12th April, 2002
Fangirl Dee #1
Friday, 12:48 pm in Archive
<br /> <br /> You know, it’s funny the things you think about when you’re trying not to study for your upcoming 5% Logic test at 11:45 (send me good luck) today. My current Though comes from a conversation on the abovementioned shapeslash list, my current <i>Harry Potter</i> phase, and a piece of fanfiction I read. And it is this: I no longer like Dumbledore. <br /> <br /> I did; I mean, how can you not? He’s… well, <i>Dumbledore</i>. But then I got to thinking about the end of PoA, and thus stems the problem. Now, I don’t like the Marauders; I never have. It’s purerely a personal thing in that, were they real people in a real high school, I wouldn’t like them. Actually, I <i>did</i> know People Like That, and I didn’t like <i>them</i> either. Popular, attractive, talented and good at sports… Well fuck them. The only member of the group who was possibly not quite so (Peter; the MWPP equivalent of Neville) turned out capital-e Evil. But the four of them together; can anyone say the Gryffindor equivalent of Malfoy? And out of the four of them, I’d have to say that Black is the worst. I mean, James is dead, Peter is Evil (and thus Doesn’t Count; because with ‘friends’ like that, I’d probably turn out Evil too), Remus… okay, Remus I kind of like simply beause he seems just so latently non-threatening (lycanthropy aside). But Sirius Black is an arrogant hothead who takes joy in the suffering of others. Don’t believe me? Go read PoA again – <i>really closley</i> – and see his attitude towards Snape. Now, I’d have to say I’m biased since Snape has been the only character I’ve ever really <i>liked</i> in all four books ever since he turned out not to be Evil at the end of PS, but still it boils down to this: Black almost got Snape killed. This is a bad, bad, bad thing, people. What makes it possibly even <i>worse</i> is that Black didn’t seem to suffer overmuch for it; absolutley <i>everyone</i> in the books laughs the whole Shrieking Shack incident off as a ‘prank’. Um, hello? Can anyone say ‘attempted murder’ (or at the very least, manslaughter)? So naturally Snape is bitter about it; I would be too. Someone I didn’t even like in the first place tries to get me killed, then gets off scot-free? What kind of bloody message does <i>that</i> send? “Kids, it’s okay to pick on people so long as you’re more popular than them”? <br /> <br /> Which brings me to Dumbledore, and his recent slippage down a whole bunch of rungs on my Favourite Characters Ladder. At the end of PoA, Snape is freaking out. The guy who tried to get him killed when he was younger is back and (at various times) in or out of custody. Several times Snapetries to talk (okay, shout, yell or have a hissy fit) to Dumbledore about it; and both times Dumbledore basically breezes over it, telling him to, in effect, to grow up and bugger off. Not only that, but both times he does it in front of students (ie. Harry). Harry and Snape already have Issues, and here is Dumbledore, blatantly undermining what little authority Snape has over his already ‘difficult’ student, breezing over a traumatic and potentially fatal past incident while he does so. And <i>that’s</i> why I no longer like Dumbledore as much as I did. Of everyone in the school, there’s the impression that Dumbledore would be the one to actually listen to Snape (even if he <i>did</i> still tell him to calm down, he could have done it in a much better fashion). As far as Snape’s concerned, there’s a murderer on the loose, one who works for Voldemort, tried to kill Snape and is now trying to kill Harry (that Black didn’t, is irrelevant)… and the one person who would possibly believe Snape tells him to stop being childish. <br /> <br /> If someone did that to me, I’d probably cry. <br /> <br /> And <i>that</i>, kids – the tendency to sympathyse from a point of view other than that belonging to Harry (who I rather dislike) – is what turned me off Dumbledore. And people think Slytherins are bad… <br /> <br /> Actually, this tendency in <i>Harry Potter</i> to laugh at the misery of others, providing those others are a) unpopular, and/or b) in Slytherin, pops up more than just this once. The whole ferret thing in GoF left me feeling very bad for Draco, and extremely irritated at the Trio for laughing about it. Sure, Draco is a prat, but laughing at his misforture essentially – to be annoying about it – lowers you to his level. And <i>that</i>, I think, is why Slytherins have such a reputation for being Evil. You know what they say about the quiet ones everyone picks on…Give it a rest, kid! He’s <i>not</i> evil. He just hates <i>you</i>!
Quoted From: dovielr
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Comments
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I’m glad I’m not the only one who sees that stuff in Harry Potter. @_@ And I like Snape too. He’s the only one who gives Harry a dose of the real world: not everyone will like you; people who don’t like you can sometimes get away with figuratively pissing down your neck; just because people don’t like you doesn’t mean they’re out to kill you; people don’t have to be able to actually read your mind when you’re an idiot.
