This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Working Title: Boarding School Of Horrors: From YKTTW
Removed the aversion. There's already a trope for plain old Boarding School.
DracMonster: I put the original Hogwarts one (which got expanded from two sentences to thread mode.) Madruga, please explain your logic. It seems to me perfectly valid to list a school under both entries if of seesaws between nice and nasty. Hogwarts had fun, heartwarming parts, but Harry also had experiences that would have any real parent calling for the faculty to be lynched.
Madrugada: Read the description: There is nothing good about a Boarding School of Horrors. Umbridge is the only sadistic teacher, (Snape may be unfair but he's not sadistic); Students aren't beaten for infractions (until Umbridge comes along, punishments are likely to be polishing the trophies or something else equally tedious and boring); Dumbledore is a nice guy; most of the students are not bullies; the food is specifically said to be delicious; there's no reason to believe that the dorms are uncmfortable in the least; there aren't creepy-crawlies everywhere (yes, there are critters that are dangerous if not handled properly, but part of the curriculum is learning to handle them properly). As to "If you complain or write home to your parents, they won't believe you," many of the students are the children of parents who went to Hogwarts themselves. If it was a Boarding School of Horrors, they'd know from firsthand experience.
And as for "Harry also had experiences that would have any real parent calling for the faculty to be lynched." In our world, perhaps, but Mr and Mrs Weasley showed no sign of calling for a faculty lynching.
Now, it may turn into a genuine Boarding Schol Of Horrors in the Deathly Hallows (I haven't read that one,) so an antry saying something like "In the final book, Hogwarts becomes one of these." I won't argue with. But again, A Boarding School Of Hoorors has nothing good about it. If it doesn't go completely ugly, it's not this trope.
Madrugada: Removed several examples which are really Boarding Schools, not Boarding Schools Of Horror:
- Sara Crewe's school in A Little Princess edges toward Boarding School of Horrors when her father dies and she is forced to work as a servant. It's not entirely this trope, though, since the teachers are harsh but not sadistic, and she's not beaten or abused.
- Hogwarts... just... Hogwarts:
- First year: Hellhound in the basement.
- Second year: A Basilisk, able to kill with a look roaming the hall.
- Third year: A convicted mass-murderer on the loose. Also, the grounds where guarded by soul-sucking monsters.
- Fourth year: A competition which had previously been banned because the competitors routinely failed to survive the challenges.
- Fifth year: A teacher who turns the place into a police state and issues hours of torture for infractions.
- Sixth year: Murder of the headmaster on school grounds by one of the teachers and an invasion by Death Eaters.
- And lets not forget that the two previous murder attempts on the headmaster left two of the students very lucky to survive.
- Seventh year: The aforementioned Death Eaters becoming teachers and having children practice the torturous Cruciatus Curse on students in detention. Oh, and the Big Bad deciding to have the Final Battle right on the school grounds.
- Also, note that the above is in addition to the school being haunted and located next to a (forbidden) forest full of giant spiders, not-terribly-friendly centaurs, and other horrors. Oh yeah, and you're in a Wizarding School, so everyone around you is armed with innumerable curses and hexes that can do highly unpleasant things to you. Which they think are amusing practical jokes.
- Don't forget that before Dumbledore became the Headmaster, the school rules knew punishments such as hanging students from their arms from chains for hours or days - for first year students! And even with Dumbledore in charge, parts of the school are still mortally dangerous to enter, and even some normal classes hold a danger of poisoning, (temporary) deformation or serious injury.
- It really says something that Harry and Tom Riddle felt that Hogwarts was the first place he could truly call a home.
- Despite the presence of a few horrors and the fact it's a boarding school, Gunnerkrigg Court does NOT fit this.
