COS Chapter Seven: "Mudbloods and Murmurs"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

 

* Collin’s really acting like an obsessive stalker here. I wonder if that’s how Harry appeared to Draco in HBP?

* Ron’s malfunctioning wand actually sounds quite dangerous, but nobody thinks it might be a good idea to replace it. Although OTOH having a lax attitude towards safety seems to be one of the few things about the WW that seems consistent throughout the books (they’ll show it again when Percy tries to stop people using dangerous cauldrons), so maybe I should be thankful that it isn’t just one of these things that changes whenever the plot demands.

* I assume that JKR’s just forgotten to mention the try-outs that every Quidditch team apparently does each year.

* I’m just going to tune out while Harry recaps the rules of Quidditch for Collin.

* Everyone’s not bothering to pay attention to Wood’s new tactics. Remember kids, teamwork’s for suckers! You just do what you want to do!

* Wood is still upset over Gryffindor losing last year. Serves him right for being too thick to have a reserve Seeker, IMHO.

* Note how Wood’s first reaction upon seeing Collin is to jump to the conclusion that he’s a Slytherin spy. Not that he’s in any way biased against Slytherin, or anything like that.

* Remember chaps, looking like a troll = evil. Part-giant, OTOH, = misunderstood woobie. Even though trolls don’t really seem much worse than giants.

* There are no girls on the Slytherin team, just to remind everyone that they’re sexist, and therefore evil. JKR hates sexism, which is why she took care to include so many liberated, independent-minded women in the novels.

* Wood’s “spitting with rage” now. Christ, Oliver, calm down, it’s not the end of the world. Maybe the Gryffindor and Slytherin teams could just play a friendly, or something.

* “Aren’t you Lucius Malfoy’s son?” says Fred, looking at Draco with dislike. Remember kids, it’s wrong to judge people based on their family.

* Is it possible to smirk so broadly that your eyes are “reduced to slits”, or is Draco actually grinning with happiness here?

* I don’t think that Malfoy did buy his way onto the team. For a start, Seeker is the most (i.e., only) important position in the game, and I don’t think that flying on better brooms would compensate for having an inferior Seeker. Secondly, he’s on the team for at least three years, when the Slytherins could easily have ditched him as soon as they’d got the brooms. They’d even have had a good excuse after losing that Quidditch match in “The Rogue Bludger”.

* Lucius seemed like quite a harsh, demanding father when we saw him in Borgin and Burke’s, IMHO, so the thought that he’s pleased daddy enough to make him buy new brooms for the team is probably making Draco grin even more.

* I bet he looks adorable in this scene.

* Now I can’t stop thinking of Lauren Lopez in A Very Potter Sequel. “Don’t worry, daddy, you’ll love me after this! I’ll catch that Snitch, mark my words!”

* Just thought it interesting to note that Malfoy wasn’t involved in the conversation until Ron brought him in. It’s not like he was strutting up and down, boasting about his new broom, or anything like that.

* Hermione’s the one who starts with the personal insults. Really, I think that the good [sic] guys are acting worse than the baddies here.

* If the theory that Draco’s really just happy because he’s finally made his daddy proud is right, then implying that he’d just bought his way onto the team is probably one of the most offensive things Hermione could say. Unsurprisingly, he responds with one of the most offensive things that he could say.

* Draco calls Hermione a “Mudblood”, despite the fact that she’s a Muggleborn, and therefore cannot be expected to know what it means, suggesting that either she’s upset him so much he’s not thinking straight, or that he wants to keep face in front of his teammates by responding to her insults, but at the same time doesn’t want to upset her. If the latter, it could be evidence for some kind of D/Hr ship.

