OOTP Chapter One: "Dudley Demented"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

* So, having done COS, I thought I’d have a bash at Harry Potter and the Capslock Button of Doom, or Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix it's sometimes called.

 

* OOTP was where the series started to jump the shark for me. Prior to it, Harry had been a fairly bland but basically nice boy; after JKR discovered the capslock button, though, he went rapidly downhill. IIRC, this is the first book where I started actually disliking Harry.

* No, Harry, I don’t think the neighbours avoid you because of your scruffiness. More likely, it’s due to your egoism, recklessness, unfriendliness and general lack of empathy.

* Well done, Harry! Truly, thinking to hide somewhere where your relatives can’t see you is a masterstroke of genius, indicative of a brilliant mind.

* Is it possible to grind your teeth loud enough to drown out the sound of a TV? Anyway, I shudder to think of what the Dursleys’ teeth must be like. Wouldn’t all that grinding wear them down something terrible?

* For all that JK Rowling seems to link Dudley’s lack of interest in the news to a general lack of moral virtue, it should perhaps be pointed out that Harry only follows the news because he thinks it might involve him, rather than out of any general desire to find out what’s happening in the wider would.

* Given that Harry’s apparently ignored and maltreated at home, you might expect him to be glad of Mrs. Figg inviting him to tea. This seems to be one of the occasions when JKR’s desire to make Harry into a normal everyman character clashes with what a real person in his situation would be like.

* According to Harry, the Dursleys are “astonishingly stupid”. I’ll just pause there to let the irony of that description sink in.

* Dudley and his gang go around vandalising, smoking and throwing stones at people. Yep, it’s a jungle out there on the mean streets of middle-class, suburban Surrey.

* “‘Give ’em a lifelong siesta, I would,’ snarled Uncle Vernon.” Just to remind us all that he’s racist, and therefore evil. Unlike Rubeus “There’s not a single witch or wizard who went bad that wasn’t in Slytherin” Hagrid, Albus “Good Slytherins really belong in Gryffindor” Dumbledore, or indeed Harry “Squib-hexer” Potter.

* A helicopter’s almost crashed in Surrey. Wiltshire’s the next county but one. Just thought I’d point that out… :p

* “Look,” said the neighbours, “that Potter boy’s grubbing around in the dirt again. Better stay away from him, he might turn violent if we come too near.”

* Uncle Vernon is trying to strangle Harry, just like Homer does in The Simpsons, providing yet more evidence that the Dursleys’ treatment of Harry is just cartoon violence, not meant to be taken seriously.

* Harry’s already using outraged italics on the Dursleys. Fortunately, though, we’ve so far been spared the ANGRY CAPSLOCK OF RAGE!

* How does Harry know that the sound was made by someone apparating? It may have sounded like it; but, given that Harry’s been thinking about magic a lot recently, he’d be quite likely to think that about any loud noise.

* Harry does eventually conclude that he’s mistaken, which is impressive given that Hermione isn’t here to tell him what to think.

* Does it not occur to Harry that Voldemort’s rise might appear in the wizard papers as it would in the Muggle ones – i.e., a series of unexplained disappearances, the significance of which has not yet been realised? Why assume that the front page will be the only place to find information? Although I suppose that NewspaperReading!Harry wouldn’t give Hermione the chance to make a long expository speech in a later chapter, so on second thoughts it’s no wonder that idea was dumped.

* These next four paragraphs really encapsulate all the problems with LaterBooks!Harry. We have the inability to come to the most obvious conclusions (hey, Harry, do you think that the reason Ron and Hermione aren’t telling you anything is that they’re worried their owls might be intercepted, just like they say in their letters?), the angriness and lack of proportion (yeah, Harry, throw those chocolates away! That’ll show ’em!), and the unjustifiable sense of entitlement (I saw Voldemort come back, therefore I deserve a key role in the war!).

* “Nevertheless, it was quite galling to be told not to be rash by a man who had served twelve years in the wizard prison, Azkaban, escaped, attempted to commit the murder he had been convicted for in the first place, then gone on the run with a stolen Hippogriff.” All this, of course, proves that Sirius is not in fact rash: a truly rash person wouldn’t have been able to plan ahead enough to escape Azkaban in the first place; and, even if he did so, would almost certainly not be able to avoid the largest manhunt in recent wizarding history for almost a year.

