COS Chapter Eight: "The Deathday Party"
Oct. 29th, 2010 06:00 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslock* Everyone’s got such a hate-on for Percy that he’s described using negative imagery even when he’s doing something nice. Here he’s “bullying” Ginny into taking some potion for her cold.
* Knowing what will happen in GOF, everybody’s probably going to blame him for thinking that Ginny’s a little bit ill, rather than realising that she was just being possessed by a Horcrux-ified diary which once belonged to a dark wizard who’s been dead for eleven years. Christ, Percy, are you blind or something?
* Although in retrospect it’s obvious that Ginny’s just too awesome to suffer from such petty ailments as the common cold, so maybe he should have noticed.
* Oh no wait, she hasn’t yet become MarySue!Ginny, so she might still suffer illness like the rest of us mere mortals.
* Obviously Harry’s going to be drenched to the skin, but why’s he splattered with mud? The whole point of Quidditch is that they players fly a long way above the ground, so they wouldn’t have much opportunity to get muddy. Unless Harry fell off a lot… Wait, did I just implicitly diss Harry’s SuperQuidditch!Skillz? Ignore that.
* In the last chapter, everybody acted as if Slytherin spying on Gryffindor’s try-outs was a dirty, underhanded thing to do. Fred and George have been spying on Slytherin. Slytherin, as far as we know, never actually spied on Gryffindor (or, indeed, anyone). IOIAGDI, obviously.
* I highly doubt that the Nimbus 2001 is so good as to make all other brooms obsolete.
* Nearly-headless Nick died in 1492, but the clothes he’s wearing seem more Elizabethan in style, i.e., about a century later. Perhaps there’s a ghost clothes shop where spirits can keep up-to-date with the latest fashions, but NHN just likes Elizabethan fashions so much that he stopped going after around 1600.
* Of course, this sort of fanwank wouldn’t be necessary if JKR had actually bothered to think about her setting, and either gave Nick more period-appropriate clothing or made this his four hundredth deathday instead.
* If the purpose of the Headless Hunt is to play ball games with members’ own heads, excluding members who aren’t fully decapitated seems quite reasonable to me.
* Once again, JKR, trying to enforce rules ≠ “endless battle against students”.
* Filch has been cleaning all morning when any of the teachers (and probably quite a few of the pupils) could have done it in an instant with a quick “Scourgify!” No wonder he’s in a bad mood, really.
* Although I do wonder why Dumbledore hired him as caretaker. Perhaps he just enjoys watching him being humiliated.
* So what is this mysterious power that connects Filch and Mrs. Norris? Does the fact that Filch is a Squib rule out magic, or does being a Squib just mean that he can’t do wand magic, but can still be magically connected to his pets?
* Is it wrong that I’ve always totally rooted for Filch against Fred and George?
* By making Filch’s eagerness to hang pupils by their ankles “common knowledge”, i.e., unsubstantiated rumour, Rowling handily manages to turn us against him whilst avoiding having to provide any evidence to back this up.
* I can’t help but wonder why Dumbles keeps Peeves around. Possibly it’s so that he can handily distract Filch when Our Hero is in trouble. Or maybe blackmail’s involved. “Don’t forget, Twinkles, I’ve got your old love-letters from Gellert Grindlewald. So if you even think about getting rid of me…”
* Harry apparently has no qualms about looking through other people’s correspondence. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen!
* One of these days I’m going to write a fic where Harry suffers karmic revenge for being such a jerk. So his schooldays will be made a misery by people reading his private letters, hexing rude words across his face, beating him at Quidditch by buying superior brooms which make every match a foregone conclusion…
* Nice to see that wizards have picked up on the irritating Muggle habit of deliberately misspelling words in their brand names.
* Any guesses on how exactly a warlock differs from a regular wizard?
* Harry put the envelope down two feet away from where it was. D’oh!
* Filch is obviously ashamed of being a Squib, suggesting that they suffer from prejudice from fellow wizards, unlike Muggleborns. “Mudblood” is still a worse insult than “Sneakin’ Squib,” though.