* JKR seems to be expecting us to go “ZOMG Draco’s an evil racist!” suggesting that she’s forgotten why exactly it is that racism’s considered so wrong. I don’t think it’s just that you’re looking down on people for the way they were born – if it were, then jokes about stupid blondes would be considered as bad as jokes about stupid black people. Rather, it’s wrong because minorities often suffer from discrimination (and in many cases have suffered from it even more in the relatively recent past), and racist language helps to reinforce and normalise the prejudiced attitudes which lead to such discrimination. Because we haven’t really see people suffering from anti-Muggleborn prejudice, it’s hard to think of “Mudblood” as a particularly serious insult.

* This, BTW, is why I disagree with people who say things like “Rowling uses the Harry Potter books to teach children not to be racist.” If she were really doing that, she’d show how racism affects people’s lives (cf. To Kill a Mockingbird). What she’s actually doing is taking real racism and using it in lieu of actual worldbuilding and characterisation. We already know that racism is wrong, and we think Draco’s a bad person because his use of the term “Mudblood” is superficially similar to real-life examples of racism; we don’t learn about how racism is bad from its effects on HP characters, because it doesn’t really have any.

* Anyway, back to the actual story…

* Once again, the good guys are the first to use force. Why am I not surprised?

* I think it’s sweet the way Flint dives in front of Malfoy to stop him being attacked. The Slytherins often seem to look out for each other the most (see also Lucius patting Snape on the back when he’s first Sorted). Contrast this with the Gryffindors in PS, who refuse to speak to Harry, Hermione, Ron or Neville after they lose some House Points.

* What’s this, one of the good guys has suffered some negative consequences as a result of attacking someone else? Hold on while I go make a note of this in my diary.

* Again with the clothes! Lockhart’s wearing robes of “palest mauve” today. Harry’s really starting to look rather gay now; given JKR’s fondness for stereotypes (viz. the Finnegans) and inability to write a decent romance (chest monster!), I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find her way of showing homosexuality would be having someone spend all their time looking at their crush’s clothes.

* Note how Hagrid doesn’t remonstrate with Ron for trying to curse Malfoy. Clearly he’s a responsible adult and an excellent candidate for a prestigious teaching position.

* I know Hagrid doesn’t like Lockhart, but he really should know better than to undermine him like that in front of his pupils.

* So the jinx on DADA has been in place for what, forty or so years now? And people are only just starting to twig? I know wizards are slow learners, but really…

* Also, couldn’t Dumbledore find ways to either discover how Riddle jinxed the position and undo it somehow, or to get around it, such as hiring two teachers who each teach on alternate years or getting rid of DADA and replacing it with a class which is functionally indistinguishable but has a different name (“battle magic”, perhaps?).

* I think that this scene was one which the film actually did better than the books. Yes, having Hermione getting all upset may not have been fully logical, but it at least made Draco look like a hurtful bully rather than an eccentric crank. It also suggested that someone might have called Hermione that before, hinting at actual day-to-day anti-Muggleborn prejudice, which is more than the books ever managed to do.

* “Maybe it was a good thing yer wand backfired.” Wait, is Hagrid glad that Ron got to be on the receiving end in the hope that he’ll be less likely to curse people in future? No, of course not, he’s worrying that Ron might otherwise have got in trouble.

* Hagrid comes across as so judgemental when he says “’Spect Lucius Malfoy would’ve come marchin’ up ter school if yeh’d cursed his son.” Clearly, caring about your children being attacked is a sign of great evil. Good guys know that being randomly hexed is what makes a man out of you.

* Although Lucius doesn’t seem to have done much when Draco was hexed into unconsciousness on the train (twice!), which probably foreshadows the Redeemed!Malfoys situation at the end of DH.

* Hagrid’s been breaking the law to make his pumpkins grow faster. Which couldn’t possibly be dangerous in any way, oh no.

* Suddenly, Draco’s gossip about him getting drunk and setting his bed on fire looks awfully plausible.

* Everybody hates Filch, which is entirely understandable, given all the times he complains about having to clean up the mess children make and, erm, gives them detention for breaking the rules. Yep, entirely understandable.

