PoA Chapter Eleven

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Harry asks a question I’ve been asking for a while: why hasn’t anyone told him his parents died because their best friend betrayed him? I love it when I can identify with Harry.

Yes, Harry never asked. But you’d think that would be a big part of the story, especially once Sirius becomes front page news. We know why the people charged with being his handlers haven’t told him, but you’d think it would be gossip.

I guess the WW rumor mill is like the Hogwarts one. Very respectful of plot surprises!

The Trio don't talk about it during dinner because Percy is near them. I never noticed how much of a negative thing Percy is even in PoA. It's like the same thing that makes him so misguided and awful in the next three books is supposed to be clear now.

Meanwhile, Fred and George have set off dungbombs because they’re in high spirits. Fifteen years old.

I'm probably not supposed to be thinking now about that poor guy to whom they gave boils this year while he's stressed out about his OWLS.

Harry looks at his photo album and for the first time wonders about the best man. That is some impressive tunnel vision there, Harry. You never wondered that before, really?

A hatred such as Harry had never known is coursing through his veins. We will become very familiar with this feeling of Harry's in his future. It's his amazing power of love!

Peter resembles Neville in Harry’s imaginings, because he didn’t think to look for Peter in the album too, even though he obviously would have been there.

Come to think of it, there is a parallel there. Neville and Peter are both dismissed for being pudgy and uncool. Both are completely underestimated yet wind up being the most impressive people on their respective sides. And both continue to basically be dismissed as hangers on that make the cool people look good for being nice to them.

Harry starts to lecture Hermione and Ron about what they would do if their parents were killed by a guy...I might as well out myself here and say that if that were me I really don’t think I’d have any desire to strap on a gun and going looking for the guy myself. That’s why I’m a coward.

Ron tells Harry that Pettigrew’s mother only got a finger of him back. This is presumably to remind us about the missing finger but more importantly, did Ron just admit that he’s known more of the story than he’s ever told all along? Whoa!

Double whoa—Peter has a mother? I suppose she must have been killed off.

Just realized that Harry’s talking about Lucius giving Draco information on Sirius because he was in Voldemort’s inner circle when really it’s family history for Draco.

Hermione tearfully tells Harry his parents wouldn’t want him looking for Black. Harry says he’ll never know what they wanted because thanks to Black he’s never spoken to them. Excellent use of the orphan card there, Harry. Bravo.

Just then there’s a nice little moment of Crookshanks flexing his claws and Ron’s pocket quivering. That’s the good thing about rereads.

Ron suggests they visit Hagrid. WTF, Ron? Are you trying to make everything worse? Thanks a lot. I’d rather have Hermione read us whatever essay she’s writing.

I just realized that Herimone’s having her homework spread out over 3 tables is probably supposed to show that she’s got three timestreams worth of homework.

I’m sorry, who on earth decided that Hagrid had no responsibility for the attack in question? Of course he had responsibility. He’s the frigging teacher.

Oh wait, I see, it’s Dumbledore who told them he had no responsibility. Hagrid could have fed somebody to the hippogriff and he’d still have no responsibility as far as Dumbledore was concerned.

Sirius, not so much. If you’re going to go being more loyal to your friends than Dumbledore, what do you expect?

Dumbledore must really want Buckbeak executed so he’s pretending it’s out of his hands.

Yes, the animal's going to be "executed" to make it as clear as possible that we’re supposed to be seeing Buckbeak tried like a human for a crime. A crime for which he is innocent because the author cleverly made "I attacked him because I didn’t like his pointy ferret face when he insulted me" an animal instinct.

But Hagrid said Buckbeak wasn’t a bad hippogriff, Ron says. Yes, because Hagrid is a great judge of good and bad hippogriffs.

Btw, what does that even mean? Sorry, this whole thing just obsesses me. Usually in that context he'd be saying this was OOC for Buckbeak, but of course that's not true. He absolutely can be counted on to attack people if they say something insulting. But in this series it seems to just hook into the whole "good kid" vs. "bad kid" set up. When he attacks people he has a good reason and it's not a sign of a bad character.

