COS Chapter Two: "Dobby's Warning"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

* Harry wants to say “What are you?” but thinks this might be rude, so instead says “Who are you?” It’s good to be reminded of how nice Harry was to start with, before Dumbledore’s favouritism removed all his politeness and replaced it with an entitlement complex the size of Hannover.

* Ironically, the only house-elf in canon who wants to be free is also the most servile and obsequious. At times, COS reads like a pro-slavery tract arguing that slaves cannot cope with freedom, and need a good benevolent master to take care with them. He even speaks a sort of Pidgin English like a stereotypical nineteenth-century black Southern slave.

* Dobby’s never been treated like an equal before. This is probably meant to reflect badly on the Malfoys, but TBH his constant toadying makes it rather hard to think of him as one.

* Does Dobby have to punish himself? I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that he just hurts himself for kicks, without his owners knowing.

* So how exactly could Dobby find time to spy on Harry and intercept his post, and keep doing his household duties to stop the Malfoys from knowing?

* Gosh, Dobby’s really going over the top with the flattery, isn’t he? No wonder Harry ends up liking him so much.

* So what is this plot Dobby supposedly overheard? The diary was given to Ginny, not Harry. Is it the case the Lucius really intended to give it to Harry, and Ginny only got it by accident?

* Actually, that would make a lot more sense. Ginny Weasley being found killing Muggle-borns would be all very well, and might even discredit Arthur; but Harry Potter killing people would be even better, from the point of view of a Death Eater.

* Is there any reason why Dobby can’t tell Harry what the plot entails, other than a half-arsed attempt by JKR to prolong the mystery?

* Albus Dumbledore is the greatest headmaster Hogwarts has ever had, apparently. Well, I suppose that’s probably true if by “greatest” you mean “most powerful”, as opposed to, say, “best at running a school”.

* Harry jumps six stairs without making any noise? Wow, that kid’s athletic!

* Actually, that last point was a bit redundant. Of course Harry’s athletic, he’s the hero. After all, it’s not like clumsy and unfit people ever do anything brave or special.

* So the Dursleys and Masons are making jokes about the Japanese and the Americans. Just in case you’d forgotten that they’re racists, making anything that you do to them perfectly OK.

* So the pudding covered Harry head-to-toe when it shattered? Was there some kind of small explosive device in it?

* Must be rather hard for Mrs. Mason to go outside if she’s afraid of birds.

* I’m not sure why Mr. Mason thinks the Dursleys are playing a joke on him. If he had to explain to them his wife’s phobia, they wouldn’t have known that the sight of an owl would scare her.

* If the magical trace can’t tell who’s using magic, that would give Pureblood kids something of an unfair advantage. They’d be able to practise throughout the summer and pass any spells off as their parents’, whereas Muggleborns wouldn’t be able to practise at all.

* Harry should have realised that threatening his relatives with magic would just make it worse for him if/when it emerged that he wasn’t allowed to do it outside of school.

* I can’t imagine the Dursleys locking Harry away like that. Even if they don’t care about him, they should at least be worried what the neighbours would say.

* Harry, being relatively new to the WW, is still worried about being expelled. Little does he know that he could in fact do pretty much anything, up to and including disembowelling a fellow student in the bathrooms, and get away with light detention.

Comments

[merrymelody.livejournal.com]

I want to know where Dobby got the idea that Harry Potter is so wonderful in the first place. Kreacher seems to ape his master's prejudices about blood purity, but Dobby's view is that of the wider wizarding world. Weird.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

Apparently Voldemort's defeat led to House-elves being less downtrodden (because apparently only Death Eaters mistreated their elves - looks like Crouch senior had something to hide) - maybe Dobby was less isolated from his fellow elves than Kreacher was?

[mmmarcusz.livejournal.com]

* I can’t imagine the Dursleys locking Harry away like that. Even if they don’t care about him, they should at least be worried what the neighbours would say.

Yeah it seemed odd that they're supposedly so concerned with keeping up appearances, but never try to hide their abuse of Harry

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/At times, COS reads like a pro-slavery tract arguing that slaves cannot cope with freedom, and need a good benevolent master to take care with them. He even speaks a sort of Pidgin English like a stereotypical nineteenth-century black Southern slave./

Oh, jeez, now I'm getting flashbacks to Jar Jar Binks.

I think that GoF was more of a pro-slavery tract, since it showed the consequences of a house elf being willingly freed by her master: she turned into a useless, hiccuping drunk. Yes, once you parallel the depiction of house elves in "Harry Potter" with the depiction of slaves in pro-slavery tracts and ex-slaves in racist post-Reconstruction propaganda, it really does become quite offensive. Hence why "Gone with the Wind" is not on my list of favorite books.

/Harry jumps six stairs without making any noise? Wow, that kid’s athletic!/

*sheepishly* After reading CoS, I remember trying out the stairs in my house to see which step was noiseless, because I wanted to know it by heart just like Harry did.

/Little does he know that he could in fact do pretty much anything, up to and including disembowelling a fellow student in the bathrooms, and get away with light detention./

Sneaking around at night in the castle = detention in the Forbidden Forest and the enmity of the entire school
Nearly killing a fellow classmate = light detention with everybody forgetting about it
*sighs*

[oryx_leucoryx]

* Does Dobby have to punish himself? I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that he just hurts himself for kicks, without his owners knowing.

