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: 2010-11-02 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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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 02:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-03 11:25 pm (UTC)no subject
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.
no subject
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....
Date: 2010-11-03 10:49 pm (UTC)So he finds out his trusted mentor, in whom he had so much faith and respect, callously orchestrated his death and his reaction is not to feel betrayed but to admire the elegance. People go on about how capslock!Harry is a sign of good writing, because that's how normal teens behave, all his bratty selfish reckless behavior is depicting how kids act in real life, but I'm pretty sure most of them would be absolutely raeg'ing hardcore right about now.
And I'm gonna stop myself before I get into how STUPID and BRAINLESS that whole plan was, not neat and elegant, 'coz how many lives were wasted anyway because kids were sent on a dangerous mission for which they were unprepared, instead of sending experts trained in detecting/destroying Dark objects. *shakes head*
Elegant plans
Date: 2010-11-04 12:49 am (UTC)You are, of course, right.
Re:
Date: 2010-11-04 09:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-04 10:36 am (UTC)Sure, you could argue that Harry's so awesome that his friends wouldn't leave him behind, it's hardly DD's fault- but he left them those things in his will and it's pretty clear his master plan required those two to accompany Harry.
I can't even remember now, but wasn't one of Hermione's functions to slow Harry down with the Hallows or something? It's been way too long, but I just remember a fic where Hermione realizes and is ranting about how for all her brains, all he needed was someone to slow Harry down so he could follow the schedule DD wanted them to follow. But couldn't actually TELL them, hence all the sneakery and manipuation.
Re:
Date: 2010-11-04 09:21 am (UTC)