Buckbeak, it turns out, has been lying in the corner all this time without anyone noticing. Okay. How big is this thing? Big enough to fly two people around.

Hagrid explains he couldn’t leave him tied up in the snow for Christmas, probably thinking that the Christmas part is what would really make the wild animal sad.

The Trio doesn’t see any particular harm in Buckbeak just because they saw him attack someone for calling it a "big, ugly brute" while petting it. Iow: He didn’t hurt any of us. What harm could it be? WTF is up with Lucius making an official complaint about him?

Hagrid announces the guys who decide these things are all in Lucius's pocket, as they always seem to be even though it never pans out for Lucius. Who does Lucius think he is favoring his stupid only child as much as Hagrid cares about one of his pets?

Hagrid really is supposed to be right of course. The only reason anyone would have for executing Buckbeak is that they’re DE-sympathizers or being bribed or caving to the first two groups.

Harry can’t bring himself to berate Hagrid about Sirius now that he sees how sad he is. Figures it would be at exactly the same moment I wish somebody would suggest Hagrid suck it up for once and not blame everything on the nearest kid handy.

Hagrid’s killed all the flobberworms. But this isn’t a tragedy, as they aren’t interesting. Nor have they performed any special liking for our heroes.

Wow, think about that. In his funk over somebody thinking of killing his one animal he wipes out a whole pack of other animals through irresponsibility and general neglect.

Hagrid moans about his days in Azkabanand mentions the day he had to let Norbert go as one of the saddest in his life. Yeah, remember that day when Hagrid was being stupid with animals and Harry and Hermione got detention for it? Hagrid’s just always the victim.

The narrator reminds us that Norbert was the baby dragon Hagrid won at cards. It fails to remind us that wasn’t it also in the game of cards where Hagrid blabbed about Fluffy? Or am I remembering that wrong?

Everybody starts helping Hagrid in his defense, because naturally Hagrid won’t be doing it himself.

Funny that nobody ever considers Hagrid’s defense to just be Hagrid taking responsibility for the whole thing, which you’d think would help, wouldn't it? The animal should be found innocent because his owner put him in a dangerous situation, gave shoddy safety instructions and wasn't watching carefully.

The kids don’t manage to find anything where a hippogriff got off in this sort of case, probably because people usually do put down animals that attack people. Damn. You’d think there would be some special book out there full of cases where animals savaged people everybody kind of wanted to savage themselves. I’m sure they’d find a precedent there.

Props to Sirius for being classy enough to give Harry his broom for Christmas instead of flying it in through the dining hall.

Not sure where Sirius got the money to buy this thing. Can he just walk into the bank and withdraw from his own account without anyone being suspicious? Did he do it in dog form?

Ron thinks Dumbledore sent it anonymously because if he openly spent hundreds of dollars on a student "some git like Malfoy" might "think" it was favoritism. I’m not ready to believe that JKR doesn’t mean that to be ironic, but the jokes about favoritism do kind of sit on the idea that favoritism towards our favorites is okay.

It’s great the way Ron has a whole list of people at the school he honestly believes would spend a ton of money on a broom far better than Harry needs just because poor Harry Potter broke the one he had and has plenty of money to buy another.

Look, Harry shouldn't have to ride a broom without mysterious sentimental value.

Ron happily announces Harry’s broom costs more than all the Slytherins' brooms put together. You remember, those brooms we were supposed to look at with disgust because they were vulgar display of wealth. Harry wins again!

Hermione keeps looking darkly at Harry’s broom as if it, too, had been criticizing her cat. LOL. Just had to write that because it’s funny.

I can’t imagine why Trelawney doesn’t usually come to meals when McGonagall spends the whole time making snarky remarks about her second sight.

::sigh:: Why doesn’t somebody do that to Hagrid?

