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deathtocapslock
* 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.
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no subject
Date: 2010-10-22 09:25 pm (UTC)I did find it odd that whenever Harry couldn't play due to being in the hospital wing, his team would automatically lose. What were they doing before Harry joined the team?
In HBP, Harry taunts Harper about Draco paying him to take his place during a Quidditch match. Did it ever occur to Harry that maybe Harper was Draco's replacement because he wasn't feeling well (especially since he'd noticed all year how pale and sickly Draco was)? I know that Harry was bent on proving his conspiracy theory about Draco (which ended up being right, admittedly), but if the situation was taken wholly out of context, it wouldn't be a big deal.
/* There are no girls on the Slytherin team, just to remind everyone that they’re sexist, and therefore evil./
JKR also noted in PoA that Cho was the only girl on the Ravenclaw team. Are the Ravenclaws sexist, too?
/* 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./
In PS/SS, Harry admits that Draco does fly well, which I thought was supposed to foreshadow his future position as Seeker. I think that because Draco's a nasty rich boy, we're supposed to assume that everything he gets is due to his wealth and not due to any merit on his part.
/* Hermione’s the one who starts with the personal insults./
True, but Draco does insult the Weasleys' brooms beforehand, saying that they can raffle them off and that he expects that "a museum would bid for them." So, Hermione's retort is clearly meant to be retaliatory.
/* Draco calls Hermione a “Mudblood”, despite the fact that she’s a Muggleborn, and therefore cannot be expected to know what it means/
Maybe Hermione wouldn't have known what it meant in her first year in the wizarding world, but since this is her second year, I don't think Draco was unreasonable to expect her to have heard of the term by now.
I've always found it curious that Draco never once called her "Mudblood" during their first year. I know that from a storytelling standpoint, it wouldn't have been possible since JKR intended to introduce the blood prejudice theme in the second book, but it's still odd. Some people say it's because Draco hadn't yet heard of the epithet in first year or didn't know that Hermione was Muggle-born. Other people say that he didn't have much of a reason to use it since Hermione really didn't do anything to him personally. Others say that this scene was the breaking point.
/Contrast this with the Gryffindors in PS, who refuse to speak to Harry, Hermione, Ron or Neville after they lose some House Points./
That made me so upset the first time I read it. It wasn't just because I sympathized with Harry and his friends, it was also because I couldn't believe that their *entire House* would ostracize them over that. The entire school's opinion of Harry fluctuates so often that it's ridiculous. Was the House Cup really such a big deal that it was worth shunning their own classmates? What was Slytherin House's reaction to Draco, I wonder?
/* 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./
I know, but I still disliked the change because Hermione stole Ron's lines and his thunder. and it made no sense. Ron's a pureblood who has grown up in the wizarding world; Hermione is a Muggle-born who is just as much of a newcomer as Harry is. Since he has the background and experience, it's only fitting that Ron be the one to tell them about racism in the wizarding world.
/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./
So, Harry's treatment by the Dursleys wasn't awful at all because it didn't break him? What a terrible attitude to have. Parents have every right to be concerned about their children's welfare, no matter who they are.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-22 09:31 pm (UTC)They materialised only when Harry became captain in HBP, right? Or when she needed to write Ron into the team in OotP?
I remember being surprised when the notion that every member of the team had to compete again for his/her position as a regular annual event was announced as a matter of course by Katie in book 6. A small case of Rowling waving her hands and making a retroactive continuity adjustment. Dwarfed in insult by the calamitous Hallows she brought in with book 7, of course. Oh, and the about-turn in wand lore. And the Trace. And ...
JKR hates sexism, which is why she took care to include so many liberated, independent-minded women in the novels.
... who all went to pieces when it came to matters of romance - Ginny submissively waiting forever until Harry noticed her, Hermione in a holding pattern until Ron grows up. Neither boy put under any pressure or concern regarding losing their girl, who would always be there waiting for them.
