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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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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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?
no subject
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*
no subject
Date: 2010-11-04 04:25 pm (UTC)While Snape smacking Ron on the head and doing the headplant thing in GOF on Ron and Harry is funny, I do laugh when I see them, especially the one where Snape is pulling up his sleeves. However, those things seem to be for pure 'laughs', visual humor for the movie.
But in terms of the books I don't remember Snape ever laying a finger or touching a student.
The only except I know of is Harry - and the way I remember it that was only once and that was Severus yanking him out of the pensive, where Harry went without permission. On some level Harry in that scene justified everything Severus was saying about him, making him look no better than James. If Severus was used to being humiliated as a student and even as an adult then it is easy to assume that Severus believes Harry will use what he saw against Severus, a chance to make fun of him and share the humiliation with fellow Gryffindors.
Severus' history with Gryffindors is they humiliate, abuse and make fun of you, and the humiliation is usually for public enjoyment. So Severus tells Harry he will not tell anyone what he saw because I believe that is how he saw Harry, as the symbol of James, who was both a gryffindor and the inacter of public humilation and who took away everything Severus wanted.
There is also another scene in OOTP movie where Snape is pulling Harry down the dungeon steps. It sets up a pretty intersting visual with Snape holding on to Harry's wrist dragging him down the stairs.
Nowhere does that happen in the books but it gives you the sense visually of Harry being captured and being dragged down to be tortured.
I would have much prefered the original version of how Harry found out about he had to learn occlumency. There was no scene with Sirius and Severus. I would have loved to see Alan Rickman and Gary Olman have another confrontation scene. That would have been way more interesting than seeing Harry yell at Dumbledore in the Headmasters office.
Wait...didn't Harry yell 'look at me' in that OOTP scene to Dumbledore?
Did the movie people give Harry, Sev's line? I never thought about it till now.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-05 12:16 am (UTC)YES, OMG, RAEG'ING FOREVER.
I mean, wtf. Seriously. First of all, ALAN FRAKKING RICKMAN. And they just criminally underuse him, even on the book about his character! How could they leave out the DADA lesson?! DOES. NOT. COMPUTE.
And all the gooey stupid hormone-driven scenes, were they really necessary? Did we need padding like the nonsensical 'burning Burrow' scene which nobody ever alluded to afterward and had NOTHING TO DO with the movie at all? Why not spend those couple minutes on Snape in DADA?!
Just- GRR. *seethes* In PoA, Sirius got heaps of screen-time. And every other book had heaps of time spent on their title object/event or whatever, but not Half-Blood Prince. DAMN YOU, WRITERS.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-05 01:15 am (UTC)I remember back when they were filming the HBP movie, a couple of articles quoting both the director and Daniel Radcliffe that the HBP movie was going to be the funniest movie of the series!
WTF? =:-o
Did they even read the book?
Whether they did or not, it's obvious that someone made the decision to totally ignore the title character of the book and instead focus solely on the teen romance angle.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-05 01:24 am (UTC)But yeah, those teenage shenanigans were just immensely FUN to watch all right.
/sarcasm.
it's obvious that someone made the decision to totally ignore the title character of the book and instead focus solely on the teen romance angle
And there's Emma Watson claiming that HP doesn't 'sell sex' like Twilight- when that's basically what HBP was all about. Sexual tension, at any rate. It was a huge pay-off for people who shipped the canon ships, but deadly boring to others like me who never wanted ships at all.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-05 02:37 am (UTC)I was glad that the movie whitewashed that scene, because long before I saw the film, I was dreading it. Personally, I would have preferred that they had omitted it entirely, but since they didn't, I'm thankful that at least they didn't make it as vicious and violent as it was in the book and that Ron didn't have to go to the hospital wing.
Yes, the "romance" scenes in HBP were my least favorite parts of the book and I didn't find them funny at all. I vastly preferred the scenes of Draco and Tom Riddle's back-story, and I'm happy that the film didn't disappoint me on that score. I have to admit that Ron's temporary Amortentia-induced infatuation with Romilda Vane was funny. But his romance with Hermione still managed to be as tiresome as it was in the book.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-05 01:55 am (UTC)WTF WHERE DID THE BURNING BURROW COME FROM? That made absolutely no sense whatsoever. *CAPSLOCKS*
no subject
Date: 2010-11-05 01:59 am (UTC)W. T. F.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-05 01:03 pm (UTC)Muwhhaaha! JKR busts through a wall screaming Ohhh YEAaaa!