* NHN is prepared to destroy a priceless antique in order to get Harry out of detention. Good to see he’s got his priorities straight.
* NHN seems like a bit of a joke, to be honest. About the only time we see him interacting with Gryffindor students is when they needle him at the feast; the rest of the time, they just seem to ignore him.
* I bet the Slytherins treat their ghost better. They probably hold a big party in their common room every time it’s the Bloody Baron’s deathday, with music, dancing, and various wizarding party games. The highlight of the night is a play (written by and starring Draco Malfoy, of course) about the Baron’s death. It’s absolutely excellent. :)
* Off on a bit of a tangent here, but isn’t the Baron supposed to have been contemporaneous with the Hogwarts Founders? Which would mean that he lived sometime during the Anglo-Saxon period, which would mean that he couldn’t be a baron, as the rank was introduced by the Normans, who didn’t control England until 1066…
* F&G are feeding a firework to a salamander, continuing the long tradition of cruelty to animals in the series.
* “‘A promise is a promise,’ Hermione reminded Harry bossily.” Because only bossy kill-joys care about such things as keeping your promises. Most normal people are fine with the idea of just breaking them whenever you feel like it.
* Apparently when their bodies died, the ghosts’ musical taste died too.
* Rather careless (some might say rude) of Nick to invite three living people along and then not bother to provide them with any food.
* Rotting food might have a stronger flavour than normal food. Unfortunately, it’s also a not very nice flavour.
* So, the good guys can’t stand Myrtle and make fun of her behind her back; the evil Slytherin Draco Malfoy, OTOH, is able to get past her unpleasant exterior and make friends with her. I’ll just chalk that up as #147 on the “Instances when the bad guys actually seem better than the good guys” board.
* Rather rude of Sir Patrick to interrupt Nick’s speech like that. Makes you wonder why exactly Nick invited him.
* Or why he’s so keen to join the Hunt, for that matter.
* “Time to kill… I smell blood… I SMELL BLOOD”? Do basilisks always speak in such a melodramatic way, or is it just putting it on to amuse Harry? Or did it just pick up the Slytherin theatrical habit from Salazar or Tom?
* Given that all the students are coming up from the same place, why exactly are they coming in from different ends of the corridor?
* I know that people often think of Draco as a bit of a drama queen, but pushing to the front of the crowds and shouting “You’ll be next, Mudbloods!” seems ridiculously over-the-top (not to mention rather stupid), even for him. I literally cannot imagine what his motivation for doing this is meant to be.
* Actually, I think Olivander shows us a spell in GOF to make wine fly out of their wands. Maybe Draco’s just discovered this, and currently drunk off his arse.
* Or maybe Rowling just hooked his testicles up to car batteries and turned up the voltage until he agreed to be one of the book’s red herrings.
* Come to think of it, a lot of the plot/characterisation in the series would make a good deal more sense if we assume that that’s what happened. “Look, Sirius, I don’t care if you’re smart enough to figure a way of staying sane despite being surrounded for twelve years by an army of depression-inducing monsters, before masterminding an escape from an impregnable island fortress and evading the biggest man-hunt in recent wizarding history for almost a year, I need you to be really reckless and immature in this book so that you can get killed at the end and make Harry feel miserable. Quick, Dobby, get the car batteries!”
* Hey, maybe that could be a new acronym, for any time when someone does something inexplicable or otherwise out of character: QGCB (for “Quick, get the car batteries!”).
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Date: 2010-11-01 08:28 pm (UTC)Not officially, but one can infer something from Luna Lovegood's relationship with Snape.
Luna seems to respect Snape, and for all her oddness and outrageous comments/statements, not once does Snape insult her nor make snarky comments regarding her or her viewpoints.
Luna is a Ravenclaw, which implies that she is intelligent, and she seems to have been a student who was, well, studious, and who presumably did well in classes and completed assignments on time.
She is respectful to the Hogwarts professors, and that is definitely something that Snape considers essential in a student.
So Luna basically met all of Snape's standards, she respected him, and Snape seems to have returned that respect, in as much that he did not insult her like he did Hermione.
