COS Chapter Nine: "The Writing on the Wall"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

* Ooh, we’re half-way through the book! :)

 

* Lockhart’s looking “excited and important”, which is the sort of description usually reserved for Percy. Is this foreshadowing for Percy’s evilness in OOTP?

* I like the idea of Picture!Lockharts curling their hair so much that I won’t bother asking where they got the rollers from or why they needed them.

* I wonder why Snape’s trying not to smile. He doesn’t seem to have any particular grudge against Filch – in fact, he’d probably sympathise with him as a fellow outcast – so maybe it’s Lockhart’s behaviour he finds amusing?

* Harry feels sorry for Filch, but “not nearly as sorry as he felt for himself”, continuing the long tradition of self-pity in these books.

* Love Lockhart’s backtracking here, BTW. “Ah! I thought so!”

* Filch seems to be ashamed of the fact that he’s a Squib, whereas Hermione’s never been ashamed of her Mudblood status (and nor, as far as we know, have any Muggleborns), suggesting that Squibs have lower status than Muggleborns. Insulting people for being Squibs is still worse than insulting them for being Muggleborns, though.

* Harry’s sure that nothing Snape has to say will do him any good. Even though Snape’s spent most of last year saving Harry’s life.

* Snape’s logic may be leading him to the wrong conclusion, but at least he’s using logic, which is more than we can say for most characters in the books.

* Contrary to what Professor McGonagall says, there is evidence that Harry’s done something wrong. It may be circumstantial evidence, but it’s evidence nonetheless.

* So is Dumbledore reading Harry’s mind here? Because I have to say that the idea of the epitome of goodness going around violating people’s privacy like that seems a bit disturbing.

* “Hearing voices no-one else can hear isn’t a good sign, even in the wizarding world.” Erm, how do you know, Ron? This is, after all, a world with time travel, teleportation and transfiguration. For all you know, there might be some obscure bit of magic that only allows certain people to hear a sound.

* Ron’s laughing at Filch being a Squib, thereby teaching readers the value of tolerance.

* Ron seems happy that Filch is a Squib because Filch is such a bitter jerk. Apparently it doesn’t occur to him that Filch is such a bitter jerk because he’s a Squib, and that, if he were a normal wizard, he might be quite a nice person.

* No, Harry, Snape hasn’t tried to frame you for anything; he’s merely made a reasonable (if incorrect) deduction from the evidence available to him.

* I hope that at least one of the teachers tried to “Sourgify” the writing away before setting Filch on it with the mess remover.

* Aww, Filch’s portrayal here is so sad. :’(

* Ron doesn’t think Ginny should worry about Mrs. Norris being petrified, because she’s not very nice. Remember, kids, it’s OK for someone to be attacked if they annoy you in some way!

* As per usual, Ron’s is a few inches shorter than everyone else’s.

* Someone should tell Hermione that writing far more than you’re meant to is not a sign of intelligence. Learning to write briefly/choose only the most important points to include is a valuable skill to learn. If I’d handed in an essay that was ¼ over the word limit, my teachers would not have been happy.

* Hey, Hermione’s refusing to help Ron cheat with his homework. Maybe she should do this more often; he might actually learn something then.

* I don’t know what subject it was that JKR used to teach, but I’d be willing to bet it wasn’t History.

* So why is Dumbledore letting Binns teach? Hogwarts is, after all, the only wizard school in Britain; for DD to hire a bad teacher is, therefore, even worse than for a normal headmaster to hire one. He could well be putting literally every single wizarding child off studying history for life.

* Or maybe it’s just a cunning plan to stop them from investigating his own rather… interesting childhood.

* It seems that mediaeval wizarding society was so advanced, they all had surnames several centuries before they were introduced into Muggle society.

* I can’t help but wonder how Gryffindor and Slytherin managed to work together for so long; who to admit is, after all, a pretty fundamental disagreement. Perhaps Slytherin was initially OK with the idea of accepting Muggleborns, but them something happened (maybe one of them tried to betray the school?) that changed his mind.

* No, Ron, no-one’s said anything about Slytherin starting all this Pureblood stuff, simply that he agreed with it. There’s no evidence that this was a particularly rare view back in the tenth century.

* Also, in his haste to condemn Salazar as a “twisted old loony”, Ron seems not to have considered what it would say about Godric Gryffindor if he’d decided to start a school with such a man.

* Plus, of course, wishing to exclude Muggleborns is quite reasonable in an age when Muggles will literally kill you if they ever find out you’re a wizard.

* Maybe that explains all the Pureblood supremacy stuff: back in the old days, when Muggles were out to get magical people, wizards with Muggle relatives could well have divided loyalties, and so would naturally be seen as potential fifth columnists. The most trustworthy wizards would, therefore, be the ones with no Muggle relatives, and who would consequently be loyal only to the wizarding world. By the time Muggles stopped persecuting wizards and the danger of betrayal went away, the whole “Pureblood = best” thing was so heavily ingrained in wizarding culture that it is still present today.

