Ok, this is something that really bugs me while reading canon as well as fanfiction; why do nearly all the students take the house points so seriously?
Is that a boarding school thing? Overall the house rivalry seems to be played over the top most of the time.

I know for sure, that if they had introduced such a system at my former school; points awarded according to how well you answer your teachers questions, how disciplined you are, how tidy you are, etc - then there would have been more of a contest about who could get the lowest score, not the highest.

Also the amount of points awarded - if we inflate the points we've seen given out to a whole house, they're likely to make 50 points in days, so why do they mob a student for losing that amount?

Again; why do they care about house points?

 

This comes from a time when teens cared about what others thought of them, class unity, pride, shame, etc. Now it's cool to see how much of an ass or a loser you can be.

It's not only a British thing. There were prep schools in the states that did this at one time( maybe still do), and it's a lot like the demerits system except on a broader scale.

My old (public) high school had an individual demerit system. If you fucked up so many times you got a demerit, if you got so many demerits you got sent to the "troubled" school (For losers, pregnant girls, etc.) for a certain amount of time until you earned your way back.

 

The numbers do seem off though. There are about 60 kids to a house. First year Gryffindor won with 482, which balances to about that even when you discount the massive point gains/loss from saving the stone/detention with Dragon.

Which given how the kids behave, it seems being out past curfew isn't totally out of place, and Harry and co. were given an obsessively harsh deduction for it, by I digress.

That's averaging a net gain of eight points per student, over the course of the year. Good work thar. Hufflepuffs are netting six each.

As an aside:
Harry's House Points, by year, net. Only taking into account specific times we are informed, granted.

+ 3
+ 200 (Kid could shit in the great hall and he'd still be ahead forever at this point)
- 10 (Ron actually lost 50 in one go again this year, but noone made a fuss)
- 50 (All lost in one go, but again nobody makes a fuss)
- 40 (Including a +/- 50 again)
- 70 (Including a deduction of 50 for 'lateness' by Snape)


So either all the students are pretty much worthless, or else every house has enough bad apples that it ought to make Harry's loss of 50 points look trivial in comparison.

 

Expanded:

They don't like bomb threats or hit-lists either. You'd think a teacher in small town areas would get a joke. :| But noooooo. You're a "bane upon the educational experience of your classmates."

Pfft. They were laughing with me. And hell, there isn't even any proof I made that threat! Or called the fucking Umbridge-wannabe English teacher and threatened her.

True story, as well. >_^

On Topic:

Yeah, mostly it's a merit/demerit thing. I know of a few schools that do it. Most of them are "religious" or private schools. St. Teresa, Lutheran, etc. Thank god I never went to those.

Its mostly a school spirit thing I think. Way back when I was a kid it used to be popular to care. Now kids are just dicks. :/

Reference the bus fight over the geek.

Edit:

Vlad: I'm not one hundred percent positive on this, so don't go and quote me on it, I'd have to read the series again to double-check. But if I remember right, Quidditch is mentioned in relation to house points. If I read it right, I think they effect the end total as well.

 

Yes, you are correct on that.

Ergo, the students are actually accumulating less than 8 points each. Good show, chaps.

I think however unintended the OP is actually correct, and Hogwarts students don't really give a shit one way or another about house points. Getting mad at Harry in PS had less to do with points and more to do with Harry not living up to his image. Once he had firmly established himself as mediocre, people no longer raise a fuss.

 

Add that to the fact that we all know how awesome JKR's math skillz are. You'd probably end up with much higher numbers if she thought about it longer--or at least wrote fewer instances when professors gave out points.

 

You know, I'm not too sure about this. We can come to certain conclusions based on the maths of the point system, but I'm pretty sure that Gryffindor's ire at Harry and Ron in PS was a direct result of the fact that they lost 50+ points in one go.

I seem to remember a sentence about how the Gryffindor's came down to breakfast, stared at the point counters in disbelief, and then ostracized Harry later because he was the cause.

