GOF Chapter 2: The Scar

[oryx_leucoryx]

Harry wakes up with his scar hurting. We are let to understand that he experienced the events of the previous chapter as a dream. He quickly starts forgetting the details so as to keep him from noticing when relevant information pops up again. BTW from what POV did he experience the vision? Starting from the following year his visions will be from Voldemort's POV but this does not seem to be the case this instance. Consistency? What consistency?

The description of Harry's room shows he was already on his way to becoming the worst slob child hero in the history of literature. Didn't living in a closet teach him to appreciate having space?

Harry can't even see a cat in the darkness (sorry Harry, your Head of House doesn't spend her summer spying on you) so he concludes there can't be any wizard lurking outside. Despite knowing at least one way to be invisible and knowing that some wizards don't need a cloak to be invisible.

Bizarre accidents and injuries are unavoidable at Hogwarts, which is why it is such a safe place.

The Dursleys weren't of any help to Harry while awake. Except by magically protecting him from Voldemort, just the wizard he feared might be near. OK, they didn't have to be awake for the protection to work, but their being awake didn't hinder it either. (I know Harry didn't know of the protection yet, it's just that he makes judgments in ignorance.)

The story about Harry supposedly attending St Brutus' Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys is now the official line the Dusrleys tell anyone. How does that fit with their desire to project the 'perfectly normal' image? (Note the foreshadowing of Barty entering Harry to the Tournament as a student from a different school.)

Voldemort is still "the most powerful Dark wizard for a century". Maybe the ones before him were Albus and Gellert, in the summer of 1899. Just under a century ago - the timing almost works. Gellert never came back to Britain and Albus thinks he abandoned Dark magic, under some definition thereof.

Harry thinks there was a fortnight to go until his return to school. Looks like ending his math education at 11 didn't do him good.

Harry's assessment of Hermione's probable response is realistic. However why does not knowing where Albus went for the summer preclude writing to him? Not knowing where Sirius was didn't stop Harry from writing to him. Ah, he's ashamed to look stupid for saying his scar hurt. What about including that it hurt while he was having a vision of Voldemort killing someone? Why would this look stupid to Dumbledore rather than, say, informative? But a Gryffindor can't afford to appear weak in any way, even if this means hiding potentially crucial information.

Arthur is described as a 'fully qualified wizard'. Aren't almost all adult wizards? How meaningful is this description? Again, Harry's fear of appearing weak to the Weasleys trumps any common sense.

Only Dumbledore believed the trio's story about Sirius. Maybe because he was the only one who heard it in detail from Sirius. Anyone else present (Severus, Fudge, Poppy) just heard kids insisting on something. Severus also heard Sirius and Remus admitting to being serial liars. And was repeatedly injured by Sirius (after already being injured by the kids) and thus was denied a chance to receive evidence of the truth.

So Harry writes to Sirius. The part about Dudley's diet looks like Harry already mentioned the diet in a previous letter, but on the previous page I got the impression this was the first time Harry writes to Sirius. Oh well.

Dudley is ridiculous for enjoying a game called "Mega-Mutilation Part Three". That's because Harry goes to a school where kids learn how to really mutilate each other.

Again, Harry avoids mentioning any part of his dream. Nor does he date his letter. How is Sirius going to know when 'this morning' refers to? Why be helpful to adults whose advice you are seeking?

Comments

[koi-no-soshan.livejournal.com]

Well, reading critically is a skill which it does take time to develop, and which needs to be fostered in one. So you do get people who are otherwise very intelligent, but just don't engage critically with the texts they read. So then they'll often end up not just liking bad books but thinking those bad books are genuinely very good.

When I read the earlier HP books, I didn't read critically at all. But I did when DH came out, and... My reading experience was something like this: *numb* *stunned disbelief* *hey...didn't I see a fan theory about that?* *bored* *incredulous* *and yet more fan theories! given that I picked all of these up through only a cursory glance at a fansite, that I can recognize them is a bad sign* *more stunned disbelief* *numbness and a vague relief that it's over*

And after a while, I started casting my eye on the rest of the series...

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

I got into this HP thing after GoF was published, so I read the first four books together. I never thought the books were super-fantastic, but I guess I would have said that they were 'good' ...

And after a while, I started casting my eye on the rest of the series...

Yeah. Given what we now know - that there was no master plan, that all the various 'clues' we thought we saw was just detritus from a bad author, that there would be no clever solution drawing on the previous books for Harry, but that the final novel would just bring in new material to help him vanquish Voldemort - sure, we can now say that the earlier books were worse than we thought.

Or we don't cut them the slack that we initially gave them as 'childrens books'.

That's all fine. I can see how some people might not switch on to seeing the flaws in the early books. I didn't back in 2005; I just accepted them as adequate-to-good childrens books.

But DH is so *bad* ... it's whole entire orders of magnitude worse than anything that went before (even HBP!). That's what dumbfounds me; how anyone (intelligent) could turn a blind eye to it. Sure, it might have 'good writing' in a chapter here or an image there, but overall ... ugh. There's a lot of fans out there who just don't want to admit that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes.