* So how does Parseltongue work, then? ’Cause surely Lockhart ought to have heard it, even if he didn’t understand what it was saying? Or is it a sort of telepathy? But then Ron managed to speak it in DH…

* Awfully convenient the way the basilisk goes around describing its evil plan to itself, isn’t it? Do basilisks just have really bad memories, and need to keep repeating their plans to themselves in case they forget?

* Part of me can’t help but feel pleased that Ron vomited slugs over that trophy. Maybe next time he’ll think twice before hexing someone. Or not.
 

 

Comments

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Things do get very interesting when you start adding up who knew what when and realize that Severus not only never opened his mouth about Remus during his years at Hogwarts, but also must have kept mum about it *the entire time he was a DE* - when he had no pressing motivation not to use this weapon other than a basic sense of decency, and would probably have benefited from deploying it. Imagine the mischief Voldie could have made had he known that one of Dumbledore's major supporters was a werewolf, and that Dumbledore himself had 1) secretly placed all of Hogwarts at risk from that werewolf for seven years, 2) covered up an attempted murder against a student in which the same werewolf and his friends (also DD supporters) were involved, and 3) failed to update the security around the werewolf even after learning that at least two students had gotten past it without trouble.

Now, in fanfic you'll often see Dumbles putting a spell on Severus to make him keep silent...but in canon Severus has no difficulty at all spilling the secret once he decides to do it, and there is not a single hint that Dumbledore had to (or had reason to) remove any previously-cast silencing spell. Occam's razor states that Severus therefore could have told, and dealt a major blow to Dumbledore's organization, but did not.

I think this indirectly supports the reading that once inside the DEs Severus was not so enthralled with them as to actually want to see them win anymore. Either that, or that he *did* want it, and wanted to hurt Dumbles' organization too perhaps, but could not justify to himself ruining the life even of an enemy without direct provocation (recall his words to Sirius in PoA: even at the height of his frenzy he refrains from actually casting anything harmful, and repeats, "Give me a reason, and I will do it.")

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying Severus always had his head on straight about what precisely was right (I could buy part of his motivation for joining the DEs being a misguided idealism about Voldemort undoing the most blatant corruptions of the system and perhaps setting up some sort of meritocracy in which those who prize magic - and thus marry within the WW - do well). I'm also not saying that he always drew the lines between acceptable and unacceptable in his personal moral understanding in the same place that many of us do - for example, he seems to make a distinction between physical and verbal violence. But the consistent difference I see between Severus and most of the other characters that makes me think he really is one of the most *fundamentally* moral characters in the book is this bedrock sense he has that, at bottom, there are some things that are not ok to do even to people he doesn't at all like. He is able, when he tries, to put their value as people above their (negative) value to him personally, even when doing so puts him at great risk.

The scene in front of Gryffindor tower in TPT is like a lite version of this. Without any external prompting he risks humiliation and ostracism (at the very least - think of the number of people his housemates are connected to who might be in a position to grant/deny him jobs in the near future) in order to do the decent thing and apologize to the girl - his supposed friend - who *laughed* at him before he said a word, then responded to his insult not only with an insult of her own (understandable), but left him to be bullied (and forcibly exposing someone's genitals is a minor form of sexual assault). This after spending several minutes watching him choke, tied up on the ground, getting into a very public mating dance with his tormentor (as even JKR agrees it was), instead of just cutting the damn ropes and helping him. He goes to apologize for losing it at her for betraying him to his face, and makes no mention of that fact that she *also* behaved badly.

In this he is *coherent* as a character throughout the timeline - he will snarl and call you names and complain all the way, and will respond to provocation (losing control especially when humiliated), but he will lay his own life down for you when push comes to shove, no matter what you've done to him in the past. Whereas most of the characters are happy to do what's necessary to protect the people they personally care about, but will say 'you deserve whatever you get' to people they don't like, and *mean* it.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

getting into a very public mating dance with his tormentor (as even JKR agrees it was)

She did? Just- wow. I wish I'd known that when I was debating this earlier, because people kept giving me the 'Lily is a saint' BS, and it would've been handy to have that to point to. Don't suppose you have a link?

