Philosopher's Stone Chapter Eight

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

                                               

Harry meets Snape for the first time.

The Potions Master

*Ron is anonymous as far as anyone at Hogwarts is concerned.  He is just the kid standing next to Harry Potter.  Generous of Harry to confer that distinction on him.  Ron will come to appreciate it...

 

*Hogwarts, the building sounds like a real nightmare.  JKR over reached herself in the UK edition by stating there were 142 staircases there... leading to where I wonder?  How many classes does Hogwarts offer?  I thought it was only 12.  But then the number of students at Hogwarts is really inconsistent from moment to moment as well... oh dear maths.

 

*The ridiculous moving staircases give an impression of prevailing insanity.  If the place is magical why can’t there be teleporters to class rooms and common rooms?  But the “magic” is arranged to make everything harder.  I really would never have got by at Hogwarts, I still don’t have any sense of direction.

 

*And Harry ought, as a Gryffindor, to appreciate Peeves, Hogwarts' resident hazard.  He should love Fluffy even more.

 

*Filch gives little Harry some trouble... well Harry will eventually get his own back on the old squib by hexing him while his backs turned.  IOIAGDI!!

 

*Harry has worked out that the Weasley twins might just have the best knowledge of the building.  He doesn’t know about the Marauders Map yet of course.  In Order of the Phoenix he still hasn’t worked out that anyone who has the map definitely has a far better knowledge of Hogwarts than Filch does.  He still thinks that Filch has the best knowledge of Hogwarts “second only” to that of the Weasley Twins... Oh dear, maths continuity show a little sense Harry!

 

*We never actually see an astronomy lesson.

 

*JKR probably wasn’t a very apt pupil since history is such a boring subject in her view.  With Professor Binns’ methods it looks like we are getting a feel for how she remembers it - and it went right over her head.

 

*Professor Flitwick is a real Harry Potter fanatic.  Really all designated good characters should swoon with pleasure when they see Harry.

 

*McGonagall threatens to chuck out anyone messing around... there is a lot of talk of chucking people out of classes or out of Hogwarts in the very beginning but *comparatively* much less of it as the series goes on.  I suppose the Hogwarts rule must be that being new is no excuse for not already being used to the haphazard rules which relax once the kids are used to the place. 

 

*Please use the needle to gouge out Hermione’s eye someone...

 

*Zombies are zombies at the moment rather than Inferi.  Once again oh dear maths continuity

 

*The turban cannot possibly be a gift AND stuffed full of garlic :p oh dear maths continuity logic. 

 

*It’s interesting that for Harry’s year, those from magical households don’t have a significant head start.  Didn’t Snape know more curses when he started than half the kids in the seventh year?  I think Sirius would have definitely been right about that.

 

*A message from Hagrid.  Despite his celebrity, Hagrid is the only friend Harry has apart from Ron... sad really.  Where would Harry be with no glamour?

 

*The dungeons are colder than the main castle.  The Slytherin complex must be really uncomfortable unless the Malfoys, Lestranges etc. have paid for extra magical heating...

 

*Hagrid has warmth?  Ermm... get to know him better before jumping to conclusions Harry.

 

*I quite liked Snape’s little speech about Potions being both a science and an art - until the exposition is ruined by the bathos of the word “dunderheads.”

 

*Hermione’s suffering from the jerks.  Must be a grim spectacle.

 

*Harry did open a book before coming Snape!  And it’ll be the last time he ever does...

 

*Does Seamus want to be Harry’s friend here?  I suppose Harry’s insularity put the rest of the year group off him quite quickly, but it hasn’t had full effect yet.

 

*A potion for curing ordinary (not Hermione disease) boils indicates that Hogwarts follows a “sabretooth curriculum.”

 

*It is difficult to fathom Snape’s relationship to Malfoy now the series is over...

 

*Silly Neville :p  When I was 11 my chemistry teacher would probably have said sarcastically, “well you’ve been successful haven’t you?”

 

*Snape is the only teacher who has ever, as far as we see, deducted points in denominations of one point... but speculations on this are pointless given JKR’s level of numeracy.

 

*I recall another member of DTCL posted that Professor Kettleburn might be like the Hagrid X-Treme.  I wonder if Ron would have wanted to visit Kettleburn in his leaf pile ;)

 

*Fang is a big dog with the personality of a puppy.  Hagrid is a monstrous man who often exhibits the mind of a little boy.  That’s how they’re similar.  Also Hagrid is like Dumblesnore’s dog.

 

*Hagrid has a real contempt for Filch and all squibs.  I suspect this must be Dumbledore’s opinion of squibs and Hagrid is parroting it.  We all know what a hypocrite Dumbledore really is.  Hagrid does view Dumbledore as a mixture of an all powerful adoptive grandfather and dog owner.  He would be unlikely to blurt out views that Dumbledore did not approve of.

