PoA Chapter Eight

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

In no time DADA is everyone’s favorite class, and only Draco and his gang of Slytherins has anything to say about Lupin—because Draco seriously has to work the villain role in this book. He says Lupin’s robes are worn. Ooh. Burn.

A moment here to appreciate all the work Draco does in these books whenever Voldemort’s not stepping up, which is often.

Also the stuff about his clothes is supposed to be a clue he’s a werewolf. He can’t work and buy new things. I always liked the idea that he was tearing out of them like the hulk and had to keep patching them as well.

Ha. This makes me think of some fanart someone did of HBP where Lupin basically had progressed from shabby to tattered to just a head on top of a scribble.

No wonder we never have any clear idea of what the Dark Arts actually are since creatures like Red Caps apparently count. Just because they hang around where there had been bloodshed. Werewolves and vampires I can kind of understand since presumably the magical mechanism that turns wizards into those things counts, but this is like making crocodiles dark arts.

Basically, I think we’re maybe just talking about Goth-ish stuff here. Like if I were a wizard I’d probably be obsessed with the Dark Arts because I love horror movies and death imagery.

I wonder if the book from Draco’s pov would say that by now nobody had anything bad to say about Professor Snape besides Harry Potter and his gang of Gryffindors.

No one has to wonder why Snape’s in a bad mood. Coming up with inaccurate reasons why Snape is doing anything is kind of a hobby in this place.

I do have to give Snape some credit here. Given his history with Lupin, the boggart incident really does make it seem like Lupin’s continuing the old Marauders war. It’s one of the best things in this book, imo, the way I can really understand how Snape thinks he’s being passive aggressively attacked by Lupin throughout.

Stop me from getting really psychological and saying he bullies Neville worse than ever because Lupin’s class reminds him of his own humiliations and Neville reminds him of his weakling self.

Harry just can’t like Professor Trelawney, which is why it’s okay for Umbridge to get rid of her but not Hagrid.

Nobody likes CoMC, but that’s Malfoy’s fault because he made Hagrid lose his confidence. No teacher could be expected to deal with a distracted kid and a predictable classroom accident. Damn you, Malfoy, ruining the awesomest class in school!

Also it’s not the teacher’s job to make the subject interesting. If it’s not deadly, Hagrid’s hands are tied here.

The Seeker has the hardest job of all in Quidditch, btw. That’s the job Harry has, natch.

I’m shocked to remember Gryffindor actually lost the cup the first year, but then remember that Harry was unconscious at the time so it’s really a victory for Harry.

Oliver even makes a point of saying that ever since Harry joined the team he’s considered it in the bag.

Fred’s looking forward to the first Hogsmeade weekend since he’s out of stink pellets. He’s fifteen years old.

Hermione disapproves of copying. That’s why when she does the boy’s homework she starts fresh for each paper.

More animal hijinx with Crookshanks chasing after Scabbers.

Even more animal hijinx, Lavender’s rabbit Binky was killed by a fox. It’s all in the circle of life!

Hermione tries to point out the illogic of Lavender thinking Binky’s death was predicted by Trelawney. I cherish these moments with Hermione actually being logical.

The kids are just handing in their permission slips now? I’m surprised everybody hasn’t lost theirs.

Harry tries to claim that as Muggles, the Dursleys don’t understand forms. McGonagall has her own reasons for wanting Harry at school or that probably would have worked.

Dean—the Muggleborn—finally offers to forge the signature. Unfortunately Harry was already dumb enough to tell the teacher it wasn’t signed.

As if the Dursleys’ signatures would have even been considered valid if they wanted to keep Harry in school. Muggles don’t understand danger.

Percy gives the worst piece of advice by saying that Harry’s not missing much by not seeing a joke shop, a sweet shop and an empty house. Don’t ask me why it’s the least helpful advice. Sounds pretty good to me.

The common room is filled with younger kids and older students who have visited Hogsmeade so much the novelty has worn off. Oh, surely not. There’s a joke shop! When one tires of Hogsmeade one is tired of life!

Colin calls Harry over, but he can’t bear being stared at avidly by him. Just point the out now because we know Colin will die for him. War: What is it good for?

Lupin hands Harry a chipped mug of tea. Even his mugs are tattered. Or maybe the house elves intentionally chip his mugs because they think he’s chosen a theme on purpose.

Seeing Lupin brings up all of Harry’s anxieties about being thought a coward again. I wonder if Ravenclaws are this sensitive about people thinking they’re dumb?