(She *tried* to make out that Ginny was independent and dating other boys (quidditch and dating, that's Ginny Weasley in a nutshell) independent of Harry, but that all dissolved when she told him/us that she'd "never given up" on her crush!hero.)
So Rowling's women are liberated and independent career-wise, but not when it comes to matters of the heart. They're totally dependent on their men on that score.
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!”
I haven't watched it; does Lopez play Ginny? 'Daddy'?
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.
An interesting observation. Hermione's treated just like anyone else to this point. The use of the 'mudblood' term does increase throughout the series, doesn't it - Draco using it, the DEs all using it - but that's it. Until DH when Rowling brought it all out with the muggleborn being thrown into concentration camps (if I remember correctly).
Fan fiction stories often trot out actual 'real magical world' examples of where the blood purity bias is actually implemented in real life - Hermione is barred from advancing in the Ministry for example, or is told she'll have career problems because of her background. But there was none of that in the series, other than taunts which weren't backed up by any actual evidence. "All was well" in this interstitial period between the two Voldemort wars, just as it was in the epilogue.
Perhaps the blood purists were a *tiny* part of the population, just the Death Eaters and super evil Slytherins, so the prejudice wasn't seen until Voldemort took over the Ministry? Ron tells us that it's just "some wizards - like Malfoy's family", after all. But he reacted pretty quickly/violently to the epithet, didn't he; out of all proportion to an insult which is barely used?
I guess ... perhaps all the anti-muggleborn stuff came out in the first Voldemort war, but then was repealed by an appalled population immediately after the dark lord's apparent demise? But that was only 11 years earlier ... it's hard to equate such a concerned and active populace with what we see in HBP and DH; an apathetic community who seem content to allow the Ministry to be overrun with no objection, who don't resist the round-up of the muggleborn and who passively wait for a teenager to save them.
The reaction of Ron and others to the word doesn't match up with what Rowling shows us of the wizarding population as a whole and its lack of resistance to the sudden adoption of the pureblood beliefs as policy in books 6 & 7.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-22 10:00 pm (UTC)My theory is that it didn't have particularly drastic effects until Voldemort's newest Horcrux started hanging around its victim. I'm guessing that before Harry turned up, it just produced natural-seeming reasons why they had to keep replacing the teacher.
* 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?).
This may have been what he was trying to do with only hiring Moody for a year. It may also explain why he didn't seem in the least bit concerned about Umbridge's appointment, since he knew she'd get her come-uppance by the end of the year.
* I assume that JKR’s just forgotten to mention the try-outs that every Quidditch team apparently does each year.
You think Dumbledore would let Harry go through try-outs?
JKR and Math
Date: 2010-10-22 11:46 pm (UTC)My theory is that it didn't have particularly drastic effects until Voldemort's newest Horcrux started hanging around its victim. I'm guessing that before Harry turned up, it just produced natural-seeming reasons why they had to keep replacing the teacher.
I have to wonder if JKR really thought about the math of how many years went by between Voldemort's visit to Dumbledore to get the job and when Harry got to Hogwarts in 1991.
I just don't believe she really sat down and filled a notebook with that kind info/timelines.
I just don't see her as the kind of writer who actually plotting out Voldmort visited Dumbledore to get the job for DADA and also placed the Horcuxes in 19(--), and that means X number of years went by of DADA teachers not teaching but 1 year.
I think she just wrote the scene out of Voldie's visit and after that didn't go back and think about when this was occuring or even rationalized X number of teachers would have to fill the position for X number of years.
I know she says she has notebooks filled with information but I just have to ask what kinda info it is; I'm thinking it's probably just dialgue, character tidbits and bits of chapter and story that probably never got used.
I just feel like she writes in her notebooks but this writing doesn't have outlining timelines and that kinda stuff in it. I don't even know if early on it ever occur to her to do that or at least not in a serious enough way to make sure her canon conforms to a logical proper timelines.