* Considering Ron’s condescending attitude towards Muggles, I’d be a bit more cautious about getting on my high horse if I were him. He’s really a bit like a BNP member criticising a Nazi for being a racist.

* Am I the only one for whom “I wouldn’t be in his House if you paid me. Honestly, if the Sorting Hat had tried to put me in Slytherin, I’d’ve got the train straight back home…” brought flashbacks to “Imagine being in Hufflepuff. I think I’d leave, don’t you?”

* The sad thing is, all this “You could have been great in Slytherin” stuff could have been an excellent opportunity to show that “Slytherin” and “evil” are not synonymous. As it is, though, it comes across as a moral test that Harry has passed. The sign of true goodness = hating Slytherin House.

* Hermione’s really got a high opinion of old Dumbles, hasn’t he? Dumbledore couldn’t cure Mrs. Norris, ergo Mrs. Norris’ attacker can’t be human. What was it I said about elementary logic and the Hogwarts curriculum?

* Nice to see that Fred was already showing strong bullying tendencies by the age of five. And a remarkable control of magic, too, if he was able to turn a teddy bear into a spider without any training or a wand. Remind you of anyone?

* Hermione’s laughing at Ron’s obvious trauma, which, given what we now know about JKR’s views on love, is probably meant to be A Clue for their eventual marriage.

* So Hogwarts can buy golden plates for all its pupils, but not keep its toilets in good order. Clearly, Dumbledore’s been diverting funds from the sanitation department into the crockery-buying department.

* Percy’s noticed how upset Ginny is, whereas neither Ron, Harry nor Hermione have. Remember this when she tells everybody about Percy’s girlfriend.

* “You don’t care about Ginny,” says Ron, even though all the evidence in the books points to him being the only one of his family who actually cares about her.

* Given the rudeness of Ron’s remark, five points from Gryffindor is quite a mild punishment.

* Gosh, the Percy-hate’s really coming strong here, isn’t it? Now the trio are reluctant to even sit near him in the common room.

* “‘Let’s think,’ said Ron in mock puzzlement. ‘Who do we know who thinks Muggle-borns are scum?’” The correct answer is “No-one, because JKR can’t write a convincing racist.”

* It’s a bit like if, when Harper Lee wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, Tom Robinson, instead of being a poor labourer, was a respected teacher or something like that. And instead of framing him for rape, Bob Ewell had called him a “nigger”. And instead of doing this pretty much every time he met him, Bob had used this insult maybe one or two times a year. And instead of doing this to every black person he met, Bob only insulted Tom. And if instead of being motivated by blind prejudice, Bob had a perfectly understandable reason for disliking him. And instead of agreeing with Bob’s insults, everyone just ignored him. And instead of being poor and oppressed, Maycomb’s black population were well-integrated and treated as equals with the town’s white people. And instead of being a common insult, “nigger” was rare enough that Tom had to ask one of his friends what it meant. And then the audience are expected to react as if Bob’s an evil bigot making Tom’s life hell, instead of just a minor irritant which any reasonably well-balanced person would ignore.

* Even if we accept for argument’s sake that Draco is a racist, that still isn’t very good evidence for him being Slytherin’s heir. There are, after all, lots of racists in the world; and besides, there’s always the possibility that Slytherin Jnr. would be hiding his racism so as not to draw suspicion on himself.

* Oh, wait, silly me, that’s not the only evidence Ron has. Draco’s also ugly. Because ugliness is a sure sign of badness, obviously.

* Oh, and his father’s “evil” (bear in mind that, so far, about the worst he’s done is insult Mr. Weasley, which is unpleasant, certainly, but not evil). Because Slytherin was so evil, all his descendants would be, too.

* Not that blood’s important in any way, or anything like that.

* And upon this foundation of spurious conjecture, Ron goes on to build a whole edifice of even more spurious conjecture, suggesting that the Malfoys have been handing the key down, father to son, throughout the centuries.

* Yeah Ron, try presenting that evidence in court, and see how far it gets you.

* And by “court”, I mean a proper Muggle one with juries and presumptions of innocence and all the various other safeguards designed to prevent wrongful imprisonment, not one of the kangaroo courts that pass for justice in the wizarding world.

* It is, as Hermione says, “possible”. But, in the absence of any other evidence, it’s no more possible than any of the other thousands of possibilities. (Hey, perhaps it’s Lockhart, and that idiot façade is just a way to throw suspicion. Or perhaps it’s one of the other rich, Pureblood children whose ancestors have all been in Slytherin. Or perhaps the whole thing’s just a practical joke by Fred and George…)

* Ron and Hermione seem to be getting irritated at each other remarkably quickly. Cue Can You Feel the Love in the background.