 

*Hagrid liked Charlie a lot.  I wonder how much trouble he was able to get Charlie into?

 

*So the Prophet reckons it would take a dark wizard or dark witch to get into Gringotts?  Doesn’t seem likely.  Really, a little kid could have broken into the emptied vault.  Griphook later tells us that it had minimal protection even by Gringotts standards, after it was emptied.

 

*Harry has three thoughts from visiting Hagrid (and none from his lessons).  Well the rule of three is always advised by professionals who tell you how to make a presentation :) Perhaps only being able to deal with three thoughts at once is really a common syndrome and not something that is an indictment against Harry.

Comments

[the-bitter-word.livejournal.com]

Yes, it makes no sense that a Squib who can't do magic would be in a position to monitor or even harm, much less clean up after, students who can do magic. It's actually a very cruel position to put someone without magic in, and in a "might makes right" world, would logically lead to the abuse that Filch suffers at the hands of Potter, our hero. I'm surprised we didn't see more scenes of Filch-baiting.

And yet, in a society where magical power means so much, it also makes sense that those who don't have magical power, and who can't or won't leave the society, will fall out at the bottom. Janitorial work, for better or worse, is usually thought of as a lowly thing to do in the Muggle world.

It's a strange dynamic that feels class-based to me. Hagrid, without a wand and without completing his so-called education, keeps the grounds until he is promoted to professor, where he's totally out of his depth. Shunpike boasts of being a Death Eater under the influence of Veelas, then we see him in the thick of a Death Eater attack, only witless, at least according to Potter. Fletcher wants to be an Order member, but he is a hapless dupe, and is at some point throttled by Potter. The Gaunts are debased hillbillies whose illusions of supremacy doom them. Filch seems to want the power to enforce rules and keep order, and when he gets an ally in Umbridge, things spiral out of his control. Are there any truly lower or working class figures who make good in the HP books, who the author doesn't punish for being jump-ups? I don't think Snape is the answer to this question. The message seems to be know your deserved place and stay in it.

I'm not familiar with the jealous janitor theme except for The Simpsons, and Groundskeeper Willie isn't jealous so much as dismissive of students' delusions about their futures. I didn't see Filch as jealous of students' abilities so much as wistful, hoping to somehow learn magic for his own amazement and use. However, now that I think about it, Filch's desire to punish students might have come from jealousy (I thought it was just something he liked to do).

The baffling thing is Snape's reliance on Filch to help with bandaging in PS, and then Snape's suppressed smile at Filch's distress when Mrs. Norris is petrified in COS. I'm not sure what the picture is supposed to be when both scenes are taken together. But that's way off on a tangent, as usual.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Jealous janitor is probably the wrong thing to call it...it's more the idea of the bitter janitor who hates having to pick up after kids because the kids don't treat him with respect. There always seems to be an undercurrent of the kids assuming they're never going to have a bad job like being a janitor, even if some of them will.

But it does totally make sense that a Squib would fall to the bottom and never be able to be a success--though I could imagine in this world that there could be a famous wizard who was really a Squib who was passing. But it's funny that I think more than once we're told that the kids for detentions have to do menial jobs without magic, with the lack of magic being the main point of the humiliation and tedious punishment.

[the-bitter-word.livejournal.com]

It may be that Squibs who get out of the magical world are successes, even if wizards see them as failures. Well, wizards would see them as failures regardless. However, I'm thinking of Ron's cousin (?) who became an accountant or something equally shameful to the Weasleys, something that wouldn't actually be so bad in Muggle society.

And, upon reflection, fatalism trumps ambition in the HP books regardless of social class.

[oryx_leucoryx]

And the nail that sticks out must be hammered down. Don't try to rise above your station, even if you are Severus Snape.

Somehow Dean the West Ham fan isn't stigmatized as an upstart.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

I've looked it up, and it's his mum's second cousin. Apparently, they never talk about him. I can't help but feel that if Draco were saying something like this, it'd be treated as evidence that he is OMG TEH BIGOT!!1! Still, IOIAGDI, I supposed.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Of course in some interview or other Rowling had to whitewash the Weasleys by saying said relative did something insulting to deserve this treatment.

JKR and whitewashing

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

JKR is such a coward when it comes to actually admitting that her designated heroes and heroines have any real faults at all. However, her ability to whitewash is compromised by the fact that she is obviously, to be euphemistic, morally challenged. Stating that she believes that Marietta Edgecombe really did deserved to be scarred forever makes her come across like those Isalmic fundamentalists who punish women who offend them by splashing acid in their faces.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

Given the Weasleys, it's quite likely the insult was deserved, though.