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* 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.
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no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 02:42 am (UTC)Well, at this point his strongest attack is probably about the level of tickling charms or jelly-legs. But yes, that was a dumb move. Heck, he could have tried levitating the basilisk and dropping it on its head or something.
* Now Tom’s got Harry’s wand, leaving him practically defenceless. D’oh!
So is Voldemort now the Master of Harry's wand?
* “‘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.
And it is even worse after HBP. Albus didn't need any super-intelligence or magic to 'see' through Tom - Tom told him voluntarily what kind of kid he was and Albus collaborated with Tom's cover-up.
* 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.
Well, those were also Hermione's priorities in first year - expulsion is a fate worse than death, apparently.
* Harry goes to Professor McGonagall’s office. If only he’d thought of this sooner, we might have had a more believable book.
For a more believable version of the saving of Ginny, see Hunter's Hunters, part 1 and part 2.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 02:52 am (UTC)Ha ha ha!!! Sometimes I think DH might be worth its price simply for the sheer humour that has been generated in mocking its many failures; the stupid new wand lore in particular.
Hmmm ... Harry flung aside his wand, so Tom didn't 'win' it off him, 'defeat' him or achieve 'mastery' of it. I think this is another case where we have to interview the wand - oh, those wonderful sentient wands that do whatever is required of them to prop up the plot at the time! - and ask it for its decision.
Well, those were also Hermione's priorities in first year - expulsion is a fate worse than death, apparently.
But there was no case of others, third-parties, having been harmed by Hermione's actions. With Ginny, though, we have numerous people injured as a result of her possession/weakness/gullibility/lack of courage. But Ginny only thinks of the personal repercussions on herself. Selfish Ginny!
no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 06:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 06:32 am (UTC)Death Versus expulsion
Date: 2011-01-08 04:10 pm (UTC)Re: Death Versus expulsion
Date: 2011-01-08 05:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 05:27 pm (UTC)HARRY'S WAND: You know, really? I've had it up to here with BOTH of them!
TOM'S WAND: You??? Try being short-circuited by a backfiring AK, and then carried around by a RAT for years!
HARRY'S WAND: I hear you. I'm just saying that NEITHER of us should have to put up with all the drek we put up with...really, when I think about it, we should go off together, screw those wizards! (winks at Tom's wand; Tom's wand looks surprised, and then winks back)
TOM'S WAND: I have the most precious place on Fire Island, if you're interested...(winks at Harry's wand again)
no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 08:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 09:30 pm (UTC)TOM'S WAND: Tell me about it! Just HOW do you think a rat carries a wand around and is still able to catch food? I wasn't carried in his MOUTH you know! And no matter how many times I shower I just can't get that SMELL off!
Plus we know that Tom is going to spurn it for another in book 7. Those wizards, they're so fickle!!
TOM'S WAND: (sniffles) I know! I mean, there I am, totally plotzed from that backfiring AK, I could have easily chosen a new wizard then! But no, *I* remained loyal, stuck in that damned rat's ass, and then Tom has the nerve to throw me over first for that Malfoy bitch (stuck-up prick just like his wizard!), and then for that bitch Elder Wand. Who, I have from very good sources, is not only only a flaming queen but a total WHORE, that wand just hops from one wizard to the next! No one should even TOUCH that bitch without first putting a balloon over it, dragonpox is the LEAST of the things you can catch from that puta!
(As we leave Tom's wand, it continues to sniffle and whine about suing for alienation of affection...)
no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 09:36 pm (UTC)Oh God, are you saying that the mystery of where Tom's wand was for all those years is solved, that Pettigrew hid it up his ...
EWWWWWW!!!
... and then Tom has the nerve to throw me over first for that Malfoy bitch
Heh, I'd forgotten about that. OH, POOR TOM'S WAND! Spurned TWICE!
... that wand just hops from one wizard to the next!
Hee. :-)
no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 09:47 pm (UTC)We are told that Pettigrew carried the wand to Albania. We are also told that Pettigrew found out where Voldie was by talking to Albanian rats IN HIS RAT FORM!
Unless Wormtail wore a backpack while in rat form, where ELSE could he have stuck the wand? ;-)
no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 09:54 pm (UTC)I really - REALLY - didn't need to learn this new bit of Harry Potter wisdom immediately before sitting down to breakfast, you know.
*weeps for lost appetite*
:-)
no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 10:02 pm (UTC)Hey, if Rowling can pull her plot out of her ass, then Wormtail can pull Voldie's wand out of his! LOL
*weeps for lost appetite*
It's still only late Saturday afternoon here on the eastcoast of the U.S., so I guess Americans and Europeans can have a strong cocktail, but I'd hesitate to recommend that you have one with your cereal... ;-)
no subject
Date: 2011-01-09 02:26 am (UTC)