[detritius.livejournal.com]

Sure, it might have 'good writing' in a chapter here or an image there,

I think you're being entirely too charitable there. As far as I can remember, it was a train wreck from beginning to end.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Well, literary analysis most often has a subjective component; at least, that's how many Rowling defenders manage to wriggle off the hook. Ultimately things get down to a specific criterion or scene which I might take one way, a pro-Jo zombie another. "You think Ginny's physically attacking someone with no warning, behind his back, while he's unarmed, is ethically wrong? Why, I find it to be HILARIOUS! And so, wow, I can stick to my guns in saying that Ginny is a wonderful character, funny about that." And I can't *prove* that they are (objectively) *wrong* in that, since there's a personal/subjective assessment somewhere along the line.

DH is amazing in how there are some parts of it that simply fail, no matter how hard a pro-Jo defender might want to protest otherwise. There's no subjective components at all to some of its errors; its errors can't be disputed. Wand lore that's inconsistent no matter how favourably you look upon people fighting or jealousy as admirable traits, for example.

As far as I can remember, it was a train wreck from beginning to end.

Well, I've read some people saying how Rowling is a wonderful writer, how DH is 'good writing'. What they're actually talking about is certain specific scenes ... which they then extrapolate to the whole, carefully refusing to look at the huge number of errors or the faults in the story that are encountered along the way. But I guess there's still grounds for saying that some (few) scenes, on their own, disjoint from the rest of the mess, constitutes 'good writing'.

[detritius.livejournal.com]

Maybe the people who think of it as well written breezed through it right after the release to see how it ended and are basing their perceptions on a quick surface read. I know when I went back and read it a second time, I was shocked at how bad the plotting, the pacing, and even the grammar was, but I read it so fast the first time that I guess I just filled in the gaps in my head so I could keep moving. The good picture I got of the book turned out to be half my own rationalizations, so I do understand how people can remember the story in a favorable light.


What I don't understand is how people who seem to have poured over the book can still think it's good. Even leaving aside all the problems with the characterization and consistency, (of which there were many) the plot made no sense, the story dragged, a lot of the important stuff happened off-screen, the tone was all over the place, and on the rare occasion that something actually happened, it tended to be overdone to the point of melodrama ("eyes reflecting the stars he could not see" and the like). There was the odd good scene here and there (although, of course, which ones those were is going to be a matter of opinion. I'm partial to the part with Bathilda Bagshot and the snake, myself. Good atmosphere, and considerably less predictable than the rest of the monotonous camping stuff. And then the Voldemort flashback, with its bad characterization and bad continuity, had to show up and ruin it.) but overall, the writing was, technically speaking, just abysmal. Sure, some things like character motives and relatebility and whatnot are subjective, but to me, Deathly Hallows felt poorly constructed and it didn't make sense. And the sad thing is, I probably would have been able to overlook that if it wasn't so boring so much of the time. Long stretches of it felt more like a very unpleasant field trip than anything else, and that's just bad writing.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Maybe the people who think of it as well written breezed through it right after the release to see how it ended --

Some fandom diehards just wanted their position/politics to be confirmed. Read, read, GINNY KISSES HARRY SQUEEE!! ... read, read, read ... THEY HAVE THREE CHILDREN HARRY AND GINNY ARE MARRIED YAY! A MASTERPIECE!!!

It doesn't matter to those types that the route Rowling took to get there was rubbish.

You're preaching to the choir but I still enjoyed your summary of DH and why it's so bad. :-) I haven't studied literature and I'm fairly oblivious to some nuances, or find it difficult to articulate all of the many problems with DH. It simply amazes me how many there are; practically every aspect of the novel reeks.

... and it didn't make sense.

Aye!! I've gone back 3 years and read fans' LJ blogs on DH where they explain what happened ... making deductions completely the opposite to the instructions that Rowling later handed out in interviews on how to properly read the book, how it was supposed to work. On her web site Rowling herself exults in having "lots of people" ask her to explain how her book worked (here (http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/faq_view.cfm?id=121)). And yet those same fans continue to bleat about how good the book is!

And the sad thing is, I probably would have been able to overlook that if it wasn't so boring so much of the time. Long stretches of it felt more like a very unpleasant field trip than anything else, and that's just bad writing.

YES.

This is the flip side of one of my rules of appraising fan fiction ... I've a handful of how-did-I-live-before-I-read-them stories which I start off reviewing by saying "I don't really have to explain WHY this story is so good ... suffice to say that I had to stay up until 3am to finish it, and still can't get it out of my head 3 weeks later".

DH is the reverse of that. Exactly as you say. I was so ... disengaged ... throughout; that's my gut-feel condemnation of the novel. I often stopped and 'watched myself read' the book, as if I was viewing a bad film, if you know what I mean.

DH - an abomination on many levels. :-)