WTF WHERE DID THE BURNING BURROW COME FROM? That made absolutely no sense whatsoever. *CAPSLOCKS*
It doesn't even make sense moviewise. We already know the DE want to kill the good guys. We already know Bellatrix is crazy, we already know all that so the burning the burrow scene doesn't really serve any purpose to further the story or elaborate any more info that we don't know. Hell, the movie technically doesn't make sense really, the HBP movie to me is the worst so far because it seems to just be a jumble of random things. I mean there are a few good scenes, a couple of things they did right but overall it just seems like they tried to throw enough in there to get it to sorta look like the book.
First damn scene has Harry out wondering the streets; um...okay, Exactly why was he forced to stay at the Dursley's during the summer?
Second thing comes to mind, How the hell did Draco know to look for Dumbledore on the astronomy tower in the movie? There is no connection explaining that in movie. There is no explaination either why everyone in the castle is asleep while the DE are roaming free and WHY the HELL do they have Bellatrix runing across the table kicking plates and glasses. Does the way down from the astronomy tower really lead through the great hall? Thats the same stupid crap they did with Snape's potion storeroom. In GOF they have that on a totally random hall, not in the dungeon and not near the actual potions classrooms or office.
How much harder would it have been to shoot the actual scene where Karkaroff was complaining about the dark mark. To me it doesn't seem like it would have taken that much more effort to do that as it was to do it on the random hall.
Random nonsense scenes that make absolutely no sense, scenes shot that have no canon existance to be replaced by such randomness. They could have taken those 15 minutes and shot an actual scene from the book the way it was suppoed to be.
I don't want to crap on all the movies. Some things I've seen I like better but HBP is just so dodgy in how the movie itself was edited together and some of the things left out seem way more important than the stuff they decided to create that didn't even exist/happen in canon.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-06 10:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-06 12:33 pm (UTC)kool-aid made me think of old TV commercials from the 70's/80's of the koolaid man bursting through fences and walls when the kids complained they were hot and thirsty.
So, I was sort of imagining JKR and how she handles answering and explaining her plot when people have a question.
Ya know, it's almost akin to how JKR gives out info in interviews instead of the actual book. So it's similar to the koolaid man commercial. Every time we question the plot, JKR'll burst through the wall with a big pitcher of answers that are meant to satisfy our complaints and confusion.
Sadly much like koolaid the answers tend to be sugar flavered water added to a diet of nothing but cake, icecream and deep fried twinkles.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-06 04:17 pm (UTC)That's because young whippersnappers like you were watching commercials during Saturday morning cartoons, rather than watching the news to see coverage of the Jonestown massacre in Guyana...
June, aka That 70's Disco Diva aka Old Geezerette
(Yeah, I remember polyester suits and platform shoes, what of it!?)
no subject
Date: 2010-11-07 07:41 pm (UTC)But, did you have the plaid brush-denim baggies with the Frankie belt and three-tone matching platforms and shirts with french collars and cuffs?
Jonestown was shocking and there were (live?) pics of the massacre shown on TV. On the one hand our kids had Kool-aid Man bursting through walls and such (and with that song - oy, don't need that one for an earwig today!); on the other hand you have friendly, thirst-quenching Kool-aid killing scores, including children, with the military folk required to go in and clean it all up becoming sickened and traumatized.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-07 08:12 pm (UTC)No, to the plaid brush-denim baggies, whatever those are.
I don't know what a "Frankie belt" is, so I doubt that I owned one. I did have a Frankie Goes To Hollywood "Frankie Says Do It" teeshirt in the 80s. ;-)
I did have two-toned platform shoes, no three-toned. And platform sandals. And platform 6-inch spiked "Come Eff Me" highheels...major reason my feet are so eff'd up today! LOL
And yes, I did have blouses with French collars and cuffs.
And lots of polyester, including polyester palazzo pants. And silk harem pants.
And loads of swirly disco skirts.
And halter dresses and tops. Many loaded with sequins and rhinestones (had to shine at the clubs, don'cha know?)
And let's not even go into the drawerful of crap of stuff to stick in/on one's hair/head.
on the other hand you have friendly, thirst-quenching Kool-aid killing scores, including children, with the military folk required to go in and clean it all up becoming sickened and traumatized.
And what is even more tragic is that later investigation found that many of the deceased had been shot in the back -- IOW, not all of them were the brainwashed devotees blindly following Jones' admonitions that the media originally had portrayed, but they had instead actually been killed by Jones' henchmen as they futilely tried to escape into the surrounding jungle.
no subject
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.
no subject
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!
no subject
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. :)
no subject
Date: 2010-11-04 02:23 pm (UTC)