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I think Dumbledore is okay, but he plays favorites just as much as Snape. I get the impression that if it were Malfoy who pulled all the crap Harry does he’d have been out on his ass. That bothers me. I mean, Snape can be unfair, but Dumbledore tends to reward endangering the lives of others. -
Heh, actually, Dumbledore rewards Harry/Gryffindor. Go on; he so-oo does! Usually at the expense of the Slytherins, too. What, is he <i>trying</i> to push them all into Voldemort’s clutches? Feh… Stupid old goit.
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On the plus side, I think I did well in my test. Wai! Who needs study when you have sheer dumb luck! -
Ahahaha. That reminds me, Alison. Holly and I went to a sort of study techniques seminar first week of Uni. They gave out this pamphlet and it had some common misconceptions about studying, and one just cracked me up:
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“Smart people don’t need to study”
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Holly and I just laughed so much. Ahem, anyway, yeah, that seminar was so interesting we left before it ended >.> -
Dude! I’m being QUOTED! OK, I’m over that now.<br />
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I still like Dumbledore, but … I have to say, not unreservedly. There are several things I think he should answer for – including, but not limited to, why Black wasn’t thrown out on his ear for willingly putting another student in harm’s way. If any Slytherin had pulled the same thing on a Gryffindor, s/he would have been expelled so fast, s/he’d leave skid marks in the entrance hall.<br />
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Having said that … I wonder sometimes if Dumbledore was really in Slytherin. All we have that says otherwise is what Hermione read in some book somewhere about Hogwarts houses, and I think even then she said it was rumored that he was. But think about it: Dumbledore shows this disarming, eccentric, slightly mad face to the world in order to hide what an incredibly powerful wizard he is. Not only that, but he seems to have no qualms about using people – including children – to achieve his aims.<br />
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The person he uses the most blatantly (and pisses me off the most in doing so) is Snape. He has no problems asking Snape to spy for him “at great personal risk” but, as you say, at the end of PoA he makes Snape look like a total fool. Then again, that’s probably because Snape is *just* a Slytherin. As we all know, Slytherins are the scum of the earth and their lives are worth nothing. *rolls eyes* -
Depression is very subjective experience. The fact that this description doesn’t fit you doesn’t mean that it won’t fit some other person. Of course this description remind me from this nice attitude own by american doctors: “You are sick if you could be better.” But still, many people get better because of psychiatry and psychology.<br />
Still…mentaldisorders are subjective experiences. If hadn’t ever suffered from one, then can’t say what it is and what it is to recover by any means. -
If Metallica can sell out so can you
You know I’m just kidding, I’m very happy you got a VCL account. Now you can scare all those little people over at VCL with yer Phat 1337 art as well. *Gropes Dee and Bounds off as best as her sick ass can.* -
I still don’t believe in psychiatry. At all. Read up on things like the actual physical effect ‘treatments’ have on patients (brain damage), the scant evidence suggesting that such diseases even exist as purely a physical malfunction – which is how they’re treated – the malpractice of psyhiatrists themselves (involuntary and coersive committals, ‘treatment’ administersed without informed consent, sexual abuse of patients), the lives of people like Freud (Freud’s theories were debunked years ago, and yet they still found a great deal of modern psychology… not to mention he was a freakish mysogynistic sexual deviant), the fact that ‘diseases’ are diagnosed by a comittee according to what is popular at the time (qv. homosexuality), the sheer number of victims’ groups for ex-psychological patients, blah blah blah blah blah the list goes on and on.<br />
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Am I denying the existance of mental illness? No. But I don’t believe the current mindset of the psychiatric institution is in any way suitable to treating it. [shrugs] -
Do you know, or have you thought how many percent from whole psychiatric system is falling in cathegory descripted by you? <br />
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Schitzophrenia and some psychoses are related to lack or overdose of some agent material. In these cases , because of unbalanced brainchemy, subjects brain will damage, does s/he get treathmen or not. Ways of treathment vary, but I think that if there is even sly hope of recovery or way to do current state reasonable, then there should be tried to do something. Malpractice happens in every system, it would be pointless to assume that psychiatry would be exeption. ONly what should be looked at is that how big part of whole this misuse is. Commitals are (and were) in most of cases usually suggested by relatives, who want to take some person out of them way. Theories are theories. Debunking some theory as whole, don’t mean that some parts of it are still usefull and accurate. There should be always remembered keep separated that what one does and what that one is. I keep Einsteins theory of the relativy respectable archievement on the area of physics, even that man were more than bit eccentric and married his own cousin. <br />
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I don’t deny possible truthfullness of your point’s, but even then I keep better if there is at least tried to do something, than neglect it all and read results from the <br />
headlines.<br />
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Mind If I ask where you did read all that? -
There’s a few places, but mostly a [dex=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0964890909/qid=1046436275/sr=2-1/102-2057878-4148146?v=glance&s=books]random book[/dex] I picked up in the library one day…<br />