A first year goes red at being addressed by Dumbledore—a rare treat for any student not a close personal friend of Harry’s.

Ha ha. Hermione’s right. The broom was indeed sent to Harry by Sirius Black.


Things that happen twice
Hagrid again depends on the Trio to help him out of his problems.
Harry gets yet another top of the line racing broom from an anonymous donor.
Baby’s first hatred greater than he’s ever known before coursing through his veins. Get used to that feeling, Harry.
Not the last joke about Harry being favored and it being cool sometimes.


It’s a gun. No it isn’t! It’s Chekov! No it isn’t!
Peter and Neville are totally connected! Neville will be a traitor.
Status: Put that gun away and apologize to Mr. Longbottom.

Three tables of homework
Status: Fired in three timestreams!

Know what Pettigrew’s Mother got back?
Status: Fired. She got back an important way to distinguish Scabbers as Peter Pettigrew.

Thirteen at a table! Ron will die! Harry will die!
Status: Well, Harry did dramatically go off to his suicide and Ron got poisoned. Basically the usual thing where it depends on the interpretation.

Malfoy knows...he says if it was his family…
Status: Fired, if with blanks. Malfoy kind of would do exactly what Harry did in a similar but not as righteously heroic situation. Only not heroically.




Designated Hero
Yeah, I feel really sorry for Hagrid here. Luckily the heroes have taken on the quest to make sure he suffers no consequences for what happened in his class at all.

Idiot World
Do I even want to know how one mounts a defense for a hippogriff? Wouldn’t you just watch Draco’s memory—or Hagrid’s memory—and decide that Draco deserved it?

Misdirected Answering
Harry might be distracted by Hagrid’s animal woes, but I’m not.

Spring-Loaded Cat
We’ll be seeing a lot of these.

The Stealth Monster Rule
Oh, there’s a giant hippogriff in the room and we just didn’t notice until it started loudly slurping up blood.

Jabootu Score: 5

Comments

[horridporrid.livejournal.com]

There are times I think back to how I (badly!) misread these books, expecting lessons to be learned and Draco and Harry to become friends, or at least work together to bring down Voldemort. And I think, man was I stupid.

But then I look at this reread you're doing and I think, how could I have not thought that?!? Because it seems so obvious that the attacks on Draco are unfair, and often castigating him for behavior Harry turns around and does as well, and of course our hero would pick up on that. Right?

(Really, I just have no idea how JKR's mind works. None.)

It’s a gun. No it isn’t! It’s Chekov! No it isn’t!
Peter and Neville are totally connected! Neville will be a traitor.
Status: Put that gun away and apologize to Mr. Longbottom.

Oddest character connection ever. Seriously, why did JKR put that connection in there? I thought it was because we were supposed to pity Peter, but... I don't think we were.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

Seriously, why did JKR put that connection in there?

On a generous day I would say she was mirroring the two - they're alike but there is a substantial difference that makes one a Good Guy and one a Bad Guy - Good and Evil twins. Or, to think of it another way, Peter was Bizarro to Neville's Superman.

I wish it really had turned out that way. What a good way of showing that looks don't matter.

[horridporrid.livejournal.com]

*nods* I think the mirror may have been her intent. But boy did she do it badly! Other than looks (I guess? were Neville and Peter physically similar in book canon?) they're really nothing alike. Neville never seems to care a bit about fitting in with anyone and is perfectly content to go his own way. He never seemed to need Harry (except in the way this 'verse needed Harry).

I'd have picked Ron as more closely mirroring Peter, frankly.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

The comparison was all in Harry's mind and only lasted until he *met* Pettigrew.

What set it off was the story of Poor little Peter standing up to Evil Sirius Black and being hopelessly outclassed, and remembering Neville standing up to the three of them over their insistance on going out and raiding the Labyrinth and being hexed for it by Hermione.