My guess is that Luna's relationship with Snape was probably more the norm for the majority of the student body; it is just that Rowling writes from the POV of a character who gets on the wrong side of Snape, and that therefore colors the reader's viewpoint.
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Date: 2010-11-01 08:44 pm (UTC)And yes, Severus is all about the respect issue. IMHO this is one of the biggest factors in his conflict with Harry: he doesn't feel that Harry respects him in the least, and in fact Harry repeatedly behaves in a disrespectful manner towards him. But Harry places 100% of the blame for their conflict upon Severus as simply founded upon hatred and the James issue, and never asks himself if he does anything to exacerbate the situation or if he has any duty to behave respectfully towards teachers regardless of personal feeling. I'm not saying Harry alone is responsible for everything, of course, but as they say it takes two to tango.
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Date: 2010-11-02 12:11 pm (UTC)And yeah, I read fics in which he's perfectly foul to everyone across the board, but I really think that's due to the Harry!filter- he and Snape have the most antagonistic relationship, but there's history there, so it's understandable, whereas I don't see Snape being as provocative (not in the good way, lol) and taunting random kids in other classes the way he does Harry. If he did, I can't imagine why anyone would want to do Potions when it becomes elective- they'd be all too happy to ditch the class as soon as they're allowed to.
Harry places 100% of the blame for their conflict upon Severus as simply founded upon hatred and the James issue, and never asks himself if he does anything to exacerbate the situation or if he has any duty to behave respectfully towards teachers regardless of personal feeling
I really love you for saying this. Part of the conflict I faced on the other comm was due to me saying Harry contributed to the bad blood between them, that he never made any effort to see beyond the first impression he made, even after he finds out Snape's not the villain he thought and that he was trying to save his life! It's why I've never been able to judge Snape's behavior- yes, it's not professional, but I have a hard time telling myself I should be appalled by it when Harry's the biggest brat.
Funny how in DH, he all-of-a-sudden forgives Snape for everything, and ends up naming his son after him. From the Harry we've seen from books one to six, he's never had a single positive thought about the guy, no matter how many times it turned out his suspicions were wrong and he was always trying to ensure Harry's safety. Yet all of a sudden, we're supposed to buy that Harry went over to the man he thought murdered Dumbledore, took his memories and actually paid any attention to them? In the middle of a battle, when he had an hour's reprieve, seeing Snape's last thoughts was what mattered to him? Totally not believable- and I laugh at the suggestion someone made that Snape might've given him the most negative and hurtful memories just to be a jerk and make him feel like crap, like, just all the times he sneered at Harry, lol!
If there's been an inkling in the earlier books, Harry acknowledging he's not so bad, trying to see it from his pov, okay, but to go from blindly hating him, even after he's proven himself, not showing any understanding at all...no.
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Date: 2010-11-02 03:20 pm (UTC)I just couldn't believe Harry's utter lack of reaction after seeing the Pensieve in DH. He and Snape have hated each other for seven years, but now that Harry's found out that Snape was in love with his mother, their enmity doesn't matter anymore? If that were me, I would have *freaked out.* I still don't understand why Harry didn't. It's one thing to learn that your teacher was in love with one of your parents, but a teacher that you've *hated?* How could Harry not react to that discovery? How could he just brush that aside in favor of focusing on Dumbledore's master plan?
I know that there was a war going on, but Harry couldn't spare one second to feel horrified, shocked, disgusted, overwhelmed, or any other emotions that would have been normal to feel at that moment? And then he later names one of his *sons* after him? "Yeah, Albus Severus, I used to really hate your namesake, but then I found out that he was in love with your grandmother, and that made everything okay!"
That was one of the most unrealistic moments ever in DH, and that's saying something.
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Date: 2010-11-02 04:38 pm (UTC)I didn't get the whole naming every one of the kids after people. Seriously Harry, Sirius James, Albus Severus, and Lily Luna...
I could see one of them...maybe getting a middle name but the first name TO!?
I mean, can't we be original here in naming our kids? I get that there tend to be boys named after their father but this isn't the case with Harry's offspring.
