COS Chapter Seventeen: "The Heir of Slytherin"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

 

* I’ve got to hand it to JKR, this part of the book is genuinely frightening and tense.

* Still, you’ve got to wonder at how poorly thought-out Harry’s plan is. “Shutting your eyes” is not a good strategy when in the presence of a huge poisonous snake that’s trying to kill you.

* Salazar’s statue looks like a monkey. Because Slytherin House is just so evil, even their founder was sub-human.

* Harry flings his wand aside. After all, it’s not like it could be of any conceivable use in a hidden chamber with a deadly monster somewhere nearby.

* “For a second, Harry wondered how [the diary] had got there” – wait, Harry’s showing signs of curiosity? Are we sure that the real Harry hasn’t been temporarily kidnapped and replaced with a doppelgänger?

* Now Tom’s got Harry’s wand, leaving him practically defenceless. D’oh!

* Good God, but Harry’s slow on the uptake here. So he’s found Tom Riddle standing next to Ginny’s almost-dead body, Tom’s taken his wand, is refusing to help Harry, talks calmly about calling the basilisk, pockets his wand and doesn’t seem keen on leaving the Chamber. Hey, Harry, do you think that Tom might possibly not be a good guy?

* I believe it’s been noted here that Harry seems to feel a natural affinity to dark wizards and magic. It seems that Ginny’s the same (“No one’s ever understood me like you, Tom”), which gives her and Harry something in common to form a basis of their future relationship (ha! And you thought JKR just threw them together without laying any groundwork or bothering to give them any common interests! :p). ESE!Ginny would also explain things like her happiness to hex people for little or no provocation, or her willingness to defend her bf’s attempted murder in HBP.

* Now I’m imagining a fic where Harry and Ginny try and take over the WW and rule as dark king and queen. And fail miserably because they don’t have Hermione to help them.

* “If I say it myself, Harry, I’ve always been able to charm the people I needed.” A bit like Dumbledore, in fact, or for that matter Harry himself…

* “‘Haven’t you guessed yet, Harry Potter?’ said Riddle softly.” Really, Tom, a boy who still hasn’t guessed that you’re a bad guy is hardly likely to have worked out that Ginny was the one attacking people, is he?

* So Ginny knew (or at least suspected) that she was the one behind the attacks, but still didn’t tell anyone. Gryffindor courage, anyone?

* DD persuaded Dippet to keep Hagrid as gamekeeper. Given that Hagrid had allegedly killed someone, I wonder how he managed to do this? Blackmail? Imperius? After DH, I don’t think anything would surprise me.

* “‘I bet Dumbledore saw right through you,’ said Harry, his teeth gritted,” without stopping to wonder why Dumbledore didn’t tell anyone of his suspicions or do anything to try and confirm them.

* “For many months now,” said Tom, “my new target has been – you.”

“Wait,” said Harry. “You mean you don’t want to be my friend?”

* Harry’s little pro-Dumbledore speech is actually quite inspiring. Or would be, if we didn’t now know that DD has essentially been raising him for the past eleven years as a mindlessly obedient soldier, which makes it look rather creepy.

* Fawkes is here! Luckily he’s recovered from his rebirth in time to save Harry the indignity of being rescued by something ugly. Only the beautiful are worthy of saving Our Hero’s life!

* “We even look something alike,” says Tom, foreshadowing the dishy!Harry of HBP onwards.

* Sill, Tom’s really naïve to think that he and Harry are at all similar. Harry’s in Gryffindor, remember? That alone outweighs any petty similarities in background, looks, morals or behaviour that Tom could ever come up with.

* Now this is where Tom’s Pureblood mania really comes back to bite him on the bum. If he’d been more familiar with Muggle fiction like James Bond, he’d know that villains who kill their opponents in really long-winded and theatrical ways always end up being defeated at the last moment. Much better just to AK Harry and Fawkes, then magically burn their bodies along with the Hat, just to be on the safe side.

* Even with Fawkes’ and Tom’s help, Harry would still have been snake-food were it not for the fact that God JK Rowling the basilisk sweeps the Sorting Hat into his arms.

* No, Tom, don’t take your time! Learn from all those Bond villains, finish him off quickly!

* Fawkes gives Harry Tom’s diary, when surely a real Gryffindor would let him fight it out, man-to-man. Christ, DD, what were you thinking of, getting this cissy pet bird? It’s probably some cowardly Ravenclaw. Those Gryffindor-coloured feathers are just a disguise to try and make it look brave!

* JK Rowling pulls her trick of having characters crying to distract from the fact that their behaviour has been pretty shoddy. She’ll do it again with Hagrid in POA.

