PoA Chapter Fifteen

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh no. More quidditch. Just try to concentrate on “final” part rather than “Quidditch.”

Hagrid’s second letter is dripping with tears and snot so I guess he’s back to normal.

Beaky has enjoyed London says Hagrid. Oh, shut up, Hagrid.

I so hate that he’s started calling him Beaky as if he’s adorable now.

Once again Harry declares that Buckbeak isn’t dangerous, without really explaining what that means. It’s not like anyone suggests ways to keep him contained, it’s just that no, his attacking that kid doesn’t make him dangerous. It’s not like Buckbeak wouldn’t have had ample reason to attack anybody in a committee who might say something negative about him. Was there really never a possibility of Buckbeak attacking Sirius if he was drunk and said the wrong thing? Kreacher’s even more insulting than Malfoy is. Is it really likely he wouldn’t have been killed? (I seem to remember him getting attacked only once and it was on purpose.)

Hermione’s crying for some reason, even though she’s been completely uncomprehending about peoples’ pets dying up until now. And this is just one of Hagrid’s many creatures with whom he has a fantasy relationship. If Lavender said Binky enjoyed Bournemouth Hermione would no doubt have lectured her on how the rabbit couldn’t even know he was in Bournemouth. I’m chalking this up to her general stress.

Hermione also tells us Lucius scared the committee into agreeing executing Buckbeak, because she totally would know that.

What’s supposed to be so scary about Lucius anyway? After seven books it seems pretty clear that he’s really not scary at all. And I don’t just mean “he’s not so scary as he thinks he is once he meets someone bigger” or whatever. I mean seriously, he never seems to be that scary to anyone.

Ron vows to help with the appeal. You know, maybe if Hagrid actually had to suffer a consequence for his actions he might learn something. This is probably why his crack legal team has to be made up of third years.

Draco, however, does have to learn something through the consequences of his actions. I swear Draco is the only character in canon capable of learning anything like this. He learns to look after himself and pay attention in CoMC, he learns killing isn’t cool and he learns Voldemort sucks. But in his case learning things just proves you had things to learn and therefore suck!

Oh wait, Snape also learns things. So that’s two. And Dumbledore learns to be celibate to protect the world from his homosexual urges. Which is learning the wrong thing.

Hermione finally apologizes about Scabbers. There’s that at least. Ron doesn’t apologize for treating her badly, as is the Gryffindor way. Apologies are always about one person admitting they’re wrong, never two people admitting they were insensitive to each other. If the other person’s wrong, you were automatically right in all things.

They can’t get to see Hagrid with all the security measures, none of which are keeping out Sirius Black. Don’t ask me why as a teacher Hagrid can’t just walk to the castle and say hello.

Anyway, Hagrid says he got tongue tied and forgot all of Hermione’s dates she gave him. Which I think is supposed to make us feel sympathy for Hagrid. Damn that Lucius being able to speak in front of other people.

I would appreciate Hagrid’s saying he “owes it” to Beaky to give him a nice last few weeks because it indicates some responsibility on his part, but I know he’s only blaming himself for not being evil enough to stand up to the evilness of Lucius Malfoy.

That Hagrid was supposed to remember dates at all continues the idea that this is a trial, and trials never have anything to do with the issues at hand. They’re just law stuff.

Malfoy calls Hagrid pathetic and Hermione slaps him. Harry will later somehow remember this as a punch. Hmmmm…where could he have gotten that idea?

Hermione sputters that Malfoy is evil and foul. Now imagine if Neville got poisoned by that stuff Snape made him drink earlier and the Slytherins immediately blamed it on Neville (he should have made the Potion correctly! He’s an idiot and deserves it!) and were working to make sure Snape got off, kept his job and the botched Potion was officially regarded as harmless. And when it seemed like it wasn’t working the Gryffindors were saying how greasy and pathetic Snape was for being angry about it.

Hermione says Harry better beat Malfoy in Quidditch so Slytherin doesn’t win, desperately trying to tie this tedious Quidditch final to some sort of ethical victory.