I'll agree that the parallel makes sense exactly when and how it was brought up. But it was the readers' fault for hanging onto it one minute after it was made clear that the story was false.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

Right. PP was nothing like Neville once we see him; he wasn't enough not like Neville to be his mirror, either. But the idea was planted and, with 4 more books to go the erroneous idea of the mirroring or paralleling might have been worked into the story as far as fans knew. I think someone could still do an AU fic that has PP more of a mirror to Neville since we don't know why he joined the DEs or turned against his friends - he might have done it out of some misguided beliefs or loyalties, which would have him much more like Neville than he is currently shown to be in canon.

We also didn't know enough about Neville to say absolutely that he wasn't stewing about his treatment and plotting a betrayal. So, IMO, the idea had validity until we were shown more about both Neville and Pettigrew. Piece by piece as we saw more of Neville and PP, the less likely it seemed but there was always the stewing cauldron of seething hatred angle...

...back when we thought it was intricately planned, anyway.

[sunnyskywalker]

For Harry, Neville turning around and going, "I'm going to fight Voldemort and try to make the world a better place and all, but you've done nothing but condescend to everyone and let us down as a leader after you shut down the DA, so I'm going to do it my way and you can help if you want" would count as betrayal. That could have been interesting. If Harry were able to learn from things like that, anyway. (And if we wanted a Pettigrew mirror, we could start with the idea that he felt his friends and Dumbledore were condescending and running the country into the ground, but made the wrong choice by deciding to let everyone else hang and do whatever was best for his survival while Neville kept to an ethical code and risked himself to help other kids and save the world.)

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

(And if we wanted a Pettigrew mirror, we could start with the idea that he felt his friends and Dumbledore were condescending and running the country into the ground, but made the wrong choice by deciding to let everyone else hang and do whatever was best for his survival while Neville kept to an ethical code and risked himself to help other kids and save the world.)

That would also show that there are more than two sides in an equation. It would have helped kids use their brains to think instead of teaching them that there are good people to follow and bad people to follow...

I sort-of think she tried to go with the Ministry as a third side but it fizzled. It might even show that finding someone to follow when you disagree with someone isn't a good idea - the enemy of my enemy isn't always by default my friend. Peter makes the mistake, Neville corrects it. Only we're never shown Peter regretting his alliance with LV.

What Neville didn't say in your paragraph above is exactly what he did, and for pretty much the same reasons, IMO. It was Luna who was disappointed that the DA didn't continue, though, giving that reason via someone else.

[sunnyskywalker]

The Ministry never did manage to be a real independent player, no. Otherwise Percy might have been right about something, and we can't have that! I mean, having him pick a side that's flawed because he doesn't like the others' flaws and trying to make the best of it would be complicated.

I just wish Neville would have said it :D Or at least, "Hey, where have you been? I thought you were dead for sure after we didn't hear about you doing anything for months - couldn't you have tried to contact us for help?" and that Harry would have to think about.

[horridporrid.livejournal.com]

What set it off was the story of Poor little Peter standing up to Evil Sirius Black and being hopelessly outclassed, and remembering Neville standing up to the three of them over their insistance on going out and raiding the Labyrinth and being hexed for it by Hermione.

Ah, I'd forgotten about that link! So that's one more reason we weren't completely fooling ourselves in seeing a deeper, more satisfying, story in these books than the one actually delivered. There really was promising stuff there, enough to explain why we overlooked or explained away some of the more confusing things. (Like the entire Buckbeak subplot.)

I'll agree that the parallel makes sense exactly when and how it was brought up. But it was the readers' fault for hanging onto it one minute after it was made clear that the story was false.