* Interesting to see how Ginny’s main concern is that she’ll get expelled, rather than, say, whether she’s hurt anyone. Good to see she’s got her priorities right.

* Back off, Ron, only the Chosen One’s good enough to comfort Ginny!

* Ron’s “grinning” at Lockhart’s predicament. Yay, let’s laugh at the person with serious brain damage! You can tell he’s a true Gryffindor, alright.

* It would be sort of ironic if Harry had beaten Tom without needing Fawkes or the Hat, and then died of starvation along with Lockhart, Ron and Ginny because they couldn’t get out. Any bets on how long it’d take before they resorted to cannibalism?

* Harry goes to Professor McGonagall’s office. If only he’d thought of this sooner, we might have had a more believable book.

 

Comments

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Now I’m imagining a fic where Harry and Ginny try and take over the WW and rule as dark king and queen. And fail miserably because they don’t have Hermione to help them.

Heh, that's funny. But oh so true! Harry (and Ron) would have been killed umpteen times were it not for Hermione. That would be a funny story.

But when I think about a story like that I can't help but also ruminate about stories that try and support Rowling's interview fantasies about Harry becoming chief Auror and so forth. With merely his mediocre talents, 4th year spells and no deux ex machina wand contrivances to bail him out.

So Ginny knew (or at least suspected) that she was the one behind the attacks, but still didn’t tell anyone. Gryffindor courage, anyone?

I think you've got the house system wrong.

A Gryffindor doesn't necessarily have to be brave. He simply has more bravery than anything else.

It's something that bugs me when Luna or another Ravenclaw makes a brilliant deduction and she, or someone else, observes "well, that's only natural, I'm/she's a Ravenclaw". A Ravenclaw doesn't have to be particularly clever. Just more clever than brave, ambitious or loyal.

We know that eleven-year-old Ginny had minimal courage. Her being in Gryffindor house merely means that her ambition, loyalty and smarts rank even less than her minuscule bravery. Hey, we can all agree with that, right? ;-)

Turning things around the other way, consider our girl Hermione, the "smartest girl of her age" ... placed in Gryffindor House. Which means that she's even more brave than she is clever! Wow, watta girl, that Hermione!!

“‘I bet Dumbledore saw right through you,’ said Harry, his teeth gritted,” without stopping to wonder why Dumbledore didn’t tell anyone of his suspicions or do anything to try and confirm them.

Yeah, that was particularly pathetic, wasn't it? In this scene Harry reminds me of those particularly feral or zealous members of the HP fandom who insist that Dumbledore was competent or Rowling a good writer ... while deliberately closing their eyes to the contradictions that are in plain sight. I hated that line of Harry's back when I read it. It's always been amusing to see his stupid indefensible bravado repeated in real live people in the fandom.

Interesting to see how Ginny’s main concern is that she’ll get expelled, rather than, say, whether she’s hurt anyone. Good to see she’s got her priorities right.

One of the earliest bits of canon that really damns the character. She's only eleven, but still she shows no sign of concern for those she harmed at all! In this book or at any time over the next 6 years! Ugh.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

A Gryffindor doesn't necessarily have to be brave. He simply has more bravery than anything else.

Or they have to value bravery above everything else (at least, I'm assuming that's what the choice aspect is supposed to be about). Look at Wormtail - he's cunning, resourceful, and determined, but no one could call him particularly brave.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Or they have to value bravery above everything else (at least, I'm assuming that's what the choice aspect is supposed to be about).

I thought you might have me there, but I looked at the Sorting Hat's song from book 1:

You might belong in Gryffindor,
Where dwell the brave at heart,
Their daring, nerve, and chivalry Set Gryffindors apart;

You might belong in Hufflepuff,
Where they are just and loyal,
Those patient Hufflepuffis are true And unafraid of toil;

Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,
if you've a ready mind,
Where those of wit and learning,
Will always find their kind;

Or perhaps in Slytherin
You'll make your real friends,
Those cunning folk use any means
To achieve their ends.

There's nothing there about "valuing" various characteristics; no, the Gryffindors *are* brave, the Hufflepuffs *are* loyal, the Ravenclaws have a ready mind, they are of 'wit and learning'. It seems to be what the kids *are*, what they're made of, not what they value.

So we know that Ginny has negligible bravery ... and even less loyalty, ambition and smarts. She's not much of anything. Hey, now I understand why we didn't see her for the next 3 books! :-)

Look at Wormtail - he's cunning, resourceful, and determined, but no one could call him particularly brave.