* “But that’s impossible,” says Harry, apparently forgetting that he’s a wizard in a school of magic in a society that has magic for just about everything, so asking Draco questions without them realising who they are shouldn’t be impossible.

* A lot of people think that Malfoy would be unable to keep his mouth shut if he was the heir, but I disagree. He doesn’t tell anyone about Norbert in PS, after all, and in OOTP he doesn’t seem to blab about Harry’s “remedial Potions” lessons. He’s quite capable of keeping secrets when the plot requires it he wants to.

* “‘Oh come on, no teacher’s going to fall for that,’ said Ron. ‘They’d have to be really thick…’” Can you guess who it is yet? :)

 

Comments

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

Am I the only one for whom “I wouldn’t be in his House if you paid me. Honestly, if the Sorting Hat had tried to put me in Slytherin, I’d’ve got the train straight back home…” brought flashbacks to “Imagine being in Hufflepuff. I think I’d leave, don’t you?”

As well as James': “Who wants to be in Slytherin? I think I’d leave, wouldn’t you?”

Parallels all around! I've never seen any Ron/James comparisons...mainly because for all they're both purebloods, they may as well live in two completely separate universes in terms of popularity and reputation and way with girls- oh, hang on, that IS something in common; James fought with Lily and they bickered nastily often enough, just like Ron and Hermione! Only problem is that the latter duo were supposed to be friends, which makes the spitefulness quite awful.

it comes across as a moral test that Harry has passed. The sign of true goodness = hating Slytherin House.

*sighs* Too true. And this is annoying to me:

I dunno why fans think JKR pigeonholes all Slytherins as evil. Slughorn was a Slytherin who might initially have run off, but it was to get reinforcements from the village, and many of those reinforcements were Slytherins. Tonks' mom was a Slytherin. Regulus was a Slytherin. Snape was a Slytherin. Phineas Nigellus was a Slytherin. All the Black family members (minus the Squib) were sorted into Slytherin, except Sirius. Some of them were blasted off the tree for whatever reason, but they were Slytherins.

Yeah, fans can be stupid. I also get irritated with fans who say, "Baw, why does JKR equate Slytherin with evil?" (SHE DOES NOT! IT'S ONLY OTHER FANS WHO DO!) Never mind that Harry himself named his child after Snape - the one who had his and Lily's eyes, no less. And that he asked the Ministry to put up a portrait of Snape.

Sluggy- basically gave Voldy the idea for Horcruxes and enabled him to attain some wacked out form of immortality. Ran off during the battle- and it was NEVER CONFIRMED IN THE TEXT THAT HE RETURNED WITH REINFORCEMENTS.

All the other examples are barely even characters, having about a couple pages of dialogue at most (Tonks) or being one-line presences throughout the series. That's really going to counterbalance the SLYTHERIN IS EVIL, GRYFFINDOR IS AWESOME AND HEROIC AND THE BEST EVER theme.

And I just rage so hard at the idea that Harry getting Snape a portrait and using his name for his kid's MIDDLE name (coupled with ALBUS, wtf, the guy who ruined his life and used and betrayed him! RIGHT ON) is supposed to indicate anything- people use it as an example of how saintly and amazing Harry is, it's there to flatter and validate his hero status, not reflect any glory on Snape. As if one middle name and the portrait thing which NEVER HAPPENED IN CANON are going to undo seven books of Harry hating Snape and thinking he's evil. And then we find out the main villain was a Slytherin and there you go, it's rep is forever ruined beyond repair.

And even ASP is terrified of joining Slytherin, because in his eleven years, Harry never bothered to tell him about his namesake and how Slytherin is actually an okay house.

Percy’s noticed how upset Ginny is, whereas neither Ron, Harry nor Hermione have. Remember this when she tells everybody about Percy’s girlfriend.

Honestly, I thought CoS!Ginny was all right, and then she backstabs him like that. The ONE BROTHER who cared about her and worried about her, and she just serves him up for more humiliation.

That whole Harper Lee comparison? EPIC. I'm gonna quote you on that when this issue comes up, for it is utter perfection. (JKR deals with racism, my ass)

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

and it was NEVER CONFIRMED IN THE TEXT THAT HE RETURNED WITH REINFORCEMENTS.

The reinforcements appear led by Slughorn and Charlie Weasley. What isn't confirmed is the interview statement that the Slythering pupils were with them.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

Orly? My bad. I remember reading through DH when I debated this with another fan- I guess I got the Slughorn part wrong, but that it wasn't said anywhere that other Slytherins returned. Because I know I was proven right on whatever my point was, lol, I just barked up the wrong tree in my comment regarding that point.