Yes. I think the reason I was so dismissive of the parallel was that it stands alone within the general thrust of the series. Harry is usually well able to figure out the baddies from the goodies. And often via a snap-decision based on eyebrow raising reasoning. (Schoolboy grudges, for example, or old family feuds.) It seemed against character, and theme, for Harry to be so wrong. But, I forgot, these are early days. ;)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I agree w/Jodel here--it's all part of setting up the switch at the end that Harry builds a story in his mind where Peter's not as good as the others but stands up bravely to Sirius. But it's uses of misdirects like that that did set us up to think that one day Harry would figure out that he had some bad instincts in that direction.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and then there's that, misdirection for optimum character growth. *sigh*

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

Right. It's simple misdirection, which I think JKR was using a lot with Neville. Which is maybe one of the reasons the Neville story works so well. Harry continues to think of Neville as pretty pathetic up through the end of OotP, while the reader starts to suss out that Neville is a lot more of a man than any of other Gryffindors.

I mean, he shows that's he braver than Harry or Ron when it comes to girls by asking Hermione, getting rejected, and then asking Ginny to the Yule Ball. (And Hermione might not have been his first choice, either.) Then we learn about his parents and in OotP, we see exactly how difficult that situation is.

But Harry's still thinking of Neville as an untalented klutz who can barely cast a spell. Harry doesn't notice, but the reader might, that Neville is the last student standing beside Harry at the Ministry raid. And in HBP, when Harry condescendingly tells Neville that he's "cool" and proceeds to ignore him for the rest of year, we see glimpses of Neville slugging his way through class with the same determination he's always showed.

By the end of DH, we've all been subconsciously waiting for Neville to show how awesome he is. And he doesn't disappoint.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Actually, I never really got that idea. I mean, that Neville proves to be really cool, yes. But I don't think Harry's view of him is ever really called into question. I always felt like Neville's cool-ness was at least a little down to Harry to begin with. Harry is the person who believed in him, told him he was cool, even if sometimes he had to make himself do it because he isn't cool in the usual sense.

But then, this is a big character trait for Harry as well. If somebody proves him wrong, he glosses over it and flips on it--he does the same with Snape. I always remember that really great convo on HP4GU about Jane Austen and Snape. It was pre-DH and I remember somebody making the case that Lizzie was never really wrong about Darcy or Wickham. And Sydney being like--WTF? And she quoted the most important moment of the book where Lizzie is realizing just how wrong she was.

HP wound up being written exactly like the misreading of P&P, where Lizzie finds out the truth and says, "Oh, well, yes, I always knew Darcy was an honorable and Wickham was the scoundrel, I just didn't yet know the details of their history.

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I knew that Harry was going to end up being wrong about Snape. Or wrongish, because, like Darcy, Snape does have real faults. It's just that in both cases, their virtues are more important.

That moment in HBP when Harry accidentally learns that Snape betrayed his parents is a close parallel to the moment in P&P when Eliza learns about Darcy betraying Jane.

But it's like JKR read the book, loved the twists, and skipped over that boring part where Eliza does months of soul-searching and realizing that she was wrong.

Well, that's the difference between romance and mystery, isn't it? Romance is all about soul-searching and realizing that you've made mistakes and been attracted to the wrong person, or repulsed by unimportant things.

Whereas mystery is all about the twist, and the sudden resolution of puzzles or problems.

In Gaudy Night, probably Dorothy L. Sayers's best book, there's a moment when Peter Wimsey urges Harriet Vane to rewrite her newest mystery book with "real" characters. Harriet admits that her story is currently crap, but goes on to lament that a) it's going to hurt like hell to write it (as it will bring up all her personal demons), and b) that characters with real feelings and emotions don't really work in mystery stories.

Maybe that's the moral: emotional complexity and mystery formulas just don't mix.

[horridporrid.livejournal.com]

Maybe that's the moral: emotional complexity and mystery formulas just don't mix.