In GOF, a year and a half after being freed, Dobby still punishes himself for speaking ill of the Malfoys (leading some readers to believe Dobby wasn't really freed - or perhaps that he was free of Lucius but not of Narcissa - overturned only by DH). Something other than magical compulsion is going on here.

* So how exactly could Dobby find time to spy on Harry and intercept his post, and keep doing his household duties to stop the Malfoys from knowing?

Note that if he is speaking the truth he can still delay punishment for this disobedience until his return. Maybe he wasn't breaking an explicit command, or maybe he was stretching the meaning of a given command to 'go away' or the like, as Kreacher does in OOTP. Or maybe the whole thing is a lie and at least one of the Malfoys (Draco?) ordered him to prevent Harry's return to Hogwarts - or he manipulated Draco to tell him to keep Harry out of Hogwarts. Or he is stretching the meaning of a Malfoy who said 'how I wish that Potter boy never came to Hogwarts'.

Do you think house-elves can put mail redirecting spells on people's homes? Or did he have to lurk around 4PD all the time in case an owl was on its way?

* Is there any reason why Dobby can’t tell Harry what the plot entails, other than a half-arsed attempt by JKR to prolong the mystery?

Well, supposedly he can't implicate his masters in wrong-doing - except he already did. Maybe he was given an explicit command to remain silent. Or maybe he didn't really know the details to say something coherent (as if he was being coherent anyway), and only after Draco wrote home about the events of Halloween he realized that had to do with the plot.

But my questions are: What did Lucius expect to happen? What did he know of the properties of the diary and how did he learn them? Whom was Lucius discussing his little plot with that Dobby overheard the plotting?

According to Dumbledore, Tom gave Lucius the diary shortly(?) before Halloween 1981 and told him it could open the Chamber of Secrets and unleash Slytherin's monster. If this is what happened then perhaps Tom was planning to have the diary deployed by Lucius in November 1981, on the heels of Harry's death. Perhaps Severus was expected to watch things on the Hogwarts end and help use the events to discredit Dumbledore (did he already get his orders or was Voldemort waiting for the stage to be set to give them?). Was it really necessary to give the diary to Lucius before the attack on the Potters? And if Lucius knew a monster would be unleashed in the castle did he not fear for Draco? He even let Draco stay at Hogwarts for Christmas! Or did Lucius somehow believe the monster would recognize a pureblood and leave him alone?

Or perhaps Lucius knew less than Dumbledore wants us to think? Did Voldemort just give Lucius the diary for safe-keeping, telling him nothing about it - thinking it unwise to have a Horcrux in his own possession while meeting his would-be vanquisher and Lucius learned of the diary's properties from writing in it? Did the idea to pass the diary on to a student come from the diary itself (and did the diary tell Lucius what would happen?)? Was Lucius just trying to get rid of a suspicious object while incriminating an enemy? Did Dobby know something Lucius didn't (and if so how)? Was the whole thing a set-up by Dobby who was trying to get the Malfoys in trouble? Endless conspiracy theories!

According to what Dobby tells Harry in the end, when he said the plot did *not* involve He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named he was hinting that it involved Tom Riddle, before he changed his name. Yeah, right. As clear as the midday sun.

As for Harry's punishment: The Dursleys believed he had levitated the pudding on purpose - breaking school rules, risking punishment from the wizarding world, in order to ruin their future. While the punishment is horrific, I can understand they sincerely feared what he'd do if allowed around. I think they sincerely believed the incident proved he belonged in a place like St Brutus.

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

So what is this plot Dobby supposedly overheard?
I'd say it's a typical case of mystery plot which reads nicely as long as you don't know the answer but seems ludicrous once you start wondering who on earth would have hatched such an idiotic plan in the first place. Certainly not Slytherin extraordinaire Lucius Malfoy. Come to think of it it's hard to believe a nobody (in economical, political and society terms like Arthur Weasley could ever enrage Lucius enough to plot such an elaborate intrigue at all (let alone the infamous brawling at Flourish & Blott's later on).

So the Dursleys and Masons are making jokes about the Japanese and the Americans.
Ha - I bet they'd imagine all French women to be full of sexy wiles and being snotty hussies and all Eastern Europeans clad in fur and gawking at golden plates as well - presumably only used to wooden bowls and the like!

[harpsi-fizz.livejournal.com]

If the magical trace can’t tell who’s using magic, that would give Pureblood kids something of an unfair advantage. They’d be able to practise throughout the summer and pass any spells off as their parents’, whereas Muggleborns wouldn’t be able to practise at all.
I've always said that, over and over!

I do hope you review more of these chapters. These are all fantastic points, and aside from the one about magical trace, I never realized one of 'em.

[oryx_leucoryx]

* Harry should have realised that threatening his relatives with magic would just make it worse for him if/when it emerged that he wasn’t allowed to do it outside of school.

Note that Petunia knows he isn't allowed to do magic outside school. I think she believed he was making empty threats but tip-toed around him just in case. It is the fact that he seems to have chosen the worst timing ever to apparently do magic that got her really scared of him.