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My point is this; psychiatry treats all ‘mental illness’ from schitzophrenia to mild depression as the same; as a purely physical affliction. ‘Treatments’ such as drugs and ECT simply cause the patient to forget what was troubling them in the first place (ECT especially does this by inducing mild to severe brain damage – it’s long term noted side effects are most commonly short and long term memory loss and learning disabilities). How is this a cure? I’m going to do a bad job of explaining this… but there’s no room in conventional psychology/psychiatry for any notion that something might be wrong with the patient’s ‘soul’ or whaever. If you’re feeling sad or angry or whatever it’s because your brain is defective. In my opinion this isn’t a particularly helpful position to take.<br />
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Another problem with the psychiatric institution is that it instigates a culture of ‘no blame’ on the society. In other words; the individual is no longer responsible for their own actions. If they kill someone, it’s obviously because they had a ‘bad childhood’, or have some kind of ‘chemical imbalance’.<br />
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And don’t even get me started on psychosurgery. The history of the lobotomy was what truly turned me off the entire profession; videos of the way it used to be preformed (as a sort of side show, televised in front of an audience), by electrocuting the patient into a stupor then driving a common kitchen-variety ice pick – sometimes gold plated for the show – through the inside corners of the patient’s eyes. It was brutal and performed by the psychologists themselves, not qualified surgeons (footage of these ‘operations’ is often enough to cause seasoned doctors to vomit). Other, non-lobotomy psychosurgeries are often worse; there was a case in Australia in about ‘83 which was especially disturbing… like something out of a demented horror film…<br />
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Then, of course, there’s eugenics (the thing the Nazis tried) which was another psychiatriac brainchild. Most hard street drugs (which were all developed by psychitrists as the ‘safe’ way of weaning patients of other drugs; qv. the rising black market trade for methodone). ‘Depatterning’ and brainwashing experiments (developed and overseen by psychiatrists)… the list goes on. It’s truly quite horrific.<br />
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As for the committals… there have been several scandals whereby psychiatric hospitals have paid ‘recruiters’ to essentially kidnap people who had, say, rung a hotline for people feeling stressed or mildly depressed. These people were then doped up and held against their and their families’ will (often given ECT for extra kicks) until their insurance ran out, before being booted out onto the street.<br />
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Another useful tidbit; fully 80% of people who die in psychiatric institutions have some form of previously undiagnosed physical disease (such as cancer, etc.). Most of these illnesses contain things like depression as their symptoms.<br />
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Used to be psychiatrists threw patients into snake pits to ‘shock’ them out of their psychosis. Nowadays they just dope them up.<br />
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I don’t trust a single one of them (and if that means I have Non Compliance With Treatment Disorder – and yes, that does exist – then so be it). -
Haha…getting that book is going to be a bit difficult…shame. But by the cover Mr Wiseman is propably quite good in making critical.<br />
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Assuming, that ALL psychiatrist and psychologists believe that mental illnesses are just matter of defective brain function would be as absurd as assuming that the earth is only place in universe containing life. Of course, then things are view from point of a “victim” the psychiatry become a big monster. But then…this is just only the other point of view. Have you ever even imagined how overhelming jod it is to scan human mind and curing them. Especially when subject is just drooling in corner and “talking” with god, and only way to make contact to that person is by looking in eyes and subject hadn’t been even doped up. Infront of this enormous and frustrating workfield I don’t really wonder why psychiatry is gladly using shortcuts like drugs or ECT. On the other hand…treathments usually reflect just general attitude of sociaty towards treatment methods. If people want that they healt, mental or psychical, is cured just like a headache, then what else doctors can do for they bread?<br />
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“fully 80% of people who die in psychiatric institutions have some form of previously undiagnosed physical disease (such as cancer, etc.). Most of these illnesses contain things like depression as their symptoms.” I think that this is more likely those on duty doctor’s fault who diagnose them as depression patient, than those psychiatrists who treath ‘em.<br />
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“Used to be psychiatrists threw patients into snake pits to ‘shock’ them out of their psychosis. Nowadays they just dope them up.” Before psychology became a science there were in some major churches and mosques a spesific place where devil could be literally beated out from mentally ill people. Are the rude treatment methods becouse of psychology or becouse of human’s nature?<br />
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But yes…I can’t really deny existence of lobotomy, eugenics or doping up, or embellish them. Still it’s not reasonable that those things are keeped more likely a rule than exeption. There should always remembered how big percentage of the whole pshychiatric or psychological treatment is falling this cathegory.<br />
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“then so be it” …should I take that as note that you want to end up this nice little debate? Ach…too late right now.<br />
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May I ask still a little personal question?<br />
What would you do if you would have a friend who is on the edge of suicide becouse of severe depression?