Oh, let's not put JKR up as a prime example of mystery writing! :) I'm no expert (I've read and enjoyed the genre but not looked into the nuts and bolts of what makes a good mystery) but I feel like JKR does a lot of cheating with her mysteries. She does it with her more character-driven plots as well, of course. But I don't think she's sacrificing the character for the sake of the mystery. I feel like she somehow sacrificed both for the sake of... well, I'm not sure exactly what JKR was trying to accomplish with this series. It's not a moral or political polemic, though it borrows some of the typical trappings. I guess it's a coming-of-age, but even there I think JKR sacrificed for the sake of... The best I can come up with is she sacrificed everything for an ending. Any ending.

But I think JKR could have written a better character-plot even while delivering the plot-twists and puzzle solving she wanted to deliver. Not a surprising character-plot necessarily (getting over schoolboy feuds and prejudices aren't new, especially in this sort of story) but at least satisfying.

Or, to sum up: I don't think JKR needed to write emotionally complex character stories, but she didn't have to thin things out as much as she did, either.

But it's like JKR read the book, loved the twists, and skipped over that boring part where Eliza does months of soul-searching and realizing that she was wrong.

I think that's exactly why I so strongly protested (incorrectly as was pointed out above *g*) the idea of Neville and Peter as a mirror. Because the revealing of same should cause Harry some soul-searching, and if there's anything the series taught us it's that Harry's soul is very comfortable indeed. (No searching for our Harry, thank you very much!)

But seeing that there was something there, that Harry really did make that big of a mistake in judging Peter (and Sirius) based on rumor and hearsay, I can see why it was I expected more of the series. JKR began in a promising way. With niggling issues, yes, but with bits that were genuinely promising.

[oryx_leucoryx]

I think what ruins the development of Rowling's characters, especially in the context of a coming-of-age story is that lessons aren't retained and transferred to the later books. Sometimes characters repeat the same lesson over and over (Ron and his insecurities, Harry and judging people by how they treat him in the short term), and sometimes lessons are reversed (eg in POA Harry chooses bringing Peter to justice over Sirius and Remus' vigilantism, in DH he treats Amycus to vigilantist action).

[horridporrid.livejournal.com]

I think what ruins the development of Rowling's characters, especially in the context of a coming-of-age story is that lessons aren't retained and transferred to the later books.

I totally agree! I remember, when I first got into HP fandom, reading fanfic and being very impressed with how they took everything that had happened in canon thus far and spun it into stories of what might happen next. And then the next book came out (I think it was GoF, if I'm remembering my timing correctly) and there was all this new stuff to play with! New characters, new world-building aspects, new background information. It was really exciting and refreshing and inspired reams of new fanfic.

I remember thinking that this was the power of being the original author, JKR was able to bring in the new because she had that authority. But it began to fall down as the story wound up. It was most blatant in DH, of course. But I can remember a niggling feeling with HP that there was too much attention paid to new stuff and not enough care given with the old.

Because JKR was able to bring in a new character to do as she needed, or to throw out some new background tidbit to change motivations as needed, it seemed like she couldn't be bothered to develop the characters she already had. Which means what had been a positive power became a negative one. Someone waaay upthread mentioned that JKR really was an inexperienced author given no guidance by her publishers. I think this is one of the ways it showed.

[sunnyskywalker]

I've been watching the series Foyle's War, wherein a detective, his assistant, and their adorable driver sidekick solve crimes in southern England during World War II. The mysteries are plenty twisty and the characters still manage to be convincing as people, with personal lives and emotional involvement in some of their cases and bad memories from the last war and learning to live with a titanium leg to replace the one that got blown off (and, for another character, realizing that being a fighter pilot isn't so hot once your friends die and the PTSD kicks in and you don't know what to do with your life anymore). It might not reach P&P levels of introspection and "Until this moment I never knew myself" moments, but it's leagues better than Rowling. Also, they're dealing with the real World War II, which has much more convincing racism and war profiteering and death than the HP knockoff version.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, Sayers herself did emotional complexity quite well, and also wrote honest mysteries! IMHO, Rowling does neither.And I agree about Foyle's War below. Anthony Horowitz may write formulaic kids' books, but his scripts are really quite good.

My two cents.