I don't think we can say for certain that nobody cares about points. The House Cup, which I believe is based upon preexisting points and quidditch results, is a highly competitive thing in Hogwarts, and losing 50 or a 100 points early in the year can cause the house to lose the Cup at the end of the year, when we consider the amount of total points earned (around 350-550).

The very nature of the house system engenders fierce competition and distrust, and students are expected to be loyal to their own house, mingle with their own, and be suspicious of those from other houses. We see this time and again in canon.

Even though it is perhaps irrelevant to some of the older years, we know that house points, quidditch cup, and the House Cup is very important to McGonagall, Snape, and probably to most of the younger students as well.

 

If the Quiddich results play a role why would they have both a Quiddich Cup and a House Cup?

It's a competitive thing, they just want the cup so that the Slimy Slitherins don't get it again and again and again and again..........

That said I think it's just between Gryffindor and Slytherin, nobody in the other houses gives a shit, they are just full of smart-ass and hardworking people but they never win either.

 

Demons, the problem is that almost every year, Harry or Ron lose 50 points in one go, and the only time people give a shit is during first year.

It also seems strange that they would lose what ended up being about 20% of the average house total at the end of year, each, for just being out of bed. If the prefect rounds are any indication, students being out of bed afterhours isn't exactly rare - certainly not enough that being caught would ostracize one from one's house.

 

McGonagall might have exagerated the punishment to make an example out of Harry. After all punishing a celebrity would make it a lesson for everyone else that such things would not be tolerated. Everyone just thought that he had done something more severe, like killing Filch.

 

That would

1) Destroy any image of impartial McGonagall, to utterly screwover a first year on his first true offense for being a 'celebrity' especially when she actually knew his homelife was probably pretty shitty.

2) Make no sense as the students found out and would probably approve of killing Filch

3) What example? The older students have had years to learn what they can and can't get away with. I realize that ultimately the whole argument boils down to the ol' 'Rowling doesn't know fuckall about numbers' but still...

 

Yeah, exactly.

 

Could you give more examples of Harry and Ron losing mass points beyond the first book? I can't recall any off the top of my head, and even if I could, I doubt it would be enough evidence for me to come to the conclusion that the students were upset with Harry because he didn't live up to their expectations as The Boy Who Lived.

Also, I think the number of points at the end of the year might be so low because the number of students getting in trouble and losing points almost balances out the Hermione's who pick up most of the points. As you said, students being out of bed after curfew isn't exactly a rare thing, not even taking into account all the other shenanigans that students get up to that cause them to lose points.

My theory is that the students were upset because it was such a large amount of points lost. Actually, when I think back to it, I do believe that McGonagall took 50 points each from the counters, and not 50 total. That makes the point deduction either 100 or 150, which is a huge difference when you think that students may only get 1-10 points for answering a question right or performing a piece of magic adequately.

I don't have PS with me though so I can't fact check that. I am certain though that it was 50 points each and not 50 total.

 

It was 50 each - I specifically stated such at least two times, even italicizing the word 'each'.

From the Lexicon:
Harry, Hermione, Ron all lose 50 points each for being out of bed. Draco loses 20.

Ron loses 50 points in 3rd year for throwing a crocodile heart at Malfoy.

* I'd note here that yes, it's Snape doing the docking, but this can't be commonplace, or at least unacceptable. The other teachers would make a fuss if Snape rendered the entire point system useless, and if losing 50 points is enough to create a fuss amongst the students, they wouldn't accept the 'it's Snape' excuse because they must have managed to avoid such a loss, otherwise the final numbers would be Slytherin:500, Gryffindor: - 2000.

Malfoy & Co. lose 50 points (total, I believe) for the fake Dementor attack. Which, one would think, is a tad more serious than students being out of bed, but whatever.

Harry and Ron lose 50 points (together) for shouting at Snape for making fun of Hermione.

Hermione loses 20 points in a potions class in back-to-back lumps of 10 for 'reading' Witch Weekly in class (was actually just sitting next to her).

Harry loses 50 to Umbridge. While one would believe this would be accepted as just Umbridge being a fuck, school opinion at the time was divided, so there ought to have been some reaction... though perhaps Harry being an attention seeking whore was more of an issue that points didn't matter.