He's a good exception. But that's the case for him 'valuing' courage or possessing it, I think. I guess he must just be a convenient plot hole, something like that? I mean, a *real* Gyffindor would never be a traitor under Rowling's pen, so she had to slip in Peter under the radar.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

Or they have to value bravery above everything else (at least, I'm assuming that's what the choice aspect is supposed to be about). Look at Wormtail - he's cunning, resourceful, and determined, but no one could call him particularly brave.

Perhaps he WAS brave at the age of 11 but was "sorted too soon"... :-P

[oryx_leucoryx]

I call him brave. It takes tons of guts to be a rat among owls, cats and forest creatures. Who do you think crept all over the castle to gather the information on which the Marauders' Map was made, while constantly braving Mrs Norris (or her predecessor)? It takes tons of guts to cut off your finger or dominant hand by yourself. It takes guts to be a spy, especially when the people you are spying on are people who know you very closely. Peter is the same as Remus in this regard - they have physical bravery without moral bravery.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

It takes tons of guts to cut off your finger or dominant hand by yourself.

I see this as more "this is what I have to do to survive, but I don't really want to" than "Behold my courage, as I mutilate myself in the cause of personal survival!", but you're right about the other bits.

Wait. Voldemort was essentially powerless when Wormtail was getting the resurrection ingredients. One wonders why he didn't tell Harry to go tell Dumbledore the situation, and bargain for amnesty in return for killing Voldemort? It would have been impressive, a better life debt moment than we eventually got, and we'd have been spared DH.

[oryx_leucoryx]

I must say I can't imagine myself mutilating myself for my survival. It probably wouldn't even occur to me - it goes so much counter to my thinking. So I appreciate this in others.

Wait. Voldemort was essentially powerless when Wormtail was getting the resurrection ingredients. One wonders why he didn't tell Harry to go tell Dumbledore the situation, and bargain for amnesty in return for killing Voldemort? It would have been impressive, a better life debt moment than we eventually got, and we'd have been spared DH.

Shows us why Peter wasn't in either of the brain Houses. Alas, it wouldn't have worked because of the other Horcruxes.

[sunnyskywalker]

Maybe Peter really was taking a risk and banking that Voldemort would win if Peter could only help him return, and then he'd be amply rewarded. If survival were his only goal, well, he knows Voldemort has been defeated 2-3 times by a kid (counting the diary, which he was around to hear about) and is still vapor, so why not just flee the country and live happily ever after? If he can get to Albania, he can probably scurry onto a cruise line and get to the Caribbean or Tahiti or somewhere. Or if he knows anything about (for instance) Lucius Malfoy's or Ludo Bagman's real activities during the first war, he could stay and bargain with that, if he wants to stay in England. Heck, he could even try for an extremely belated Imperius defense and claim he was so terrified after what happened to Sirius (and he is so very sorry about that, honest! he didn't want to do it, really, he just couldn't help following orders!) that he stayed in hiding.

So I think he must actually want Voldemort back, and he's taking a risk that a) he can pull it off and b) Voldemort won't hold a grudge about Peter waiting over a decade to track him down. It's not an admirable sort of bravery, but it's something.

[oryx_leucoryx]

A Gryffindor doesn't necessarily have to be brave. He simply has more bravery than anything else.


But Ginny has ambition - she has the ambition to become Mrs Harry Potter at any price. She was working on that project since she was 10.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

But Ginny has ambition - she has the ambition to become Mrs Harry Potter at any price. She was working on that project since she was 10.

NO!!!

Ginny had the HOPE to become Mrs. Harry Potter.

But she never did anything to achieve that hope, to see it realised.

She spent 3 books crushing Harry from afar ... and then she had a change in personality and started dating various other boys ... while STILL clinging to that hope that, one day, she would snare the hero.

But she never did a single thing to have that come about. Except perhaps her jumping on top of Harry to promote his (or his monster) making a move, right at the last second.

No. If Harry had never noticed her - if she hadn't become physically attractive to him, if he'd continued to say "Ginny? Oh, I forgot about her!" for books 6 & 7, she would have never become Mrs. Harry Potter.

Definition #1 from dictionary.com on 'ambition':

1. an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment

It's that willingness to strive for its attainment which rules out Ginny's aspirations as real 'ambition'; I couldn't have wished for a better definition. No, little Ginny would still be dating other boys while crushing on Harry and hoping he'd notice her even today were it not for her author taking pity on her and changing the protagonist and his world to fall in with her dreams.