Good thing Ginny and Harry ddidn't have 4 kids (yet). I guess if it's a boy it'll be Ronald Remus and if it's a girl it'll be Minerva Hermione. OH NO, maybe Narcissa Hermione - since Narcissa was the one who spoiled Voldie's plan.
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Date: 2010-11-03 08:08 am (UTC)ILU! *hugglesquish* That made me laugh so much! Haha! It makes just as much 'sense', doesn't it?! *gigglefit*
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Date: 2010-11-03 08:25 am (UTC)And yeah, Harry had this whole angsty soul-searching thing over finding out his father bullied Snape, but no reaction to him loving Lily?
I suppose it's fortunate he didn't have to interact with Snape post-DH, much easier to sanctimoniously 'forgive' the man and make peace with him if he's not required to actually speak to Snape and try to mend bridges.
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Date: 2010-11-03 02:54 pm (UTC)Maybe he just was too invested in the common belief that Lily was just so "pure and loving" that everyone couldn't help but love her (except Voldemort because he's Evil)? *rolls eyes* Even though Snape's memories showed her as the exact opposite.
/I suppose it's fortunate he didn't have to interact with Snape post-DH, much easier to sanctimoniously 'forgive' the man and make peace with him if he's not required to actually speak to Snape and try to mend bridges./
That was one of my biggest disappointments in DH. There was never a scene where Harry actually got to sit down and talk with Snape, Draco, Peter, or anybody else that he had grievances with. Snape was at Hogwarts while Harry was with his friends on their Horcrux-hunting trip so they didn't get to interact at all, Draco was mostly in Malfoy Manor and wasn't in any position to talk to Harry when the Trio were captured or when they were trying to escape from Fiendfyre in the Room of Requirement, and the only time that Harry got to talk to Peter was when he was demanding that Peter remember the life debt, after which Peter was promptly killed. There was never really any moment of reconciliation involving Harry in that book. The only one I can think of was the King's Cross scene where Harry and Dumbledore have their long talk, but that doesn't count, since Dumbledore was never one of Harry's official enemies.
And in the Epilogue, what do we get? Harry naming one of his sons after Snape (after Snape is long dead) and Draco silently acknowledging him. That's it.
Stopping by Snape on a snowy evening....
Date: 2010-11-03 08:08 pm (UTC)Actually, I wrote a fanfic ("Endless Night" on Occlumency) in which Snape compelled Harry to come to him....
No reaction to Snape loving Lily?
I think everything was trumped by the news that Albus had set him up to die--all this time, he (like Severus) had trusted Albus to be trying to save him. Our Harry doesn't have room for more than one thought/feeling at a time, after all, and I do agree the instruction to suicide would trump the squick of the-git-loved-my-mum!
Were Jo a better writer, of course, she'd have written a scene later where Harry tries to come to terms with everything....
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Date: 2010-11-02 12:16 pm (UTC)(lol, we're supposed to be appalled by him calling Hermione a know-it-all, even though Ron calls her that as well?)
I don't really know what interactions with Luna you're referring to, but I do think that it makes sense they'd get on, as long as the students were respectful and not, y'know, gossiping in class or throwing ingredients at other students or frakking fireworks into cauldrons.
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Date: 2010-11-02 07:36 pm (UTC)The only actual interaction is at Slughorn's Yule party in HBP; Luna makes her off-the-wall comment about the Rotfang Conspiracy, and Snape just stands there and doesn't say anything. If it had been Harry, Hermione, Ron, the twins, or basically any Gryffindor saying the same thing, I doubt that Snape would have let it go by without some sarcastic comment.
The rest can only be inferred; Luna never says anything bad about Snape, because she never has anything bad to say about anybody, when it comes down to it.
As I previously pointed out, she is studious, presumably completes assignments on time and gets at least adequate, if not outstanding, grades, and is respectful to her professors...
Everything that Snape would consider essential in a student.
And my guess is that the majority of the student body was the same -- they were on time for classes, they did their homework and completed assignments on time, and unless they were complete idiots in Potions, then they got along fine with Snape, and he with them.
