COS Chapter One: "The Worst Birthday"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

* I've liked reading these entries so much, I thought I'd have a go at writing my own. Enjoy! :)

* COS is probably my favourite book in the series. It will be interesting to see whether this is still true when I've finished snarking about it...

* The Dursleys spend most of the first page talking about food, just so no-one forgets that they’re fat, and therefore evil.

* Note that Dudley asking for more bacon is entirely different to Harry eating several portions of food when he’s at the Weasleys’.

* Gosh, the Dursleys really don’t like Harry talking about magic, do they? Not that I blame them, given what happened to Dudley the last time they met a wizard.

* Harry’s being treated “like a bomb that might go off at any minute”. That would seem to imply that they tiptoed around Harry, terrified lest they upset him, rather than yelling at him at the slightest provocation. Apparently the Dursleys think that bombs will deactivate if you shout at them loud enough.

* Harry’s worried that he’ll be thrown off the Quidditch team, conveniently forgetting that he’s a world-class player without even trying. Gotta keep that underdog status!

* It’s odd that Harry’s only skill is in sports, and that he’s skilful without having to work at it all. For a former teacher, JKR can come across as remarkably anti-intellectual and dismissive of hard work sometimes.

* The narrative voice briefly gets all judgemental about the Dursleys being ashamed to have a wizard in the family, whilst forgetting to mention how wizards treat their Muggle relatives (*coughGrangerscough*).

* I quite like Harry’s “I’ll be in my room, making no noise and pretending I’m not there.” It’s nice to see JKR actually showing Harry as a put-upon underdog, rather than simply telling us that he is whilst showing him on the receiving end of multiple displays of blatant favouritism.

* Harry’s only enjoyment comes from threatening Dudley. Remember folks, this is the boy whose amazing power is the ability to love.

* Remember the days when we hadn’t seen Voldemort fail to defeat three rather dim seventeen-year-old children, and could still hear someone say that he was “still terrifying, still cunning” without laughing? Man, I miss those days.

* “‘Well done,’ said Harry. ‘So you’ve finally learnt the days of the week.’” For a boy who thinks “U-No-Poo” is the height of wit, this is almost funny.

* If Dudley’s so fat, why are his trousers in danger of falling down?

* Whipped cream and sugared violets sounds quite unappetising to me. I suppose this lack of taste is meant to illustrate the Dursleys’ evilness or something.

* Harry goes upstairs to bed, and our blissful unawareness of Dobby’s existence is cruelly shattered.

Comments

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

Which is really strange, considering the amount of build-up that we had leading to DH. We all saw that Umbridge didn't need to be a Death Eater to be a terrible, vicious monster and that Peter didn't need to be a Slytherin to be a traitor. We saw the turmoil that Draco endured over serving Voldemort, we were told that Barty Crouch Sr. employed many of the same methods that the Death Eaters did while ostensibly being on the Light side, we were shown that the Ministry was corrupt, we were shown that Snape could actually be working for Dumbledore all along, and so on and so forth. So, one could think that there was an intentional moral ambiguity in the wizarding world, that perhaps we were invited to feel sympathy for some of the bad guys.

Yet by the end of the series, a lot of it didn't go anywhere. Draco never had a definitive moment where he decisively switched over to Harry's side and deliberately cooperated with Harry and his friends, thus making amends for his past behavior. If anybody asks about his hesitation to name Harry or his unwillingness to commit murder, some fans will say that it's just because he's a coward. Harry and Peter never had the moment where Harry finally saw that his good deed in PoA paid off, because Peter was strangled by his silver hand before he could save Harry or do anything else that was possibly redemptive. Tom Riddle's background was similar to Harry's, but in the end, such similarities didn't matter. Not for the good reason, which would be that Harry had chosen to do the right thing while Tom had made bad decisions, therefore any of Harry's fears about becoming Tom would become unfounded. No, because Tom was apparently doomed to be a sociopath from birth, so it really didn't matter if he grew up in an orphanage, a palace, or in the suburbs.

The most frustrating thing about it is that none of the 'bad' characters that JKR half-heartedly gave depth to ever do the right thing for selfless reasons. Draco? He's only worried about his family and about saving his own skin. Regulus? The Dark Lord hurt his house-elf. Severus? Voldemort was going to kill (and eventually did kill) Lily. Peter? He was a coward. None of them ever rebel against Voldemort because they realize that what he and the Death Eaters are doing is wrong, that the whole pureblood-supremacist, anti-Muggle mindset is *wrong* (or, if they do, we don't get to hear about it).

None of them really receive any noble and/or sufficient reason for why they do what they do, and maybe that's because JKR didn't want us to feel that much sympathy for them. I'm reminded of the scene in HBP where Harry indignantly asks why Merope couldn't stay alive for her son and Dumbledore just raises his eyebrows and asks if he feels sympathy for Voldemort. As if that's a *bad* thing. Even if Voldemort really was a sociopath who was incapable of empathy since birth, shouldn't that merit some sort of sadness from Harry? Sadness that the man never had a choice in being bad, never had a chance to feel love? That, essentially, being evil is not his fault, since he never had a choice to be anything else?

Like I said before, it's just really frustrating.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Severus? Voldemort was going to kill (and eventually did kill) Lily.

