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

Re: Stupid train

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

I got all the info off the Lexicon that I posted so other than that I don't think there is anything else out there to my knowledge.

The real life Salem stuff happened I think in the 1690's but don't quote me cause I am not 100% sure on the dates (need to do a google of it)- we know that Hogwarts was built way back 1000 years ago, I guess at the beginning or right at the start of the 11th century right?

It is interesting to note that the total separation of magical people from muggles in the potterverse happened in 1692 (at least by the lexicon timeline it lists it as that date)

This is what the lexicon had on it about the date 1692: A summit meeting of the [International Confederation of Wizards] takes place. The discussion about magical creatures lasts seven weeks and includes delegations of goblins, centaurs, and merpeople. The result of this summit is the [International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy], which effectively hid the Wizarding community away from the Muggles.

However it also says that when Hogwarts was founded magical people were separating themselves from muggles so it sounds like the above was sort of a treaty signed between magical people of different countires to keep their magical communities a secret.

SALEM (was: Stupid train)

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

The real life Salem stuff happened I think in the 1690's but don't quote me cause I am not 100% sure on the dates

There's a timeline here:

http://www.salemwitchtrials.com/timeline.html


According to the above site, girls in the village started falling ill towards the end of January, 1692, and in February the town's physician concluded that the girls had been bewitched. The trials and hangings occured thruout 1692, ending in November when a state Supreme Court was convened to try the remaining accused, and by May of the following year those accused were pardoned.

What it doesn't say is that the state got involved when the girls doing the accusing, having run out of local victims, finally accused the governor's wife of witchcraft, which suddenly gave the governor impetus to remove the trials from the local Salem jurisdiction.

What I also find interesting is that it all started in midwinter of 1692, with the wildest fantasies of the girls being accepted as factual testimony, thruout late winter and thru the spring...

Back in those days, late winter and spring were the usual times one found outbreaks of "St. Vitus' Dance", which are actually hallucinations brought on by ingesting ergot, a rot found on wheat and rye that has been sitting for months in somewhat damp conditions (it can also occur on plants growing in the field if it has been a rainy growing and harvesting season)...ergot contains a substance very much like LSD...

I wonder if those who claimed to have had visions actual did have visions, but maybe the girls had knicked contaminated flour from the bottom of the storage bin to make cakes for their meetings -- notice that on February 25 the slave Tituba was instructed to bake a "witch cake" to enable the girls to identify who is bewitching them.