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

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

I have an essay regarding Lupin over on Red Hen. Given how little that we are actually told about him in canon, I suspect that it may not even contradict anything but Rowling's broadside character assasination binge in DHs. And, frankly, any kind of a coherant theory contradicts that.

My theory is that what Lupin told Harry about his mission to "spy on the werewolves" was absolute truth. As far as it went. However, he didn't tell Harry that there was nothing new about his spying on Fenrir's band. In fact, I think he'd started doing it since he finished Hogwarts. Or started doing it within a year or so after finishing when he found that while he might be able to *get* a job, he wasn't able to keep one.

And in fact any of the DEs who knew anything about Fenrir's group *knew* that Remus was one of the hangers on. What they didn't know, because Fenrir didn't bother to boast about it was *how long* Lupin had been a werewolf. If any of them stopped to think about it, without asking Geryback, they'd simply assumed that he'd been bitten in his late teens or early 20s.

Of course "spying on the werewolves" is a bit of an overstatement. Werewolves aren't entrusted with any sensitive information. But he was monitoring their movements, and letting someone know what part of the country they were in, so someone could manage whatever damage control was possible.

And he was probably doing it at Albus's behest. From where he was standing, Albus had gone out on a limb to see to it that he had an education and he was beholden. And, besides, he couldn't keep a job for long anyway, so he might as well be of use. Albus probably diverted living expenses from one of the school funds and paid him a pittance, and Lupin's living expenses were not high in any case, since the role of a disaffected werewolf, while uncomfortable, is not a role that needs a lot of funding to support.

And, in fact, the likelyhood that he was off with the werewolves a good deal of the time is probably why Sirius suspected him (or had been led to suspect him) of being the spy in the Order.

[cured4life.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't that contradict that parents didn't know he was a werewolf when he was teaching at Hogwarts? Lucius would have definitely used that fact and Snape wouldn't have been able to "out" Lupin at the end of term.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can't say I see Lucius letting Dumbledore hire a man he knows to be a werewolf to teach at the school his own son attends without making some sort of trouble. I doubt he would want Draco near the werewolf, whatever Remus' supposed status with Fenrir's pack was.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Not really. Admittedly the whole issue is fanwank anyhow, and in canon the whole subject was simply a vacuum.

But for one thing, not that many people probably did know, even if he was listed in the registry. I suspect the registry is confidential. I also suspect that the Prophet may not report werewolf bites. For one thing, it's too easy to have the outraged families of the victims come down hard on them if they did--and some of those families have power. For another, I suspect that most of the weres were originally Muggles, and the Prophet doesn't give squat about them.

Plus, the general public doesn't go checking the werewolf registry every year when the school has to replace the DADA teacher. The post is a revolving door, and most of the wizarding public has become fairly indiferent to who may be in it now. They know they are not going to last.

As for Lucius knowing about whether Lupin was a were or not, I'm pretty sure that Lucius pretty carefully *didn't* know any more about the were "community" than he could avoid. I am convinced that Greyback was extorting money from Malfoy, after Malfoy was outed as having gotten mixed up in the DEs and only escaped Azkaban with that Imperius defense. In return, Lucius probably used Greyback to threaten rivals. But for all Draco may say Greyback was a friend of his father's, I suspect that friendship had nothing to do with the relationship. As was certainly demonstrated in DHs when Greyback showed up at the manor with the trio in tow.

Indeed, Lucius may not have known at all, since by the end of the first war Greyback was hardly boasting of how many wizard children he had ruined, or spreading around their names. Particularly once they were no longer children. (Assuming there even were any others.) And since Lucius was known to have a "wolf at the door" Snape may never have mentioned the business since he assumed that Lucius *did* know.

The Ministry almost certainly *did* know when Lupin went to teach. But Albus probably tap danced past that with all sorts of assurances of being able to control the situation. Amd, in fact, Belby's wolfsbane potion really did make a difference in the degree of risk. It brought the issue down to the level of acceptable risk, but a potential public relations nightmare.

[ioanna-ioannina.livejournal.com]

Yes, it makes sense. Above all, the difference because of Wolfsbane. It even explains, why the outing took place when Lupin had failed to take his potion (and not earlier).

I know your essays, I´ve read them all. I especially like the one about Dark Magic and dementia. I even build my theory for some other world on it.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to hear it. The essay collection is there as a resource for fanfic writers, as well as other theorists. I gather a number of people have used it as a springboard and leapt off in their own directions after taking bits of it as their starting points.

I missed an awful lot, for all I tried to be comprehensive. But there is so much *stuff* just bunged into the series at random that it is impossible not to at least try to straighten it out.

Thanks for keeping essays up

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've read all of them--they shaped a lot of my early understanding when I was starting in this fandom, and I still go back and reread periodically when I'm writing on a specific character or issue. Thanks for keeping them up as a resource for the rest of us! Terri

[oryx_leucoryx]

Personally I don't believe Remus ever spent a significant time with 'feral' werewolves before POA. I see the change in his attitude towards Severus, the appreciation of Severus' effort to make the Wolfsbane in HBP to be the result of finally seeing other werewolves who were less fortunate than him. Those who received no education, those that had no fully human friends.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

That's a valid interpretation too. And in fact, given that Voldemort Albus *kenw* that Tom was on the move again (even if not in PoA) it is quite possible that he contacted Remus later that summer and leaned on him to collect information on the weres in case someone got in touch with Greyback and he suddenly started acting like he knew something, and was up to more than his usual ranting about how he and his followers *deserved* blood on nights of the full moon.