But yeah, people make such a huge fuss over Lily confronting James and yet- jeez, why not free her friend instead of leaving him in ongoing humiliation? Nice one, Lils.

And haters point to the mudblood comment as though it explains and justifies everything everyone's ever done to him in retrospect. *shakes head*

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

I'm looking, but as I don't recall which interview it was I have to dig through a few. The line in question is in response to a question about what was going on between Lily and James during SWM; her words are "you know what we're [we women] are like" or something very close to that, and in context it's pretty clear that her meaning is that Lily was flirting with him in addition to whatever degree of righteous anger there was. I will post it when I find it - unless of course anyone else can find it first!

But really, whether or not Lily was consciously or unconsciously flirting with James, the fact that she had the power to actually *stop* Severus' torment and simply *didn't* puts her in a bad light - whether that light is one of mere callousness, actual disdain combined with a very high moral horse, or simple stupidity, is up to the reader, but none of them really reflect well on her. Yes, it's better that she stepped in at all (nobody else did), but the most generous you can be is to say that she's singularly ineffective as assistance.

And yes the Mudblood comment was not at all nice (even if I understand why he made it and empathize with his pain, it was a shitty thing to say and apologizing was really the right thing to do) - but the Minority Report-style retroactive-justification defense that often gets bandied about when discussing the moral failures of the Good Guys (TM) really, really sets my teeth on edge. You can't "deserve" something before you've done the thing you supposedly deserve it for having done! Then again I personally don't buy the notion of vigilante justice inherent in the "he deserved it" argument anyway. I don't personally give a d**n what anyone's done, when it comes to one character actually punishing another outside the framework of any sort of justice system I say "no." For example, I DESPISE Umbridge, but I don't think that what she did gives any other character the right to unilaterally decide what she deserves and doesn't deserve. Much less *laugh* at her traumatization. Nor do I approve of Amycus' torture, though I certainly think he deserves a jail cell. Two wrongs don't make a right, and an action doesn't become morally justifiable just because someone with a different color scarf - ahem, excuse me, Pure Love In His Blood - does it. Nor does an instance of selflessness magically (haha) become selfishness just because the person acting that way has a black robe on and needs a hairdresser.

[oryx_leucoryx]

See this Mugglenet/Leaky interview

Quoted:

MA: How did they get together? She hated James, from what we’ve seen.

JKR: Did she really? You're a woman, you know what I'm saying. [Laughter.]

-----------

IOW we are supposed to infer romantic interest in James from Lily's behavior in SWM.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

MA: How did they get together? She hated James, from what we’ve seen.

JKR: Did she really? You're a woman, you know what I'm saying. [Laughter.]

-----------

IOW we are supposed to infer romantic interest in James from Lily's behavior in SWM.

You know that answer always pissed me off, the way she responded is sort of...yuckie. Especially considering the situation with the worst memory scene. Why wouldn't any normal 'woman' question James/Lily relationship at that point?

Oh, I forgot JKR, we're supposed to believe Snape is the worst sort of evil person who it doesn't matter if he was publicly tortured and humiliated.

That means every woman watching that behavior would still be attracted to James. I don't care if he was the most handsome man on the planet, I would have seriously never considered him someone I want to date after that kind of behavior. Especially considering the target of his attack was someone who was supposed to be my 'best friend'. How can JKR not thing it reasonable for us to question that and instead gives us a cheeky half-ass answer.

What because a man is popular and great at Quidditch everyone will automatically fall in love with him? Okay Lily is not swooning in the worst memory scene, she's raking him over the coals (so to speak). But JKR is suggesting something different.

That comment totally ignores the humilation James just committed on another human. Beside at that point we had no canon evidence that Lily and Severus were even friends. The only thing we knew was from all the 'good' characters - James and Lily were so damn wonderful.