Even she admited she didn't know about the missing time between Lily and James being attacked and Baby Harry ending up on the Dursleys doorstep. Which sort of attests to not have plotted out a effective timeline. That is the main event for how the story stars and she doesn't know exactly what happened and why there is missing time?
So I'm going to question the whole concept of time before Harry was born. I think she had general ideas on where she was going with the story but I don't know if she sat down and figured it all up and plotted out the timeline for each scene, in an effective way.
I don't really think JKR planned for the DADA job to be cursed that long. I think its another case of she just wasn't doing the math.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-23 01:35 am (UTC)She plays Draco, and such a brilliant, fabulous, hilarious Draco, too!
(first appears at 2:44)
I laugh so hard at Draco's scenes. 'Wait, don't tell me! Red hair, hand-me-down clothes and a stupid complexion. You must be a Weasley.'
no subject
Date: 2010-10-23 01:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-23 01:39 am (UTC)Re: JKR and Math
Date: 2010-10-23 01:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-23 01:59 am (UTC)I remember being surprised when the notion that every member of the team had to compete again for his/her position as a regular annual event was announced as a matter of course by Katie in book 6. A small case of Rowling waving her hands and making a retroactive continuity adjustment
I've re-read that section and at first, it doesn't sound like it's an annual event:
So it sounded like something sensible to do now there's a new captain- assess the team, check out any new talent, etc. So I was okay with that, it didn't have to be a ret-con, but then...
So Katie's statement wasn't that big a deal, but Harry himself clearly establishes yearly try-outs are the norm. Even though I don't remember him ever having to fight for his position as Seeker! O.o
no subject
Date: 2010-10-23 02:08 am (UTC)he Slytherins often seem to look out for each other the most [...] Contrast this with the Gryffindors in PS...
This point... I can't even... it's... yes. Oh, yes.
But so we don't go privately insane wanting to point this out to people, let's pretend it's only because of the Slytherin "any means" thing.
It also suggested that someone might have called Hermione that before
I never considered that. I used to really hate what they did in the movies because when Hermione didn't know what it meant, it did a lot of things. Firstly, since she never got worked up about being called that, it showed how class/bloodlines have to be bred into someone and how you have to be taught disdain for a virtually undetectable trait (really, line up seven wizards and tell us which is fourteenth gen and which is first gen). Since she never grew up with the stigma of that word, it didn't hurt.
Second, it gave Harry and Hermione a chance to show their ignorance while Ron got to show that he wasn't completely useless he has the culture of the Wizard World and can help them that way.
Third, it gave the Wizard World a culture that wasn't superior to non-wizards, just different. It can hurt, but for Hermione, for whom the word really does mean fuck-all since she's tops in her class, it just wouldn't. Now it might have gotten her thinking about how wizards view non-magical people, but I guess not.
(Seriously, though, I can't get over it! Potter Stans know they aren't wizards, and yet they don't mind this slur being thrown at them all the time?)
no subject
Date: 2010-10-23 02:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-23 02:31 am (UTC)Neither boy put under any pressure or concern regarding losing their girl, who would always be there waiting for them.
Thanks for giving me another realization that the romances in this book are ForeverFail.
Then again, Rowling has that stupid *thing* about Noah's Arking, doesn't she?
My God, she does. Everyone marries people they went to school with, even Molly and Arthur who were apparently tromping around the school grounds together. Then there's Dumbledore who quote "lost his moral compass completely when he fell in love and I think subsequently became very mistrusting of his own judgment in those matters so became quite asexual".
Everyone has just one person, only one, and everyone else before them is just a stepping stone to get to the end (Lavender, Cho, Michael, that chucklehead Hermione went to the ball with, Dean). My God is that self-indulgent fanficcy juvenile horseplop if I ever heard it.
