that this is still a pseudo feudal system, which still has existent Noble families with laws favoring them on the books. In a feudal system, that is absolutely how a ‘police’ (private army) force actually works. If you’re the Prince, you can command them. In such a system, it wouldn’t seem as strange that the daughter of the house is giving the commands. You’ll notice they also all announce themselves by House first.
As an aside, if you are Amelia Bones, and you have to give one person preferential treatment, control, and ease of communication with your Aurors (and by extension, yourself), who do you pick from the group of kids who are making the announcement? Which one do you trust most?
You have a point.
Possibly it’s to suggest that if a group proclaims its own authority to act, and acts with certainty, most people will go along with it.
By this point in the year most if not all of them are probably 12.
The difference between 11 and 12 might only matter to an 11- or 12-year-old, but you probably didn’t have that right, for whatever that’s worth.
I notice you are confused. I think you’ve made two questionable assumptions;
Assumption 1. Wizard Children are not generally treated as competent at age 11.
Assumption 2. The children making the announcement at Hogwarts are responsible for brokering the deal. I.e. they aren’t just mouthpieces for their respective families.
Assumption 2b. The Hogwarts staff is aware of 2.
Assumption 1 might be true—but I note that the age of majority has been increasing over time, and wizarding society is in many ways old timey. It seems reasonable to me that allowing a child of 12 to command a wizarding army is no stranger in wizard society than allowing David Farragut to command a ship at age 12 was during the war of 1812. Also, we haven’t seen the reactions of the wizarding world in general—maybe everyone who isn’t on the Hogwarts staff is scandalized. For that matter, maybe the staff is too, they’re just not openly scandalized.
But assumption 2 seems completely wrong to me, and likely the main source of the confusion.
^ Don’t do that.
No, I’m not assuming that children brokered the deal, but I can see that it may have looked that way, especially if you miss the context (that I was responding to the specific things EternalStargazer said).
To some extent, yeah, wizard children are, and are treated as being, more competent than muggle children. But there’s still a very real difference between an adult and a child. For example, Harry Potter still needs a legal guardian. And I assume that McGonaggal’s “She is a twelve-year-old girl, Albus!” isn’t strongly atypical.
Anyway, no matter how mature they are (read the various dorm and SPHEW scenes for some sanity checks on that idea), they still don’t have any authority; there are people whose responsibility is to make announcements such as these, and to have the kids do all this posing instead makes it a bit farcical to me.
I think if they really wanted to, the parties involved could make this happen, but why would they want to? I don’t expect the world to be scandalized, I just expect some eye-rolling and mild incredulity. Not something you want if you’re making a political move and want to be taken seriously.
But hey, I’m one of the probably small minority of readers who’ve never quite accepted things like, say, how easily Harry Potter gets away with being rude to Dumbledore.
Did Susan really give the Aurors any real orders, or just notify them that it was their cue to do as her mother had previously instructed?
Also because these children have the initiative and at least three of them are nobles.
This is the big one. Child or not, if you’re noble you’re a Big Deal, so long as you have the backing of the rest of your family.
Seconded. It is repeatedly implied in MoR that a noble child is, by default, a legitimate representative of their family, and anything that they do, or is done to them, is as if it was done by/to the family. For example, noble Slytherins get private chambers, even though they’ve done nothing to earn them within the context of the school’s own regulations. Pretty much everything Draco does is considered to be a reflection on the House of Malfoy. It is considered natural for prepubescent children to know spells and rules of challenge designed for formal duels between noble houses.
In general, Rowling’s universe assigns improbable values of agency and responsibility to children (socially speaking), and Eliezer only enhances this trend. Let’s not forget that the Wizengamot doesn’t blink an eyelid at sentencing a twelve-year old girl to die of slow torture for her crimes, or at a twelve-year old boy spontaneously giving away one of Britain’s bigger fortunes to settle a blood debt. Death is an acceptable risk in exchange for having your child study at a wizarding school, with Hogwarts’s no-deaths-for-fifty-years being seen as an amazing exception rather than a reasonable standard. Powerful magics are taught to children as soon as they are physically and mentally capable of casting them, with no reference to issues of maturity.
This may reflect the relatively slower pace of cultural development inside the Wizarding World : it’s actually a rather recent change for young children to be treated as Western Civilization treats them. There are still people alive today who remember being allowing to carry rifles to school, as long as they kept the guns in their lockers between classes.
Erm, to be fair, they most certainly do blink an eye:
There are many plausible explanations for that other than Harry’s age, though. I suspect they’d have reacted the same way were he an adult giving a way his entire fortune in one fell swoop to save a Muggleborn attempted murderer.
Freely acknowledged. I was just pointing out that they didn’t react with aplomb.
I don’t see how that follows from your example.
Noble Slytherins are accorded privileges based on their noble status, thus being treated as representatives of their noble families, rather than just children who happen to have important parents and have to earn things on their own merit (as non-noble children would).
You seem to be confusing two things.
1) Children inheriting some of their parents’ status.
2) Children being able to speak on behalf of their house.
I think you are bringing “parents” into this unnecessarily. If there were Gryffindor noble chambers, I doubt anyone would deny one to Harry on the grounds that he was an orphan. Conversely, if a hypothetical Malfoy of lesser parentage (a cousin X removed, perhaps) were to enter Hogwarts, I doubt they would be denied noble chambers because their parents were low down within the Malfoy hierarchy. For as long as they bore the Malfoy name, any discourtesy to them would be considered an insult to the House of Malfoy.
It’s not about inheriting parents’ status, it’s about membership of a noble house. Membership of a noble house confers the right to noble chambers where they exist. It confers a bunch of legal rights, as we saw with the Wizengamot, which again are not restricted to adults. It apparently also confers the right to speak on behalf of the house. Most children do not do so, probably because they have no reason to, and are aware that they will get into terrible trouble if they end up saying anything that embarrasses their house. On the other hand, someone like Draco, who has been groomed for this sort of thing extensively, never for a moment hints that his words don’t carry the full authority of his house (and is ever mindful of what his father will think of his words and actions as a result).
He’s still inheriting their status. The fact that they’re dead is immaterial.
Being a Malfoy is apparently higher status than being a commoner.
One of these things is not like the others. Being a US citizen also confers a lot of rights. That doesn’t mean you have the right to negotiate treaties on behalf of the US.