I seriously doubt many Slytherins would have returned- I mean, what like Pansy and co? To fight against relatives and family friends? Really?

[oryx_leucoryx]

Fighting wasn't the only important thing to do that night. Someone had to get all the hundreds of evacuated students home. Since there was an alarm to reinforce nighttime curfew in Hogsmeade the kids had to be Apparated home. So the 6th and 7th years among the evacuees may have been busy with that task.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

Depends on the Slytherin in question - with a writer who actually put some thought into her setting and cared about her antagonist group, I could see some of the half-bloods and the non-supremacist purebloods fighting. But in JKR's mind they wouldn't be in Slytherin, so you're probably right.

Gods, I hate these books.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

I agree with what you said about the portrayal of Slytherins in the text. Andromeda only showed up for one scene in DH. While her marriage to Ted Tonks did provide an example of a sane Slytherin not being prejudiced when it came to marrying someone (I say "sane" because I don't think that Merope is a good example), we never really got a back-story with her about why she decided to go against her family's wishes.

As for Regulus, we never actually *saw* him; we just heard about him. And considering that he was eager to join the Death Eaters at first, I really don't think that we were supposed to view him in a positive light for that (and before that, we had been told by Sirius that Regulus had been an idiot who'd gotten cold feet and had been killed while trying to run off, which makes him yet another "cowardly" Slytherin). I've seen fans defend Sirius by saying that Regulus' fans are hypocrites because Sirius rejected the Death Eaters all based on his own moral conviction, while Regulus rejected them because of what Voldemort wanted to do to Kreacher. So, I don't think that we were supposed to view Regulus as a bastion of morality.

Slughorn was never a definite antagonist, true, but he was constantly described in negative terms. Harry compared him to a spider trapping flies in his web, Dumbledore told Harry that Slughorn liked to "collect" people, and Slughorn is portrayed as greedy, shallow (he continues to forget Ron's name even after he was nearly killed in his office), and bigoted to an extent (he told Tom Riddle that he "must" have come from good wizarding stock since he was so talented in magic, implying that he wouldn't have had his abilities otherwise).

Phineas Nigellus? We had less than five scenes of him and the only impression that we got was that he was an ornery old bat. What great contribution did he make to the plot? What overall importance did he have in the series?

All of the Black family members who were Sorted into Slytherin were either bigoted and/or insane (with the exception of Andromeda and Regulus). We're meant to see the Black family as a racist family of aristocrats who look down on everyone. How exactly do they make Slytherins look good? If anything, they're the wealthier, more refined version of the Gaunt family.

Snape was a Slytherin - and the teacher who scared Neville, the man whom Harry hated for seven books straight, and who was consistently described in negative terms (he had "cold black eyes," he had a "greedy" expression when he met Lily for the first time, etc.). Yes, Harry named his son after him - for *no reason.* Again, Harry *hated* this man. You're telling me that all Snape had to do was to tell him, "Oh, hey, Harry, I was madly in love with your mother," and he would instantly have been Harry's favorite teacher? Not to mention that he and Harry never reconcile. Harry only names his son after him after he's *dead* and Harry doesn't have to deal with him anymore.

JKR doesn't equate Slytherin with evil? Oh, that explains why all of Harry's enemies are or were in Slytherin (the enemies whose House we know of, that is). That's why Harry desperately wanted to avoid being in Slytherin and was greatly relieved when he found out that he was a true Gryffindor instead. That's why his son, the very same son that he named after Snape, was very worried about possibly becoming a Slytherin. That's why Slytherin's animal is a *snake*, an animal that has long been used in Western culture as well as in other cultures as a symbol of evil, deception, and treachery, while the other Houses get noble-sounding animals like lions, eagles, and badgers. That's why the main villain of the series was in Slytherin and the fact that he was related to the actual *founder* of Slytherin was what made him evil in the first place! He was evil because he was born evil, and he was born evil because his mother's family was evil, and they were all evil because they were all directly descended from Salazar *Slytherin* and followed his alleged ideas about blood purity.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Not to mention all the barely-veiled pointers about how only Slytherins are bigoted (at least in an unacceptable way - the bigotry of non-Slytherins is passed over or seen as fine). And all that crap about how after the books the house has been "diluted" but "its dark reputation still lingers." And the "we sort too soon," and Voldemort wanting to make everyone Slytherin, and so on.

Yeah, JKR doesn't try to paint Slytherin as the bastion of evil, my foot. All of the exceptions pointed out are either barely-visible characters or ambiguous characters we are supposed to see as possessing teensy bits of good *in spite of* their house. Never is Slytherin ever held up as having anything truly admirable about it, or having some particular thing to contribute that no other house could contribute. Ambition is seen as *bad* in these books.

/stops ranting