Speaking of Thestrals (I'm sorry that I'm barraging you guys with questions, but this is another one of those questions I had for a while), why doesn't Harry see thestrals by the end of book 4?

"Hermione turned away, smiling at the horseless carriages which were now trundling towards them up the drive, as Krum, looking surprised, but gratified, signed a fragment of parchment for Ron." (HP and the GoF Page 629).

After Cedric's death, Harry does not see Thestrals, but in the OotP (2 months later), he is able to. Is there an explanation? Or is it another out-of-book reason?

Anyways, thank you everyone for sharing your thoughts. I think I got the answers for all of my previous questions.

 

I can only think of thestrals not being invented before OOTP.

 

The official reason is that at the end of GOF, Harry hasn't yet assimilated the meaning of death, or something like that. Two months later he has had the time to think and understand.

That being said, I personally agree with ScottPress.

 

Wait, so you have to understand the meaning of death before being able to see a thestral? I don't remember exactly, but doesn't the books say that seeing death allows you to see thestrals, not understanding death?

 

That's from an interview.

 

Ah, okay. Didn't read that interview before. Thanks!

 

My intentions for number 5 was more in the lines of, "Why doesn't the Hogwarts staff have more regard towards student health and well-being." The badges was an example of that - how the faculty didn't do anything to prevent student mass-bullying. Another example is the racial discrimination that is present in Hogwarts. Throughout various times in the canon, derogatory terms, such as mudblood, muggle-lover, mudblood-lover, and blood traitor, are used, and yet nothing is done by the staff to discourage, or stop, such behavior. And do we even need to talk about Snape?

For question 6, I was just confused about Dumbledore's intentions (regarding Harry's self sacrifice), which I got a better understanding through reading Taure's post. That one was my bad, I should have read the past forums in more detail before posting it in the thread.

 

They probably were busy trying to Conjure up a fuck to give.

 

As others have said, it comes down to a difference in attitude and values. For people of the younger generations (in the UK at least) this kind of bullying would likely not have been tolerated at their school. That attitude, however, is a very recent one.

My parents, grand-parents and great-grandparents all had a very different experience of bullying. It was often stated to 'build character' (think Smeltings with their sticks, I think Vernon actually says this). Teachers didn't get involved because such adversity was thought to be a core part of growing up. Other unpleasant practices were kept on for many years under the guise of 'tradition'.

After-all, once you're an adult you'll have to fend for yourself, it's best you learn early how to do that. It's a big bad world out there.

It's a rather 'trial by fire' approach that has fallen out of fashion (at least in the UK) but it is likely to be the environment that JKR saw when she was at school.

 

That explains it. I started school after the education reforms, so I guess I sort of took student rights for granted. This makes sense, since the Wizarding World is much more conservative and traditional than the muggle counterpart, and so wouldn't be following the muggle reforms that would be happening around this time.

I got all of my questions answered. Thank you, everyone, for keeping up with my barrage of questions and enlightening an ignorant muggle (yes, I'm still a muggle, unfortunately).

 

Conservative and traditional? LOL no, different yes.