COS Chapter Eight: "The Deathday Party"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

* 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!”).

 

Comments

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

I do find it telling that it was only around Myrtle when he was willing to let himself cry. Not around his friends.

I suppose in a way she was safer- she doesn't have Slytherin parents to tattle on. She's not involved in the politics, so he's not risking anything, he doesn't have to maintain his game face. But to say that means they weren't friends of a sort, no- I find it easier to believe he liked her to some degree because she was supportive and he could put down his defenses around her.

(Omg, I can't believe I spent all this time thinking on the possibilities of James and Lily's relationship. I totally understand if you skip this *headdesk*)

I know that we were supposed to get that same romantic tension between Hermione and Ron, but the fact is that they were friends. I know that friends can fight over stupid things and temporarily stop speaking to each other because of them, but Ron and Hermione take it really far at some times

You know what's troublesome? James/Lily actually makes MORE sense than R/Hr. From my pov, shippy bickering can be incredibly fun- take Castle/Beckett, for instance, or Jane/Lisbon. But R/Hr was just so vicious a lot of the time, and the way either party reacted showed that those 'playful' barbs hit home. If one party gets upset or storms out or starts crying, it's not fun anymore.

Such petty sniping makes more sense between James and Lily- they had an established...well, not enmity, but she disliked him from the start, and he probably looked down on her for supporting Snape.

So throughout the years, their only interaction would've been snide remarks and point-scoring off each other- sometimes, they might have even enjoyed it (particularly as they grew older and perhaps began to find each other attractive), but even if it was nasty and upsetting, the point is that they were never friends, neither of them had any...I don't want to use the word 'obligation', but you know, like with friends, you just naturally don't want to hurt or offend them, because you care...respect, maybe? Concern?

Maybe by a certain point, they began to like each other (she's pretty, he's popular, after all) but they had this friction and kind of hostile dynamic set up and they couldn't go about unraveling it and trying something new, so instead, they just keep bickering with each other, because it's the only way they know how to interact without risking anything, it's safe and familiar and maybe even fun. At least it allows them to get each other's attention, so they can get off on that.

But Lily's friends (or 'friends') with Snape. And James bullies him. So. Hmm.

But then Snape makes it easy for her to repudiate him by calling her an awful name, so she washes her hands of him- and as a bonus, James acts like her white knight by leaping in to defend her. Couple that with her knowing he saved Snape's life earlier, her attitude thaws a little- and then he gets the Marauder's Map and his antics are concealed from her and she thinks he's shaping up and growing up and eventually, it becomes natural to shift from opponents to kind-of-maybe-friends to more.

Anyway. Basically, what I'm saying is that insults between James/Lily is to be expected and it didn't really hurt either side because they were established opponents and they got into this game of oneupmanship where it probably was their usual dynamic. Whereas with R/Hr, they're friends, they hang out, they're supposed to like each other, but we see each of them getting upset and not talking to the other for ages! (three months in PoA, according to my calculations) Ron can call Harry a 'midget in glasses' and it's all in good fun and Harry finds it funny, but Ron just questions Hermione on something and she'll 'turn on him in a rage'. O.o

If it was fun banter, it'd be one thing, 'coz I love that kind of thing, but they're supposed to care about each other's feelings, so the nasty put-downs just really confuses me as to why they're such a popular ship. (Ron making her cry and being satisfied is so off-putting)