And I would also guess that even with a student who was doing poorly in Potions, if they were respectful to Snape (a different thing than Neville's cowering terror of him), and approached Snape after class and said something along the lines of, "Please, Professor Snape, could you help me figure out what I am doing wrong? Is there anything else I can do to try to improve in Potions?", that Snape would not have been sarcastic, snarky, or insulting like he was to most Gryffindors...
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Date: 2010-11-03 02:45 am (UTC)Actually she is very critical of Hagrid. She says he is a bad teacher and that the Ravenclaws consider him a joke.
I don't see any evidence Severus has anything against Gryffindors in general. He has issues with those who repeatedly under-perform or misbehave and who could, in his opinion, do better. He interacts OK with Seamus in HBP, for instance.
His issue with Neville is that Neville clearly has power but lacks control, and a s a result he is constantly endangering the class by his mere presence. On top of that Neville does something as clueless and dangerous as bringing his pet to class. Severus is exasperated with Neville in that lesson - how can anyone be that clueless unless he is doing it on purpose?
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Date: 2010-11-03 08:27 am (UTC)how can anyone be that clueless unless he is doing it on purpose?
I do get that impression from him, that he thinks Neville's being obtuse on purpose.
I have to say, Hermione does Neville no favors either- drawing attention to him by hissing instructions, bringing Snape to loom over them or glare at them...I'm sure she means well, but if Neville didn't have two different people fussing at him, he probably would've done better.
interacting okay with Gryffindors
Date: 2010-11-03 07:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-03 02:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-03 05:20 am (UTC)Exactly, she practically stands up like a big goofball. Did she really think he couldn't see her?
Plus the movie leaves out harry's responds to Severus of, 'why don't you try her?'
At that point Severus had not done anything remotely mean to harry except call him the new celebrity and say fame clearly isn't everything...if anyone can actually call that being mean to Harry. And the only thing he could be accused of doing to Hermione was not calling on her to answer the question. Though I guess in Hermione's world thats a death sentance.
And when Severus is questioning Harry he has the perfect right as the adult and teacher in the class to ask Harry questions. Harry takes it upon himself on the first day in class to tell his teacher to ask someone else.
So to me Hermione and Harry sort of come off strange little kids.
Snape doesn't do himself any favors by being mean to Neville after that, I guess that was so JKR can prove he's an ass...but seriously, JKR makes her 11 year olds Harry act pretty cheeky/arrongant to the adult teacher in the very first lesson.
Plus the movie shows Harry writing down every bit of Severus words, but in the book I don't think that happened at all. The movie seem to be trying to show Harry in a better light than what JKR actually gave us.
I still don't get the deal with Hermione needing to act like a total cheesball with raising her hand, and then standing up to try and get the teachers attention.
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Date: 2010-11-03 05:48 am (UTC)As a 'been there, done that' - though mostly at a younger age than Hermione here - kids have a mistaken notion the teachers ask questions in order to hear the answer, from anyone. And if they will tel the teacher the answer they will have made the teacher's day. This is a misperception. Teachers ask because they want the students to think about the question and come up with an answer. The more students who do so, the better. And in this case here Severus wanted the students to know they had better come prepared for his next class (and all those that follow). So he picks a student, one who did not volunteer to answer, and one who might think he can coast on his fame - and quizzes him. He doesn't want any other student's answers because the point is that each and every one of them should prepare for class or he'd be in Harry's situation next time.
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Date: 2010-11-03 05:15 pm (UTC)I always assumed that Hermione acted the same way in the school she attended before going to Hogwarts, and that she probably was treated well by those teachers because they thought she was such a wonderful student. Perhaps because she wasn't a particularly pretty little girl, she received positive validation by being the "smart" girl...
It's therefore quite a shock to her to find out that the same behavior on her part does not solicit the same response on the part of Hogwarts professors, especially Snape. She is still not particularly pretty, and now her previous mode of receiving positive feedback has been removed.
