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

[oryx_leucoryx]

* 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...

Mind telling us why? Or are you beginning to doubt yourself?

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

Well, mostly because I thought the Basilisk plot was both quite an interesting idea and rather well-executed. But then, I've noticed that the HP books don't really stand up to close scrutiny, so doing this readthrough might end up spoiling it for me.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Yes, it has its points. My biggest complaints with this book is Dumbledore's inaction, as well as his implied complicity in Tom's initial rise - because the diary plot relies on people not recognizing Tom Riddle's name. And who was the one who insisted that everyone should call You-Know-Who by his true name - Voldemort?

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

Not to mention the fact that apparently Harry and Ron were the only people to ever ask Myrtle about how she died. Why didn't anyone else bother to ask her? Her account of seeing a "great, big pair of yellow eyes" alone would prove Hagrid's innocence.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

The fact that there were no markings on the body or signs of poison should have been a clue - it was apparently known that the killer was Slytherin's monster so that rules out an AK, the only creature in Fantastic Beasts that could kill with no signs of injury was a basilisk, and since she became a ghost, it clearly wasn't a Dementor. And since Dumbledore knows of a certain morally dubious Parselmouth already...

[oryx_leucoryx]

Let alone that supposedly there were other attack victims lying petrified in the hospital wing - according to the memory Diary!Tom shows Harry (and how would anyone know Slytherin's monster was involved if Myrtle was the only one ever attacked?).

Does being petrified by basilisk cause memory loss? Because apparently neither the revived victims from 1943 nor those of 1993 were able to tell anything useful. Unless someone helped them forget - Tom in 1943 and Albus in 1993. Lynn pointed out in another discussion that when Terry Boot mentions that he heard from a portrait that Harry killed a basilisk with the sword of Gryffindor Colin and Justin respond with admiration - showing no sign they were involved in any way.

[mmmarcusz.livejournal.com]

CoS does seem to lift straight out of the series, doesn't it? It's almost as if nothing in it - Hermione's near-death, the near-closing of Hogwarts, Ginny helping the basilisk - really happened in the later books.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

Ah but you see, if people knew about Voldemort's true history, he might not be such a threat (aside from anything else, the blood purity fanatics who apparently make up most of his high-level supporters might not join him if they knew he was only a Halfblood). And without the threat of Voldemort to unite them, people might start asking awkward questions, like "Who the hell put old Twinkly in charge?"

[mmmarcusz.livejournal.com]

Another thing that bugged me about his rise to power is that no-one seemed to note that "Riddle" wasn't a wizarding name - per Malfoy, shouldn't that be the first thing they discuss over sherry and whist in the Slytherin common room in 1st year? (I think someone did a DH rewrite in which Voldemort claims to be descended from "Riddell", a French wizard who married Helga Hufflepuff)

[oryx_leucoryx]

Are you asking about the students his age or the DEs a generation or more younger than himself? Because by the time he returned from his 10 years of traveling he no longer used the name Tom Riddle.