Yet we see that James was just another jock bully willing to pick on weaker people or poeple he saw as weaker. And Lily was shallow enough that it didn't matter that he could so easily humiliate people - he became okay in her book at some point between the end of 6th year and by the time they got out of Hogwarts.

So by the way JKR answers that question she's suggesting that Lily was already harboring romantic feelings and thoughts about the bully James. I guess it's okay when you're a hot quidditch cup winner. You still qualify as date material.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

Whether JKR intended this or not (she probably didn't), her answer really came off as insulting. So, because Lily was a woman and James was an attractive guy, she automatically fell for him? *Any* woman would fall for James, regardless of her personal likes and dislikes, regardless of him - oh, I don't know - *viciously bullying her best friend?* What on earth is JKR trying to say here? Friendships ultimately mean nothing when it comes to romance? It doesn't matter if a guy is mean to your friend, because as long as he's hot, you'll go out with him anyway?

I cannot count how many times I've seen this insulting, sexist trope in YA fiction, where the supposed male love interest is a complete jerk to the supposed heroine's friend, and the heroine either ignores his behavior or sides with him. Friendships are superfluous and negligible to women, you see, all that really matters is that we snag a hot guy! Who cares if he's a complete and utter tool who treats our friends like garbage, either behind our backs or right in front of us? As long as he's hot, we'll take him, that's how shallow we are.

Good grief, Cassandra Claire, the woman who plagiarized from other works when she wrote fanfics based on JKR's work, makes a habit of writing this sort of atrocious behavior in her own published novels. Do you really want to sound like her, JKR?

[oryx_leucoryx]

So, because Lily was a woman and James was an attractive guy, she automatically fell for him?

That's not the way I understood Rowling's reply. I thought she meant that Lily's communication style in that scene - being very critical of James as a way of giving him attention - is typical of women, or typical of women in Lily's situation.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

I can't remember where I found this, but t0ra_chan and aasaylva made very interesting remark about how:

“…those kind of couples bicker because they don't know how else to interact and bickering and fighting gives them an excuse to talk to the other person…”

“…UST-bickering is a way to get TO each other when you can't devise any other reason to do it…”

So that's how I took JKR's remark. Lily didn't hate James, she didn't care that he was bullying Snape (FWF- friendship? what friendship?), but because they'd gotten this antagonistic thing established between them, there was no other way to interact with him, so she used that incicdent as a pretext to converse be feisty and banter with him. That's just my interpretation, though.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

I just wish we knew what Lily saw in James in the first place, though. I don't hate Lily, and I don't like the 'she wanted his wealth/status/etc.' argument because it's kind of demeaning of her to assume that must be the reason. But there is precious little about James that recommends itself to me as a possible attraction for her. So all I have at the moment is that his carefully-spun version of the werewolf incident (she must have heard it somewhere to know of it before Severus tried to tell her, and logically it must have been from the other people involved), plus his hiding his attacks on Severus later, convinced her that he was changing in order to prove to her that he loved her, and that this ability to make the arrogant jock change his tune all for her (or, if you want to put it in pretty words, her reformation of the arrogant jock) really turned her on. The fantasy of reforming the rake is rather popular.

Whereas Severus' apparent refusal to stop associating with his own housemates (did he realize she truly expected this of him? and what counted as association - he was *alone* after the OWLs, after all, not with Avery and Mulciber - had he gone off them after his discussion with Lily? so many questions) indicated to her that he didn't care about her/she couldn't make him change/etc. and therefore she started going off him.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Do you know I got told there was nothing especially risky in the Gryffindor Tower vigil because it didn't take place in the dungeons in front of the Slytherins?

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Sheesh. And they support that beautiful piece of logic how, precisely?

Safe vigils

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Well, it's not like canon ever showed any Gryffindors attacking Severus.

Re: Safe vigils

[oryx_leucoryx]

Yes, but see, he started his vigil at night when good Gryffindors are in bed (not at all waiting with invisibility cloak and map to start trouble for anyone).