Hermione's death sentence
Date: 2010-11-03 07:54 pm (UTC)But Hermione's also showing her lack of social skills here--raising her hand, initially, fine, but going so far as to stand up to try to attract the teacher's attention.... Showing the teacher that you (think you) know the answer is one thing, causing a class disruption to try to prove it is another. And she's really slow to learn that this behavior neither ingratiates her with her peers nor is it uniformly beloved by teachers.
I was really bright, too, but at that age I was shy. When I got older and more confident, I eventually had a teacher sit me down and explain that my incessant questions were DISRUPTING HER LESSONS. She also offered to let me visit her during lunch and ask them then, if I'd just shut up in class.
But Oryx is right--Hermione's form of showing off isn't doing the other students any favors.
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Date: 2010-11-03 11:54 pm (UTC)I agree, I think Hermione's the kind of girl who'd realize she was plain but go, 'Well, I've got brains, that's far more important, it's totally better than being pretty, who needs that!' (she's so disdainful of Parvati and Lav for being girly, she's got a huge grudge there)
But then when she finds that her teacher won't admire her smarts and praise her for it, ohnoes! Shock horror! I can see her being confused and scared and being on fire to prove herself, which is the only way I can understand her standing up to try and get Snape's attention, because otherwise, her world's falling apart. If she's not the pretty girl or receiving validation for being the clever girl, what good is she?
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Date: 2010-11-03 11:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-04 02:08 pm (UTC)/sarcasm
I also hate the whitewashing and Harry-is-fantastic the movies do, ITA. And the character twisting (e.g. Snape randomly smacking students). I was also hugely disappointed by HBP: they gave us all that Teen Lurve Drama instead of scenes the the frickin' title character! Not ONE DADA lesson! *rants*
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Date: 2010-11-04 02:21 pm (UTC)Either way, I thought, in the first couple of books, that maybe Rowling was sneaking in commentary on the problems with modern (Muggle) education. To me, Snape was a good teacher and the things like his comments on Hermione's teeth (I buy the idea that he saw no difference between the curses that created Beaver Beak and Boil Boy) were just hyperbole meant to show Harry's (erroneous) view of Snape and, possibly, even imagined or ramped up in Harry's own mind.
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Date: 2010-11-03 11:46 pm (UTC)I def do not think she was respectful- the way she's always chattering away in class, hissing instructions at Harry or Neville (if I were Snape, I'd be so annoyed, like, 'Who is in charge here? Do you believe you are a more capable teacher? If you would like to take over the class, by all means, prove yourself. SEE HOW YOU DO WITH A BUNCH OF CARELESS BRATTY KIDS WHO HANDLE DANGEROUS POTIONS WITHOUT PAYING ATTENTION')
Things like stealing ingredients, well, that was second year, but I'm sure that all throughout her first year, she was constantly disrupting the class with her desperate need for validation, either by answering every single question or by 'helping' her fellow students. By the time we get to her other transgressions in later years, no wonder Snape has no patience for her and snaps because she JUST WON'T LISTEN. (I kinda lol'd in PoA when she STILL won't shut up when he's trying to save them, like, how much must he want to strangle her!)
When one student (or a small number of students) answers all the time the others coast
First of all, high five, my fellow former know-it-all!
I remember this psych class in which I and another boy were constantly competing to outdo each other- every single lesson, one of us would answer the questions, and it was rare for other kids to contribute anything, then one day, the teacher was like, 'Okay, Adam and Annie, put your hands down, let's see who else can answer the question. Anyone?' And nobody had done the readings, because they were so used to us having all the answers, that they couldn't be bothered studying the text, because they knew we'd be there to provide answers and discuss the topic.
So I totally understand why Snape is very dismissive of Hermione, it doesn't do the class any favors if she's always spouting off textbook answers to everything and not letting them consider the question or get a word in. And smart as Hermione is, it doesn't really speak well of her that she gets to sixth year and still doesn't get that reeling off answers word-for-word from the book doesn't cut it. I mean, honestly. It's one thing in other classes, maybe those teachers just see her knowing everything and think it's enough, but Snape's been consistent about not wanting them to regurgitate the book and still!
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Date: 2010-11-04 03:00 am (UTC)As my daughter is about to enter her teens I am scheduled to become a know-nothing very soon. :)
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