Yes, but he went on to protect every student he could, from anything he could save them from. Not just Harry. And he stuck to his commitments even after he learned that his work to protect Harry was futile (because Twinkly wanted him just as dead as Voldemort did) and even after Twinkly wasn't around (OK he was in portrait form, but he had no power as such). So I don't see that canon!Severus acts out of reasons that aren't selfless, whatever the reason for his initial turning.

As for Draco - I'm sure it is completely accidental, but as Rowling had it, he kept from the Carrows information they wanted about the running of the DA. Giving that information wouldn't have harmed his family - on the contrary, he may have been able to improve their standing with Tommy. OTOH if it were to be discovered that he had the information and did not reveal it he and his family were in deep trouble. So as much as he feared for his family he was willing to risk himself and his parents to protect the DA. Sorry Rowling, that's what your canon leads to.

At the same time the White Hats are never held accountable for war crimes and other serious immoral acts.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree with you, but my point was that I don't think that JKR and some fans see it that way. For those who don't like Severus, they can just point to the scene where he denies acting for Harry's sake, maintaining that he's just doing all of this for Lily. For those who don't like Draco, I'm sure that they will see his protection of the DA as just a fan interpretation, as an accident. They can say, "Oh, well, he went running to the Death Eaters to tell them that he was on their side; he didn't firmly deny that it was Harry in Malfoy Manor, etc., so he's not a good person, just a coward."

/At the same time the White Hats are never held accountable for war crimes and other serious immoral acts./

Well, that's another problem that I have right there.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Severus: Well, for that they have to ignore all the times he is seen in canon acting for the protection of unknown random people.

Draco: If he had been more insistent about not recognizing Harry wouldn't it have looked like he was protesting too much? And how could he possibly maintain the pretense after Hermione was identified? What good would it have done? (And what good could have come from not claiming to be a DE in the castle?)

As for the rest of Rowling's characters, with few exceptions (Neville!) Lord Vetinari is apparently right: "You think there are the good people and the bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people. But some of them are on different sides."

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

"The most frustrating thing about it is that none of the 'bad' characters that JKR half-heartedly gave depth to ever do the right thing for selfless reasons."

Come to think of it, neither do the good guys. Harry, for example, fights Voldemort because "he killed my mum and dad", rather than any moral qualms about what Voldemort would do if he succeeded in taking over. So I think it's less a case of trying to reduce audience sympathy for the bad guys than of swallowing the assumption of many film/TV show writers that people will only sympathise with the characters if everyone's motivations are reduced to a soap opera-esque personal vendetta. Doesn't make the end result any less disappointing, though.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

Yes, where was that famous "power of love" that Harry needed to defeat Voldemort? Yes, he was willing to sacrifice himself to save the people he cared about, but that wasn't what ultimately destroyed Voldemort in the end. Harry's sacrifice only briefly hampered Voldemort by destroying another Horcrux. What killed Voldemort was a technicality about wand ownership.

Where did love come into the equation when they were discussing the Elder Wand? The only love I can remember that they mentioned was Snape's love for Lily. It wasn't a sign of love or forgiveness when Harry told Voldemort to feel some remorse. If anything, that came way out of left field. It wasn't like Luke Skywalker telling Darth Vader, "There is still good inside you, Father, come with me, I feel the conflict within you, let's leave this all behind, etc." When Harry said it, it was more along the lines of, "Be a man! You'd better come to the Light Side, because I've seen what will happen if you don't, ha!"

[oryx_leucoryx]

According to Hermione, remorse can repair a torn soul. But this requires that the parts of the soul be available. Ever since Harry destroyed the diary Voldemort lost any chance to heal his soul, even if he were capable of remorse. Another way in which the realization of a soul as a material thing in the Potterverse leads to moral failure.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

But this requires that the parts of the soul be available.

Does it? When I read that I was imagining the soul as a piece of torn silvery candy floss that could grow back where it had been torn (sometimes my midn goes to weird places) and with the wound gone, there would be no place for the Horcruxified soul fragment to fit, thus there would be no connection to the Horcrux. Admittedly, this sort of soul connection isn't really given any precedent in the magic system, but we don't even know what a soul is - how does it connect to the mind? Does it bring the mind with it to the afterlife? If not, do people have two minds - one in their brain and another in their soul? Is Voldemort fully aware of his unending torment or is it just a part of his mind, unable to actually comprehend the agony? What happens if a Secret Keeper splits their soul? Can you hide a secret in a Horcruxified soul fragment? What would happen to that secret if you destroy the Horcrux? What would happen to a hidden secret if the Secret Keeper is kissed by a Dementor? If a Dementor ate Voldemort's soul, would the Horcruxes bring him back or would he be trapped and digested?

[oryx_leucoryx]

What happens if a Secret Keeper splits their soul? Can you hide a secret in a Horcruxified soul fragment?

This has been the basis of a theory for why Voldemort never used himself as the Secret Keeper of his Horcruxes. He just can't, the Secret doesn't have what to be held in.

I like your other questions too.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

Voldemort's portrayal is really inconsistent in the books. On the one hand, we're meant to think of him as a psychopath, literally incapable of feeling empathy; on the other, it sometimes comes across as if JKR (or at least the protagonists) think he's deliberately chosen to stop feeling, and can choose to undo that decision again. Oh dear, characterisation...