COS Chapter Five: "The Whomping Willow"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

 

* Harry spends six weeks of the school holidays at the Dursleys’ house, and for the rest of the year he’s a massive celebrity who can basically do whatever he likes because of something that he can’t remember and had nothing to do with. Doesn’t sound to me like he’s got much reason to be jealous of Ron.

* Is the fact that dinner contains all Harry’s favourite things a coincidence, or did Mrs. Weasley deliberately design it that way? If so, is she already trying to snare Harry in order to get her hands on some of his money? *Grins at the thought of MoneyGrubbing!Molly*

* Somehow I can’t imagine the Malfoys being so disorganised.

* “Muggles do know more than we given them credit for, don’t they?” says Mrs. Weasley, the big joke being that they don’t, it’s all magic. Wizards rule!

* The Weasley parents let Fred and George take fireworks to school? Christ, it’s no wonder they’re so badly-behaved.

* Also, couldn’t they just take the kids to the station, then later mail them the things they’ve left behind?

* Still, the foreshadowing of Ginny’s diary is nicely done, though, so I forgive JKR for this minor plot hole.

* Is it really necessary to run into the barrier? Surely standing casually near it and then slipping through when nobody’s looking would be less likely to attract attention.

* Yes, Ron, of course all those grown-up, fully-qualified wizards on Platform 9 ¾ aren’t going to be able to figure a way of getting back. *rolls eyes*

* “The Dursleys haven’t given me pocket money in about six years,” says Harry, implying that they did until he was six years old. I wonder what he bought then that made them decide he couldn’t be trusted with his own money?

* That flying car plan has got to rate as one of the stupidest in the books, and as you can imagine, it’s up against some stiff competition.

* If Harry and Ron had really become invisible, they’d be blind, although to be fair to JKR this little problem with the laws of physics isn’t exactly unique to her.

* The description of the car flying above the clouds is good. Really brings out the wonderment Harry and Ron must be feeling.

* Any guesses as to which city they’re seeing? I was thinking it might be Birmingham or Manchester or somewhere like that, but the “wide, purplish moors” would seem to imply that they’re further north than that.

* Pumpkins aren’t particularly juicy, so it must take a lot to get enough for the whole school to drink. I can’t imagine why wizards drink pumpkin as opposed to, say, orange or apple juice.

* An impact hard enough to raise a golf-ball-sized lump on someone’s head would knock most people out, but Harry is a Gryffindor, and therefore above trivial injuries such as concussion.

* Wonder if there’s meant to be any Freudian symbolism in Ron having a broken wand? :p

* I probably shouldn’t ask why charming a car to make it fly would make it gain sentience.

* Harry looks through the window into the Great Hall, and the reader is treated to a rare sighting of the elusive Hogwarts school hat.

* Now I'm imagining watching a Springwatch-type programme set in Hogwarts, where the presenters set up hidden cameras around the school in the hope of getting a glimpse of one of the school hats.

* “For a few horrible seconds”, Harry had worried that he’d be put in Slytherin. One of the clearest indications in the books that we’re meant to think of being put in Slytherin as a sign of great evil.

* Harry seems to show a remarkable knowledge of colours here. I doubt I’d be able to recognise aquamarine when I saw it.

* The narrative voice pauses to bitch about how “everyone” hates Snape for a few sentences, inexplicably omitting to mention that he saved Harry’s life last year.

* BTW, I highly doubt that Snape was disliked by “everyone outside of his own house (Slytherin)”. In my experience, children tend to quite like the sarcastic teachers.

* Unless by “everyone” Jo means “everyone who matters”, i.e., Harry, Ron and Hermione.

* Snape’s suddenly appearing behind them like that is pretty funny.

* So how is it that the Evening Prophet can interview these Muggles, write the story, print the paper, and send it up to Scotland in less time than it takes Harry and Ron to fly directly from London to Hogwarts? If I were doing Jabootu scores, this would definitely be a case of offscreen teleportation.

* Why would someone travelling from London to Scotland go via Norfolk? Do wizards just like the countryside there?

* Harry hasn’t thought of what effect his stupid actions will have on others. Well, colour me shocked!

* No idea what the “large, slimy something suspended in green liquid” is there for. Probably to add to the atmosphere.

* I’m surprised McGonagall is so angry. One would have thought that, as a Gryffindor, she’d prize reckless action without any thought.

* Harry told the story as if he and Ron just happened to find a flying car, making them look like a pair of criminals as well as a pair of idiots, and continuing in the long tradition of lying to save the arses of adults who really should know better.

* Harry’s being worried about Gryffindor losing points is rather sweet. It’d be interesting to see how the hourglasses in the Great Hall show Gryffindor being on negative points, though.

* One detention each sounds like a pretty inadequate punishment, TBH.

* Is it possible to conjure up food out of thin air, then? If so, wizards could pretty much solve world hunger without any problems at all. That they don’t makes them look rather selfish and insular.

* “Breaking the law? Cool!” Seems Twinkly’s favouritism has given the Gryffindors something of an entitlement complex when it comes to breaking rules. At least Percy and Hermione have the right idea.

* If there are only five second-year Gryffindor boys, and the same amount of girls, and this number is about right for every House and every year, then there would only be 280 children in Hogwarts in total. Which would seem to contradict slightly the description of Hogwarts as a huge castle, or the dining hall as larger than the Dursleys’ house. Oh dear maths/architecture/consistency/worldbuilding…

* Meanwhile, Draco Malfoy goes to sleep in the Slytherin dorms, muttering, “Stupid Potter with his stupid broomstick and his stupid flying car and his stupid ginger boyfriend, he can do literally anything and get away with just a detention.” Little does he realise that he will be proved right in Year 6, after a certain incident in the bathrooms.