At this point Malfoy’s been mauled, slapped and run over in this book. Only beating him at a sport as well will prove that maybe he’s the most non-threatening antagonist ever.

Hermione blames Malfoy for forgetting to go to Charms. Honestly, Malfoy should get some sort of medal for all the work he does in this book. He has to be both the hate object who gets smacked around and the big bad villain we hiss at and pray our heroes somehow manage to beat. And that’s when he’s not giving Harry information about Sirius, passing information to Snape and giving Hermione an excuse to miss a class.

Harry’s glad they’ve started on crystal balls in Divination, since Trelawney always flinched when she looked at his hands. Given what I know about Harry’s hygiene, it was probably all the crusted dirt.

High on having slapped another character without getting any response whatsoever, Hermione starts picking at Trelawney.

As many have pointed out, the books don’t really at all encourage thinking for yourself instead of looking to authority, because they love authority. But they are very concerned with rooting out when someone isn’t worthy of the authority they have and must be rejected. Somebody could probably do a big overview of this, ending, of course, with the story proper’s end portrait of Harry the good slave master.

Harry feels stupid trying to empty his mind. He keeps thinking “this is stupid.” Is he sure that’s a thought about the crystal ball and not just his mind’s natural neutral state?

Hermione continues tutting. The way she acts in this class she ought to have rejected the whole idea of being a witch or being able to make anything happen by waving a stick.

As stupid as she thinks Divination is, Hermione’s still wasting hours of her time studying it, so I think Divination wins.

Note that Hermione’s bitchiness is obscuring the fact that Trelawney actually is right in her divination here if she’s seeing a Grim.

When Hermione’s under stress she starts yelling at everybody and judging them impatiently. Ron really is seeing his future here in Divination!

Ron’s taken over Buckbeak’s appeal, freeing up Hagrid to no doubt buy another crate full of man-eating animals.

Harry prepares for the big Quidditch game, where the burden of winning falls mostly on him. Unlike every single other game they’ve played.

Harry and Malfoy are apparently really angry at each other. It hasn’t seemed like they’ve been hating each other that much but we need to make this Quidditch match mean something.

Crabbe and Goyle keep showing up and looking disappointed that Harry’s surrounded by people. In case you’re not understanding this, Slytherins are cowardly and only attack Harry when he’s alone and outnumbered. Something Gryffindors never ever do. Never.

In fact, everyone in the whole house has enthusiastically created an entourage for Harry. It’s so hard being the unpopular kid, isn’t it?

Ron reminds Harry that he’ll be fine, he’s got the Firebolt. Oh yeah! Hey you guys, we forgot that we have a totally unfair advantage over that other team that makes it very unlikely they could ever win. How did we possibly forget that?

Harry has a nightmare that the Slytherins are riding flying dragons in the game. Malfoy has a nightmare that Harry’s riding a Firebolt he couldn’t possibly beat. Oh wait, that isn’t a dream.

Harry sees that dog outside again and wonders if Crookshanks can see it too. It never occurs to Harry that maybe there’s just an actual black dog hanging around Hogwarts. I know it’s not a Flufferweazlebop or some other funderful magical beast, but surely wizards have dogs too.

The Gryffindor team is applauded by Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw as well. Yeah.

I assume this is supposed to be because Slytherin’s been such an unbeatable team for all those years that aren’t in the book.

Malfoy looks pale. Coward.

Two hundred people in the Slytherin stands (not sure where the 200 came from) wouldn’t exactly look like much next to all of Gryffindor, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw cheering for Gryffindor.

The Slytherin team are all enormous except for Malfoy, because if there’s one thing that gives you an advantage in flying fast and accurately on a narrow stick of wood, it’s massive body mass.

Gryffindor wouldn’t have enough enormous people to even fill a team like this, because Slytherin is the home of cowardly huge guys.

Btw, all that extra weight on the Slytherin side actually doesn’t make Gryffindors and their FIREBOLT the underdog. Sorry.