And hey, Jay-Kay- saying "he became quite asexual" in this context is basically the same as saying "She became quite heterosexual." You don't ... it's... it...
no subject
Date: 2010-10-23 02:43 am (UTC)I'd forgotten McLaggen's comment; I just remember being surprised, going 'huh?' when Katie mentioned the trials. Because to me it sounded like they were a yearly event, not necessarily restricted to a new captaincy.
DH is an abomination in part because of the sheer number and SIZE of all of Rowling's ret-cons, but I find it interesting that she had them in the earlier books too.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-23 02:44 am (UTC)Are you going to see the DH movie? I'm still teetering on a decision.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-23 02:59 am (UTC)It's all part of what I think of as Rowling's "cookie cutter simplicity" with her romantic models. Parcelled up with her 'tunnel vision' and the artificial nature of her plots as a whole, where many choices or alternatives were never addressed by the book or the characters because she, the author, simply never thought of them. Harry does *this*, the Trio does *that* ... just because. Roads not taken are simply not seen either.
Similarly, yes, the romances went the same way. Ron couldn't marry his sister, so he gets Hermione; so that means, in Rowling's simplistic jigsaw (everyone gets a partner), Harry gets Ginny. Harry never ever EVER is attracted to the girl who is, just like she is to Ron, his best friend ... just because. (Because that would be inconvenient to the author.) No, he's awarded Ginny. Nice and clean, no dramas, no issues. Ginny was always there for Harry since day #1. Likewise Hermione, if you're a R/Hr fan and accepted the 'anvils' (before or after being instructed by Rowling on how the books were supposed to be read). Ginny waits for Harry to deign to notice her; she 'never gave up' on him. Hermione waits for Ron to grow up; he notices the elves, she ticks that item off her list, hey, how about that, Ron's adult enough for me now, I AM HIS! (no reasons given.) As I said, both girls' romantic actions/stances are at right angles to the otherwise I AM AN INDEPENDENT AND LIBERATED WOMAN attitude that Rowling wanted us to see.
(Do you know JUST HOW DIFFICULT it is to type this comment with that animated GIF of that woman right above the text area?!?!!!! Arrrgh!!! *is mesmerised*)
Henry VIII's wives
Date: 2010-10-23 03:15 am (UTC)Divorced, beheaded, died;
Divorced, beheaded, lived....
no subject
Date: 2010-10-23 03:28 am (UTC)The second one? No dice. I don't want to see the you-know-what on screen and damned if I pay money for it.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-23 03:44 am (UTC)You paint a grim picture there, buddy, of Hermione just waiting, patietly in book 3, still waiting in book four, tapping her finger on the desk and leaning on it in book five, arms folded getting impatient and frowning in book six, then in book seven going "Alright, anything, anything! ... He left? Oh for Fuck's sake... what? He said elves? ... Is that it? You're not gonna... Oh, close enough. *leap*"
Do you know JUST HOW DIFFICULT it is to type this comment with that animated GIF of that woman right above the text area?!?!!!!
In other words... you can't?
At least I'm not the livejournal user "nappyxheadedxho". Her default icon...
You don't want to see it. Trust me.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-23 03:49 am (UTC)But wizard-on-wizard violence, even by parents, is totally ok. In the Potterverse. (Not to me. The books are sick.)
no subject
Date: 2010-10-23 04:33 am (UTC)Ha ha ha. "He left?". Heh. :-)
Yes, it's a grim picture all right, but that's exactly what some/many of the R/Hr fans love about R/Hr; for them it really and truly is a case of "Ron and Hermione? Please. I saw it from book #1". Since Ron was the one who was actively so jealous (in R/Hr eyes this is 'enamoured') of her and her relationships with other boys from book #4 onwards their only recourse when it comes to what *Hermione* was thinking at the time was yes, sure, she's just waiting for him. Hermione was in a permanent holding pattern for her one true Rowling soulmate. Meanwhile Ginny was, likewise, helplessly written into a fixed orbit around her crush!hero; her dating other boys is admitted to be a mere front. Independent and liberated? When it comes to romance Rowling kept the girls firmly in the 19th century.