Harry loses 70 points (50 and 20 at the same time) for 'lateness' and 'muggle attire'. Snape, naturally.

So massive loss of points seem to be pretty much par for the course with regards to Harry.

 

McGonagall impartial? lol.

While she maintains an air of fairness and impartiality, in reality she pulls for her own house just as much as the other professors do.

For fucks sake, she went through a ton of bureaucracy and trouble to get permission from the ministry to give one of her students a time-turner. Sure, you could argue that perhaps Hermione was the only one in the school that deserved one (which is a hard argument to make considering there are equally bright and hardworking students in other houses and in different years), but I just can't swallow it. She showed favoritism towards a student she liked...and not just small shit either: there is a vast difference between giving her house a few extra points or showering students of her house praise, and giving a 13 year old student an extremely powerful device that can have all kinds of unwanted consequences if you break just one of many rules.

I struggle to wrap my mind around the paradoxes and the logic of time traveling; what hope would a 13 year old have, even one as responsible as Hermione?

Anyway, that was a huge leap of faith; one that it is extremely doubtful she would show a student from a different house.

McGonagall, like the rest of the heads of houses, is partial to her own. She was happy that Harry was sorted into her house and we can see she's fond of him in OoTP when she helps them subvert Umbridge.

As for why she gave out such a large punishment for such an insignificant offense, well, perhaps she did want to make an example out of him to show that she doesn't fuck around and to hold up her facade of impartiality. Or perhaps she was personally upset with him, what with knowing his parents and being fond of him, and wanted to set him straight; a magical spanking if you will. Or maybe she gave out that harsh punishment because she didn't want him to get an ego about breaking the rules and end up acting like the Marauders (although to that effect, it didn't work all that well). If she thought Harry might be harboring such tendencies, early in his first year would be a good time to stamp them out, hence the punishment.

---------- Post automerged at 12:33 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:21 AM ----------

Ah. I forgot all of those events.

Still, there are possible explanations for why the students ostracized Harry and co. in their first year besides them feeling like Harry isn't living up to his title or some bs like that.

None of them knew Harry at that point. It's rather easy to become angry with someone that you hardly know, even someone with Harry's fame. As he got older and he became a fixture of Gryffindor, perhaps to the point of becoming the quintessential or ideal type Gryffindor, the other students came to accept his antics.

After all, he bailed them out at the end of first year with the last minute points, and I recall him doing the same thing second year when he saved the school from the Basilisk.

I don't recall which Gryffindors besides Ron turned on him after his name came out of the cup in GoF (I remember them being pretty united around Harry, except for Ron), but it's pretty clear that they warmed to him in his first few years, with the result of them not giving a shit if he lost large amounts of points. They liked him and knew he'd find some outlandish way to get them back.

One could even go as far as to say he united the house and become the symbol that everyone assumed he was in the first few years, which he ended up turning out to be in the later books. 'Chosen One' and all that shit.

 

Meh, time paradoxes are easy - they don't exist. There's universe A, where you use a time turner at 5 pm to travel into the past, then universe B, where you appear at 10 am. The mere act of existing when you shouldn't causes a new, parallel universe to branch off, forming an entirely new timeline. Thus, your original timeline is completely unaffected by any changes you make, because, in that universe, you simply disappeared and never reappeared.

But as for the original topic, why are we bothering with this crap again? We all know Rowling wouldn't know logistics and logic if they beat her over the head and had their merry way with her, so why bother rationalizing it? Just one more thing from canon to put on my "ignore" list.

 

Oh for fuck's sake. Fucking lexicon. Harry, Hermione and Neville lost the 150 points, 50 each. Jesus, Ron was bitten by a dragon. In the hospital wing. Ring any fricking bells?

 

Are you talking seriously? Because I've struggled for the last ten minutes on telling you how illogical that explanation is.

 

The thought never crossed my mind. After all that's the whole point of the House point system, to make students ostracize one another and compete for being the smartest and most diciplined, that way maintaining dicipline. They don't want to lose many points in one go because their peers would not stand for it.