So I'm going to classify Ginny's desire as HOPE and thus not Slytherin-eligible 'ambition'. And so she remains in Gryffindor House as a non-entity with minuscule amounts of ambition or bravery. Poor little Ginny.

[oryx_leucoryx]

What did Ginny do to ensnare Harry? She tried the valentine in COS, but that didn't work. So she went and perfected herself to his standards. It wasn't just admiring him from afar - it was a research project about the likes and dislikes of Mr Potter. It wasn't an arbitrary personality transplant - in the name of getting Harry Ginny v1.0 willingly lost herself so that Ginny v2.0 would be custom made for him.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

I'm honestly not sure where I stand on the Ginny personality makeover. Yes, it's canon that she tells Harry that Hermione instructed her to 'be herself', so on the face of it the Ginny that we saw in OotP and HBP was the 'real' Ginny ... sadly, essentially defined as the-girl-who-dates when left to her own devices outside of Harry's orbit.

I've read of other fans saying that Ginny's new personality wasn't really "herself" but something designed to snare Harry. That's never really been obvious to me. For starters, it's not like Harry confesses "Ginny, I like you because of XXX" and Ginny responds/thinks/tells us "whew, it's lucky that I realised that Harry liked XXX, that's why I acquired characteristic XXX". No, Harry likes Ginny because she's hawt overnight; and Ginny's simply lucky that her author wrote her as suddenly hawt overnight. Otherwise she'd still be waiting for him to notice her.

Harry's suddenly noticing Ginny and being attracted to her wasn't due to the personality of Ginny v2.0. The only reason we read of Ginny admitting that she'd undergone a personality transplant (of her own volition) was because she said "even though I upgraded to Ginny v2.0 I still hoped you'd suddenly notice me one day". Nothing about how she'd actively worked out the criteria for Ginny v2.0, decided on what attributes would attract her crush and do herself over to suit. The obnoxious girl we see in HBP, the girl-who-dated, that was the 'real' Ginny, yes?

Like I said, I'm not sure where I stand on it. Ginny v2.0 was a nasty little girl and I've always assumed that was the real McCoy.

I.e. - to get back to the point - Ginny 2.0 wasn't anything special that Ginny did to strive for the attainment of her 'ambition'. No, it was just the real Ginny (sad to say), who went ahead and dated boy #1, boy #2, etc, while waiting - *hoping* - that the author would one day wave her magic pen and make her wish come true, no matter how artificial it looked. Yes?

So it wasn't a Slytherin-type ambition that drove Ginny; just a crushing hope of a little girl who waited in the background for the author to grant her a boon.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

So it wasn't a Slytherin-type ambition that drove Ginny; just a crushing hope of a little girl who waited in the background for the author to grant her a boon.

Yea, I kinda feel like way. Or, I almost think Ginny was intended for Harry from the start. It's like the Lily twin. She's popular, powerful, redheaded, got a temper and just damn near perfect for the 'hero' of Hogwarts.

Which in Lily's case was James, and so Ginny is the do over made perfect for Harry, red hair and all.

For me I think she was always meant to be Harry's future wife, that was her design but I think in a lot of ways her biggest flaw because like Lily these two females become the 'perfect female character' - this is the character that most fanfic writers get the dreaded MarySue label from. The character that can do no wrong and is visually stunning, and is date material, etc.

I just sort of always figured they were going to end up together, maybe thats why I found the teenage romance, I don't know what words to use, dry and uninteresting maybe.

I know I've had a lot of discussions about the series and a lot of the really bad things that happen the characters seem to get over them so easy it's kind of shocking sometimes. And the romance, most of it seems like a lot of comedy instead of a real and deeply meaningful thing. It kind of comes across as shallow, like the characters if they were in the real world wouldn't really give a damn about each other, they'd be reading and following a script to know what kind of romantic roll they were going to play with each other.

[oryx_leucoryx]

I think Ginny V1.0 is her 'real self' in GOF - she talks like a normal girl, she isn't shy, she knows the kind of things Weasley kids generally know, basically a female version of Ron. She only ever hangs out with Hermione, so she isn't any kind of queen bee. Ginny v2.0 is someone different, and the only ways to explain her within world are either she came under some external influence (including being impersonated by someone else) or some cunning plan she isn't willing to admit to. Going with the latter, she realized harry wasn't noticing her when she was her true real self - he didn't even invite her to the Yule Ball. So it was time to go a level higher in changing her behavior.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

Hay, Isn't that what Lily did. They were suppsedly made for each other but I remember in an interview JKR was asked about the patronus thing changing. I think it was a spacific question reguarding Lily and James (dang my bad memory on the exact question) but the way it was answered almost made it sound like your patronus changes to suit your perfect mate or something like that. And the way I read it it almost sounds like one of their patronus changed.