It turns out Harry’s fear of scaly monsters swishing around in cloaks reveals yet another way that Harry is kind of naturally more heroic than anyone else. Because the fear of ghoulish corpses sliding around in capes and causing depression is being afraid of fear.

Snape arrives for one of the better scenes in the series imo. Even if in the end Snape really does turn out to be ridiculously stuck in the past, I can completely see this scene from his pov. He probably does think Lupin’s telling Harry all sorts of humiliating things about Snape and Lily.

I also love Lupin in this scene because he’s so passive-aggressive about his Potion, not drinking it as soon as he’s gotten it and being all casual. I think beyond just wanting to yank Snape’s chain, the guy’s conflicted about the stuff. It’s not completely out of his control when he eventually forgets to take it.

God, I miss the Lupin that was all passive-aggression and repressed hostility under a competent, kindly façade. Why did he have to be replaced by a twit peer pressured into marriage who had to get schooled by a kid?

Harry blurts out that Snape’s very interested in the Dark Arts. What that means or why Harry thinks he knows this fact is a mystery. Isn’t Lupin interested in the Dark Arts if that’s his subject? Isn’t it everyone’s favorite subject this year?

Heh. I love that Harry’s actually suggesting that Snape is poisoning Lupin to get the DADA job. This is why kid mysteries are fun.

Ron and Hermione look like they had the time of their lives in Hogsmeade. Seriously, it doesn’t sound all that great. Very nice, but not Shangri-La. A bit like spending the day in Bath. They have an awesome fudge shop that gives out samples too.

Even Hermione believes Snape was trying to poison Lupin. So much for the brilliant Hermione of earlier in the chapter.

It would have been a bit cooler if the Fat Lady was all torn up and bleeding from the attacked picture. Oh well. That’s probably my Dark Arts obsession talking.

It is a pretty good end to the chapter, though, with Peeves telling us Sirius slashed the portrait and has a bad temper.

Wow, I miss the Sirius of this book too. It’s definitely PoA!Sirius and PoA!Lupin who are shacked up in the afterlife.

Things that happen twice:
Crookshanks/Buckbeak are connected but a bit unevenly. Within the story it’s Crookshanks’s instinct that’s more intelligent than it seems, because he’s going after Scabbers because he can tell he’s a villain, while Buckbeak just attacked someone who insulted him. Taking the Doylist approach, though, Buckbeak’s attacking people for verbal insults is far more indicative of human intelligence.

Lavender also has a pet who’s also killed and it makes her sad. Though Hermione only responds with empathy to Hagrid’s pet and not Ron’s or Lavender’s. With those two she’s distracted by a point she wants to prove.

Lupin will NOT drink his Potion right away and is all casual about it while Snape not only brings it to him but practically can’t stop himself from pouring it down his throat.

Snape walks into a room, finds Harry and Lupin in conference, and gets the wrong idea. I think he might do that again later.


It’s a gun. No it isn’t! It’s Chekov! No it isn’t!
Lupin says Voldemort’s name!
The name thing is one of those things that’s given a lot of weight but doesn’t really mean anything. (Another one is also highlighted in this chapter.) The only payoff is that Voldemort neatly turns it into a way to track them so…yay?
Status: Uh, fired back on the person doing it?

Snape would do anything to get that DADA job. Anything!
Would he? Was any of that even true? Or was it just a really elaborate reason for Dumbledore to give Snape the job in HBP, even though he could have done it anyway? Or I guess we’re really supposed to buy Dumbledore’s idea, which I think JKR might have agreed with in an interview?—about Snape falling prey to his old addictions to them again if he was teaching it? Only what addiction would that be, since Snape seems to have the exact same interest in the Dark Arts as Harry? And the exact same interest before and after he’s the DADA teacher? And we never see what an actual Dark Arts interest is anyway?
Status: WTF?




Informed Attributes
Harry’s fear of Dementors is exceptional.

Informed Attributes
Hogsmeade is totally what a teenager would imagine as the best place to spend a day.

Spring-Loaded Cat
Crookshanks strikes again!

Whooshing Powder
I’m going to gives this one to whooshing powder’s even better cousin, smoking goblet of potion. If Snape lived he could have gotten a job cooking for the Munsters.

Jabootu Score: 4

Comments

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

The Hermione with pets things is really odd in this book. Because I can totally find the Lavender part funny. Hermione really isn't thinking about the girl as having lost her rabbit. She just hears her saying something ridiculous about it and MUST point it out. But then we get a whole story where she's totally uncaring about Ron's rat when it seems like her cat ate him, acting like he's just got it in for her cat and that makes it seem like anything is more important than other peoples' pets being hurt or something. Like she just doesn't get it. Then for some reason she gets emotional about Buckbeak and Hagrid.

