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

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

This might actually be evidence that Ginny has better coping skills than Harry when it comes to mental assaults. If you hypothesize that the events of The Very Secret Diary (highly recommended to those who read fanfiction) are a reasonably accurate interpretation of what happened to Ginny that year, it's possible that she managed to develop some basic Occlumency skills by instinct trying to defend herself from a different type of mental intrusion. She's claimed to be a natively powerful enough witch for it to be plausible, and a large component of Potterverse magic seems to be the caster's *will* to make something happen. It might even be interpreted as further motivation for Ginny to turn herself into the aggressive harpy we see in book six. She just spent a year under intense mental duress, and, after having only a few months over the summer to recover, she finds herself under repeated mental duress *again.* She might even be more sensitive to when it's occurring since she spent so long trying to escape her previous tormentor. At this point it makes perfect sense for her to reinforce her mental defenses, to harden herself. She'd be almost insane not to. We also don't see much of her between books 2 and 6, so we don't know what her social standing was during that time, but Gryffindors aren't known for their compassion and no one knows that she was under constant attack during her first year. So to her peers she probably came across as a neurotic wuss who didn't really belong in Gryffindor. It's hard tell whether Ginny then developed her 'hex-first' mentality as a pre-emptive strike to prove that she really was 'tough enough' to be in Gryffindor, or if she started out just defending herself against bullies who wanted to 'toughen up the wuss,' and later decided that a first strike was more effective. From there it's a simple matter if "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Ginny couldn't see any downsides to how she behaving- no one was hurting her anymore, she had some control over her life. And apparently she never realized, or never had anyone clarify for her, the fact that she was now the one needlessly hurting others. So why shouldn't she keep it up, or even double down? ... I know this theory on Ginny's motivations has been posted elsewhere, but the more I think about it the more I actually start to feel a little sorry for her. Instead of an inherently vicious person, she's a profoundly broken one who found herself under assault the very first time she left home and has felt that way pretty much ever since (and there's no telling what the twins subjected her to even when she was at home). To protect herself, she fought back first. It's much more of an excuse than Harry or some of the others ever had for their behavior, even though it still doesn't pardon it. Maybe she just needs a good shrink to come back around to being a good person again?

Stupid Android...

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

There were paragraphs in that monstrosity, I swear.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

Maybe she just needs a good shrink to come back around to being a good person again?

This applies to about half the cast. The Harry Potter entry for There Are No Therapists (TV Tropes link not provided to spare your time) posits that psychiatry is one of the Muggle sciences that doesn't work at Hogwarts.

[https://me.yahoo.com/a/gNLVidA.xeLuPiOU_2B_USM.HYNFjA--#b0b6b (from livejournal.com)]

I like this theory a lot. Ginny was actually one of my favourite characters for the first 4 books - I suppose I identified with her the most, as she came across to me as the quintessential "shy girl" in the background, finding comfort against loneliness by writing in her diary.
I didn't even mind her abrupt character change in OotP since she seemed to be growing more mature, confident enough in herself to be a real friend to Harry and someone who would be invaluable in the final battle. Well, so much for that idea.

Before DH came out I thought that we might get to see the Harry/Ginny relationship developed some more. As someone who'd also had Voldemort inside her head (in a manner), surely Ginny would be the most sympathetic to Harry's feelings, and just as desperate as him to defeat Volders once and for all. Imagine if amidst all his angsty headaches in OotP, Harry found that Ginny was the only one who really understood what he was going through. Imagine if, in their happy times by the lake, they were shown to talk about stuff and build up some mutual support from their shared experiences.

... Nah, who cares about feelings. Ginny's hot, she looks like Lily and she's related to Ron - that's the extent to which Harry sees her. Oh, and as you say, she's tough. God forbid that she gets "weepy" over anything.
I can so imagine this horrible silence in their family living room stemming from the never-challenged assumption that Ginny's feelings aren't equal to Harry's.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

As someone who'd also had Voldemort inside her head (in a manner), surely Ginny would be the most sympathetic to Harry's feelings, and just as desperate as him to defeat Volders once and for all.

One would think that she'd also have greater insight regarding how to defeat Voldemort...she should have been at least as good a resource for Harry as Hermione, if not a better one...

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

That's a nice riff on what isn't shown in canon. Too bad Rowling didn't write it that way. It would have been a much more believable story if she'd shown something along those lines, even if she did stay confined to the Harry POV. She might have shown the Weasleys having trouble with her, despairing over her, and she might even have shown Harry with some sympathy for her as he gets more and more into Riddle's head during OotP.

What Rowling did by not showing anything about Ginny as Harry's One True Love was to make the connection unbelievable when it did happen. Even people like me who expected the hook-up - I have several reasons, from seeing it as authorial fiat to the fact that, of the four, Ron can't marry his sister - were appalled that this harpy was the SoulMate (TM) of Our Hero.

It isn't up to fans to write the canon, it's up to the author. I know we all do it to one extent or another because of the glaring plot holes left at the end of the series. Ginny was great as long as she had no obvious personality in the books - we could map anything we wanted onto her shy-girl base. Once she won the popularity contest, though, that severely restricted the mapping that could be done. I like this theory, that there is a reason for Ginny's sudden conversion to 2.0. It's too bad the author didn't think of it or show us any sort of meaningful growth on the part of the hero's future spouse.