I recall one big OBHWF fan blissfully sighing over how she saw the R/Hr thing as a "Knight's journey"; I think that was the phrase. You know, how in fairy tales the knight had to perform various tasks to win his lady's hand? Well, Won Won had to grow up. :-) No, I think the fan pulled out various canon events which she used as parallels for Ron's 'tasks' - he helped save her from the troll, he defended her honour against Draco's verbal slight in CoS, uhm ...well, I'm sure the R/Hr fan could think of more. (It's a huge laugh to me sometimes just how desperate some fans are to glean hidden deep meaning from Rowling's superficial words; mainly in their theorising over DH.) But yes, I do believe it's much more obviously a case of Hermione just waiting for him to grow up a little. She had *some* minimal standards as to a mate, you know.
You don't want to see it. Trust me.
Damn you. Damn me. You knew very well I'd pop over and have a look! *gak*
Re: Henry VIII's wives
Date: 2010-10-23 04:34 am (UTC)At least that's how I've heard it as applied to the wives of Henry VIII.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-23 04:38 am (UTC)I've always considered Hermione's fear of saying Voldemort's name as a flaw in the series. She was brought up as a muggle, just like Harry; therefore, just like Harry, she shouldn't have any fear of the name. And yet she does; it's only in OotP, when she's trying to convince Harry to run the D.A., that she says the name for the first time, if I recall correctly. That never made sense to me.
Rowling wanted Harry to be super-special in being the only one to say 'Voldemort', so she happily ignored Hermione's muggle upbringing just to get that special effect.
Re: Henry VIII's wives
Date: 2010-10-23 04:40 am (UTC)Now we all have to come up with the Hogwarts version.
Killed, mind-raped, disgraced
Soul-killed, gang-raped, disgraced....
What do you think?
Re: Henry VIII's wives
Date: 2010-10-23 04:55 am (UTC)The 'gang rape' theory has always squeaked me a bit; Rowling threw in all sorts of popular myth and icons without any real attention to their sources or details. She was probably as surprised as I when we started reading about the proclivities of centaurs in molesting human females. And it's a childrens series too, after all.
Still, I can see the cadence you've got there between words #2 and #5. :-)
How about:
Killed, eliminated, disgraced;
Killed, eliminated, did a bunk.
No, I think I missed something there. :-)
Killed, eliminated, disgraced;
Killed, eliminated, escaped.
Getting closer with the all important rhyme. Well, they both end with 'ed'.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-23 06:56 am (UTC)...
Did that dumb tw... did that dumbf--... did that R/Hr fan also realize that that was Courtly Love, which was specifically never to be acted on because it might have produced heirs and that would have been disaster? Did she realize that the knight's final task was to spend a night with his lady, both of them naked in bed, but him not touching her?
I'm going to smack everyone into tiny little pieces. Do her a favor and never even try to find that bullsh*t again, for I will rain down on her and... and... no. No more fights with RhR-ta--- with those people. Not for me. No.
One more thing about those knights- they had respect for their f**king ladies. Also, their ladies were usually already taken. So I don't know where her bullsh*t metaphor is going. Well, ok, I do know, and that's only because I've been trained to look for these things as a slasher, but just... ugh, it's the romanticizing of their bull relationship that...
I mean look, I'm a Ron/Draco shipper. I know what it's like to enjoy unrealistic relationships where it's all fights. But the fundamental difference between Ron/Draco shippers and RHR shippers (the thumpers, not the cool people like Heron Advocate) is that they don't like it in spite of the fighting. They use it as justification.
And then they turn around and laugh at Slashers for the same thing? And then they go make fun of HHR shippers for... I can't.
Oh, and wasn't Harry the one who suggested they look for Hermione? (I forget, was he?). And the defending her honor. He defended her honor about a word that she really didn't find that insulting and even in the last book didn't seem to be offended by. And Ron and kind of failed at it, too. Alright.