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I almost never buy Hermione when she's emotional. I did buy her breakdown when she slapped Draco, because she'd been under so much stress during the year. But I didn't buy the tears over Buckbeak. My reading is that she throws herself into the Buckbeak case because, with Ron and Harry ostracizing her, she has nothing else to fall back on socially. It's like Hagrid is the only person left for her to hang out with.

Which is why it's hard to imagine her being so keyed into school gossip. She doesn't really seem to get along with anyone but Ron, Harry, and Ginny. If she was popular with the other girls in her year, would her date with Viktor be such a big surprise?

And this scene with Lavender, which is probably there to show how fraudulent Trelawney's predictions are, really only highlights how out of touch Hermione is with her room mates.

But then, I do prefer clueless insensitive Hermione to all-knowing and amazingly compassionate Hermione. Because it's not a color that works for her.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I agree. Her tears over Buckbeak just don't work for me at all. I think she'd just be angry her work didn't convince the panel. And I like it better when she's putting people off without meaning to, or just being a lot better at snapping at people and ordering them around then being comforting. Like as a Prefect. I like to imagine Hermione wanting to be looked up to and liked by the younger students, and being upset when they seem to not like her. (Like I can see her getting the impression they even like Malfoy better and it driving her crazy.)

But then, that all goes back to the most sympathetic Hermione in first year who doesn't have any friends. She shouldn't be as good at social networking as she somehow is when needed for the plot.

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

Right. The one person in the Trio who seems organically good at social networking is Ron. When he and Harry are on the outs, he simply starts hanging out with Seamus and Dean. Harry notices that they seem to be having a great time.

That reminds me of something I wanted to mention about Ron and Hermione coming back from Hogsmeade. Maybe part of their wonderful day was being able to get away from Harry for once.

[tdotm.livejournal.com]

---" The one person in the Trio who seems organically good at social networking is Ron."

I totally agree. I supppose he was the most natural and came from a large family, so he grew up dealing with different characters and fitting in. Also, you could choose to like or dislike Ron without fear of THE WRATH OF JKR'S PLOT coming down on your head.

[tdotm.livejournal.com]

"But then, I do prefer clueless insensitive Hermione to all-knowing and amazingly compassionate Hermione. Because it's not a color that works for her."

After my ranting about how insensitive Hermione was here, I still agree with you! The thing is, it fits into what we already know of her and could easily be toned down with maturity. (Though we know she'll only get worse, yet still sold as a heroine.) Insensitive Hermione has the same relationship with amazingly compassionate Hermione that PoA Lupin has with DH Lupin. They're apparently different people. Lupin is lucky that he only had two personas, Hermione had several - never convincingly integrated into one person gradually changing with time or events. She just went to and fro.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I disagree partially with you here.

First off, where is Hermione 'amazingly compassionate' in the later books, or DH? If you're talking about Kreacher, that fits in with her S.P.E.W. evangelism. If you're talking about with Harry (darn, there's the graveyard scene, and I think a second one which I'm blanking on!?) then that fits with a model that has her opening up only to a few people, her close friends.

The Buckbeak thing I think I can see as being equally intellectual umbrage against the system as well as compassion for the hippogriff.

Montavilla said:

If she was popular with the other girls in her year, would her date with Viktor be such a big surprise?

Yes. Because Viktor is such a huge celebrity - not only a tournament CHAMPION but also a famous quidditch player, fresh from having won the snitch at the world cup.

I don't think Hermione is wildly popular outside her own small circle - not like HBP!Ginny :-) - but there's no antipathy either. Enough room for her to plug into the girls' gossip network and gather information as part of her analysis of Harry's relationship with Cho in book 5.

I can see her as being more on the blunt analytical side with those outside her inner circle of friends - and also holding logic and reason as ideals which should never be compromised, hence the insensitivity with Lavender's bunny - but not particularly disliked either. Even in the first book the only negative evidence as to Hermione's social standing is Ron's comment - borne on his personal antipathy towards her - that she had no friends.

Lupin is lucky that he only had two personas, Hermione had several - never convincingly integrated into one person gradually changing with time or events. She just went to and fro.

I'll certainly agree that the turnaround Rowling did with the character in HBP was a complete aberration, but until she was crudely shoehorned into her place in the OBHWF romantic jigsaw I'm not sure there were any other conflicting personal traits. No variance beyond the norm, anyway.