Marcus Flint smashes into Angelina, which is totally bad form! Don’t even think about smashing into the commentator, Flint, just because he’s yelling helpful tips to the Gryffindor team that he’d never yell to yours!

Luckily Fred then chucks a club at Flint’s head and injures him. Nice.

The Slytherins continue to cheat—badly. So badly I don’t even know if you can call it cheating. Basically, they just keep handing the Gryffindors penalty goals and put themselves far behind. How did this house get known for cunning again? They cheat worse than Slughorn networks.

Lee tells the Slytherin beaters that they can’t beat the Firebolt. Outward sign of inward grace, boys!

So to review, the Slytherins cheat badly, can’t score points against the Gryffindor goalie and their Seeker’s broom leave the Slytherin Seeker’s broom in the dust. But there’s supposed to be suspense about who will win?

Once again, JKR’s hindered by her terminal stinginess when it comes to people who oppose Harry. In order to be real opponents at all they have to be competent, but unfortunately if she actually let any of them be good at anything except something Harry doesn’t value, it would kill her.

Given Harry’s ridiculous advantage I think the idea that Malfoy’s not allowed to hold onto his broom to slow him down is some huge cheater’s move is a little silly.

And then Harry wins the game because—guess what?—turns out his broom is really really fast!

I remember someone actually trying to say that Harry won here because he was “more aerodynamic or something.”

Harry feels like he could make the world’s best Patronus. Hopefully it would look like a Firebolt.

Of course, there’s no doubt that had Malfoy been on the Firebolt Harry would have managed to beat him anyway because he’d be plucky and clever. It’s just hilarious the way this whole book has been about cheering Harry on for his broom that gives him a huge advantage.

Things that happen more than once:
After slapping Malfoy for calling Hagrid pathetic, Hermione all but calls Trelawney pathetic to her face. Just as she’ll make her views known to Umbridge. It’s only Hagrid whose incompetence can’t be commented on. Since as Hermione has already told us, no matter how much of a scholar she seems to be, loyalty to your posse always comes first.
Two characters make up but only one of them has to apologize.
Lucius Malfoy scares the government into the ruling he wants. Just take our word for it. Again.
Harry wins Quidditch again. Yawn.
The Firebolt wins Quidditch again. Yawn.
Malfoy suffers a humiliating defeat. Twice. More to come.
The Slytherins cheat a lot. Gryffindors also cheat, but only in retaliation because that doesn’t count.
Someone smashes into someone else for spite and claims it was a mistake. Only this time they get penalized for it.
Malfoy’s rude to Hagrid (booo!) Hermione’s rude to Trelawney (ha!).
And now there’s an appeal. It never ends.
Ron offers to help again.

It’s a gun. No it isn’t! It’s Chekov! No it isn’t!

Fred chucks a beater’s club at Flint’s head
Status: Fired. Fred likes Angelina, remember? He asks her to a dance and his twin marries her because she was Fred’s true love!

The Grim
Status: Fired, though it seems like it’s taking forever, doesn’t it?




Designated Hero
Why every student except the evil ones are now cheering for Harry.

Informed Attributes
Gryffindors=underdogs. Slytherins=advantaged team. Despite the Gryffindors clearly being better and smarter players with a super broom.

Misdirected Answering
Are we ever going to hear anything about the crazy maniac allegedly stalking the school? As opposed to everything in this chapter?

Exploitation Filmmakers’ Credo
Slytherin, if you see that bashing into someone makes you a dozen points behind, stop doing it.

Jabootu score 4

Comments

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

It's mostly a tell vs. show thing with Lucius. We're told that he scares people, but he's never particularly scary as a character. He seems more sneaky than scary sometimes. I mean, even him threatening to curse peoples' families would be more scary if he had special powers as a wizard. But instead I wind up thinking...hey, you guys have magic powers too. You never feel that Arthur is in any danger from him--that is, any more danger than Lucius is in from Arthur.

Percy is kind of the poster child for how to lose an argument in the WW.