 

Comments

[mmmarcusz.livejournal.com]

* Meanwhile, Draco Malfoy goes to sleep in the Slytherin dorms, muttering, “Stupid Potter with his stupid broomstick and his stupid flying car and his stupid ginger boyfriend, he can do literally anything and get away with just a detention.” Little does he realise that he will be proved right in Year 6, after a certain incident in the bathrooms.

The funniest thing is how ENRAGED Harry gets when Malfoy gets away with minor things - making faces at him, insulting the Weasleys, making silly badges.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

//The funniest thing is how ENRAGED Harry gets when Malfoy gets away with minor things - making faces at him, insulting the Weasleys, making silly badges.//

Harry is more James than Lily - Sorry Dumbledore, you wrong again!

Oh wait, Lily tended to get her nose in the air over stuff to didn't she.

Nevermind Dumbledore was right!

Poor Harry, he got double prat gene!

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Snorfle.

I think it's a result of being in Gryff - the House culture authorizes violence and cruelty so long as the victim can be made to seem to 'deserve' it, leaping to conclusions and prejudging others, violent physical/magical responses to verbal insults (an inflated sense of glory and 'honor' in one's self-image?)...anything is fine as long as it isn't "Dark Magic" (whatever that is), and anything WE do is ok but anything the OTHERS (i.e. Slyths) do is horrible automatically.

I try to be generous towards Lily, and see it as Gryff culture over time emphasizing her worst traits at the expense of her best ones - whereas James and Sirius showed by their behavior on the first train-ride that the default Gryff pattern fit their natural personalities perfectly. Harry is more like Lily in this case - he too gets educated out of his best impulses during his years in Gryffindor. But yeah, he gets to be rather like James too eventually - hexing Squibs for fun! James would be so proud. Such a nice little Pure and Loving Chosen One!

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

/anything is fine as long as it isn't "Dark Magic" (whatever that is)/

Yea, still trying to figure out what constitutes dark magic since a lot of the spells considered 'dark magic' were also done by the good guys.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

It's not only who uses certain spells. We don't even know on what *basis* something is considered "Dark" or not. We don't get anything like a definition of Dark magic, short of Snape's description of the Dark Arts:

"The Dark Arts are many, varied, ever-changing and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible."

Nothing about morality in there. Basically it's a description of chaos, if it's a description of anything (Jodel has a theory that Dark magic is inherently chaotic - but that's mainly speculation). We know certain spells are generally considered "Dark" - like the Unforgivables - but not why. We know certain characters use "Dark" to mean "evil," but nothing about the characteristics of the magic itself that would make this appropriate (or if it is appropriate), and there are indications that different characters may use the word in different ways (terri has an essay on this subject). We know some particular spells are illegal (which is not necessarily identical with morally wrong), but the Dark Arts themselves (whatever they are) are not - Borgin and Burke's operates legally. And so on. Somehow I doubt JKR is going to make in any clearer either.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

/"The Dark Arts are many, varied, ever-changing and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed, mutating, indestructible."/

That quote is rather interesting to think about in terms of how dark magic is used in the books. The way JKR played it is Dark Magic is a matter of opinion, like how Harry and Hermione understand and interperate that very quote.

Harry listened to Snape saying that and thinks Snape is talking about dark magic with love and affection in his tone.

Hermione listens to Snape saying that and things Snape sounded like Harry.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

"The funniest thing is how ENRAGED Harry gets when Malfoy gets away with minor things - making faces at him, insulting the Weasleys, making silly badges."

Yeah, it's odd, especially because, if any of those two would be expected to get resentful and angry towards the other one, it'd be Draco. After all, Harry's the one who rebuffed Draco's initial attempts to become friends, who always wins at Quidditch, who gets the rules bent to accomodate him, who gets unfair advantages, who's a favourite of the headmaster, who's a member of the headmaster's favourite House, and whose favourite teachers can seemingly do whatever they want to Draco and get away with it. And yet Harry goes around acting like Draco's making his life hell, when all he does is make a few unpleasant remarks about Harry and his friends (and even then, it's usually only the Slytherins who seem to care). Maybe the Gryffindor Code Of Honour dictates that any imagined slight must be blown up out of all reasonable proportion, or something.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

Well, Draco is a rich pureblood and his father's on the school board. Draco's managed to get Buckbeak almost executed, his father almost got Dumbledore sacked, Draco told Rita Skeeter awful things to write about about Hagrid in the Daily Prophet, he almost got Harry in trouble during the Midnight Duel, he did get Harry in trouble for Norbert, and he made insulting badges for the whole school to wear.

I know that this community has debated the possible reasoning behind each instance (for example, Buckbeak attacked Draco, Hagrid is indeed a bad teacher, etc.), but Harry, as Draco's enemy, naturally wouldn't see it that way. So, in Harry's point of view, Draco does have a fair amount of power.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

I agree that Harry thinks Draco has a lot of power; I also think, though, that, if Harry actually considered the issue dispassionately (rather than doing his whole persecution complex thing again), he'd realise that that isn't actually the case. Most of Draco's "advantages" are either shared by Harry (e.g., Draco's a rich pureblood kid, but so's Harry), don't really amount to much (his dad's a school governor, but gets sacked in Book 2 and after that doesn't have the power to get a dangerous animal put down), or are counteracted by Harry's own advantages (Draco's from an influential, respected family, but Harry's The Boy Who Lived, and has a whole Stalin-esque cult of personality built around him). So yeah, on the whole I still think Harry's got the advantage over Draco; even the things like him saying nasty things to Rita Skeeter seem more like him venting his frustration about that fact. (Not that this makes it right.)