So does that mean Lily's patronus changed to a doe to suit the stag? Which would sort of screw up the whole Snape patronus being a doe thing if Lily's changed to suit James.

I'll have to go see if I can hunt down the question/answer unless someone remembers what I'm talking about, which interview question I mean.

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

I agree with Orys above: Ginny did everything she possibly could to achieve her ambition. When I was an eleven year old girl we sooner would have died than do anything to betray a crush on a boy - it would have felt akin to public striptease or something - so Ginny writing that Valentine's card was - IMHO - the bravest thing she ever did in canon.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Did Ginny ever admit to writing that card? It wasn't signed, was it? I'm fairly sure the canon doesn't show that it came from her. I know I've read a couple of fan fiction stories which have her protesting that the twins sent the card as a joke and so forth.

Sending an anonymous card (if I'm right in my recollection as to the canon) isn't very brave. It may, indeed, be the "the bravest thing [Ginny] ever did in canon" ... but that just shows that she wasn't very brave. :-)

Well, not in those early years. I can't refute that she went along to the Ministry at the end of OotP, fought (well, dodged) at the end of HBP and then at the end of DH. But as far as the early books were concerned Ginny wasn't brave at all.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

When I was an eleven year old girl we were told to make up to the boys, be what they wanted us to be. Don't act smarter, let them do all the talking, yadda, yadda. And if we are smarter and it's obvious (some teachers assigned seating by grades in the class), don't rub it in. Direct the conversation to things the guy's good at.

It seemed perfectly natural to me that Ginny was shy around Harry, a little fumble-footed (didn't she scream and run once when she found him visiting?), very obviously not herself. Taking Hermione's advice to date other boys was one thing we were also advised - don't wait around for one boy, date others, maybe the boy of our dreams would notice us if we were popular - so also taking the advice to be herself was an act of emotional bravery since she was so bent on being the mousey girl who let Harry be the Big Hero at first. It's almost like Rowling wanted to show the difference between the old way of snaring a husband and the newer way. Too bad it all boils down to not being complete without a mate.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

That's very interesting real-world insight/parallel to Ginny. It seems, though, that Rowling overdid it, that Ginny's case was an exaggerated caricature of what might occur in real life, don't you think? Her being booted into the limelight as the belle of Hogwarts whom 'a lot of boys like' from the start of HBP seemed very artificial and unbelievable to me.

Too bad it all boils down to not being complete without a mate.

I think it's sad to contemplate Ginny dating those other boys while still keeping an eye on Harry, fingers crossed, hoping against hope ...

[sunnyskywalker]

I can forgive Ginny for worrying about being expelled, since it is actually a bigger deal in the wizarding world - at best she'd have to transfer to another continent entirely and learn French or whatever Durmstrang's official language is, and more likely she'd have her wand snapped and be a second class citizen forever.

However, that does not excuse her for not also worrying about the people she might have hurt! Even if she's, say, too much in shock and panicking about her own situation right now, shouldn't she find a moment sometime to reflect? At any point in the next five books, even?

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

... shouldn't she find a moment sometime to reflect? At any point in the next five books, even?

Well, the silver lining was that we didn't see anything much of Ginny at all, penitent or otherwise.

But then again, that made her sudden emergence as the queen of Hogwarts in the sixth book even more ridiculous and aggravating.

[sunnyskywalker]

Maybe she was so traumatized that she decided she had to become tough and mean enough to get everyone else before they got her, and so started practicing her bat-bogey skills. And, um, learned a bit from Tom about how to charm people into thinking she was perfect while doing it.

But that would have required some complex characterization, so we can't have that!

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

That's just it. Rowling didn't even *try* to show us anything of depth to support the emergence of Ginny 2.0. The girl just materialises like a supernova on day #1 of Harry's 6th year. "Oh dear, it's the sixth book already, I need to position Ginny as the hero's love interest, now where did I put her ...".

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

I'm torn between making this my personal canon and just letting the inconsistency stand as one of the many reminders of how bad the books are.

[sunnyskywalker]

You could fanwank her outburst about having been possessed by Voldemort too in OotP as a bit of repressed anger at everyone forgetting about that not-so-tiny fact bursting out, and a sign that it's something she still thinks about... And maybe that one of the reasons she's fixated on Harry is that he goes through all these Voldemort experiences and survives and wins, and that's what she wants?

It's very, very frustrating that JKR didn't even try to address any of this!