* “How could Dumbledore have forgotten him so easily?” Thus commences Harry’s “jilted lover” act, which will last right up until the end of the book.

* I quite like the word “wending”. It adds a certain old-fashioned charm which seems to fit well with the quasi-Victorian wizarding world.

* Nice to see JK Rowling equating becoming a boxing champion, with all the self-discipline and hard work that implies, with juvenile delinquency.

* Come to think of it, why’s learning to box inherently more likely to lead to petty crime than, say, attending the Hogwarts duelling club? Both teach skills that could be turned towards negative ends, after all.

* Harry’s longing to vent his frustration on Dudley’s gang. As Jesus once said, “If your enemy slaps you on the face, just turn the other cheek. Unless you’re feeling irritated and you want to vent a bit of anger, of course, in which case you can use your magical powers to provoke him into a fight which you’re guaranteed to win, and proceed to seriously kick arse.”

* All the houses of Privet Drive have “perfectly manicured lawns”. Clearly mowing your lawn is a sign of great inner evil.

* Actually, magically replicating the effects of a Dementor attack on his cousin would be totally IC for Harry. His behaviour often reminds me of that quote from Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series: “Bullying is wrong. But destroying someone’s mind with magic is A-OK.”

* Do Dementors normally make you go blind? I don’t remember that from other books; or, at least, I don’t remember it being emphasised as much as it is here.

* Erm Harry, what’s so unbelievable about Dementors in Little Whingeing? The wizarding and Muggle worlds are one and the same, after all, so there’s nothing to stop them from gliding over to your place – it’s not like Lucy Pevensie suddenly finding a talking beaver in her home in England, for example. And you know that Voldemort is back, you know that he’s been obsessed with killing you for the past fourteen years, you know that the Dementors used to work for him and might well go over to his side again. Is it really so difficult to put two and two together and work out that Voldemort might have turned some Dementors and sent them to try and kill you? That would be wrong, but still a reasonable conclusion to reach.

 

Comments

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

I guess this book - possibly GoF? - was the one where Rowling was so successful she put her foot down and insisted on minimal editing.

[oryx_leucoryx]

There was an interview where she insisted OOTP just *had* to be that long because of all the places she had to take Harry through. Like that tour of the Department of Mysteries - right? Why did he have to go through the astronomy room, the brain room, run into the locked door of that other room, etc? Nothing became of any of it. Also, the second St Mungo's visit just had to be so detailed so we'd get the first mention of spattergoit or however it's spelled.

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

I still don't get it. Was she so stupid as to really believe she needed all that turned out to be mere filler? Or were HBP asnd DH completely different from what she originally intended? Or could she just not bear to throw something away she'd already written just because it had cost some effort?

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

I still don't get it. Was she so stupid as to really believe she needed all that turned out to be mere filler? Or were HBP asnd DH completely different from what she originally intended? Or could she just not bear to throw something away she'd already written just because it had cost some effort?

My opinion leans toward the latter; I think she'd made the commitment in her mind as to what the ending would entail, including the Hallows, however unformed they may have been when she first started writing Book 1.

I think that over the course of 5 books she lost sight of what she'd originally envisioned, and found herself needing to shoehorn the narrative back onto track after she'd finished Book 5 and realized she now only had two books left to get to the goalposts she'd originally set for herself.

What a more mature writer would have done would have been to sit back, calmly assess the five books that were completed, and made modifications for the last two books so that they fit into the existing narrative. Instead she stuck to her original vision, which resulted in the last two books having an "out from left field" feel...

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

I think she'd made the commitment in her mind as to what the ending would entail, including the Hallows, however unformed they may have been when she first started writing Book 1.

We've touched on this before, I think, but I really have to challenge you on that. Show me a sign - just one! - of a Hallow before book 7. I don't think you can.

And if Rowling did know anything about the Hallows before she sat down to right the final novel in 2006 then she would have surely put in some foreshadowing in the earlier books. She'd done it before with other artifacts of her magical world. It makes for better storytelling, more complex and satisfying novels. There's absolutely no reason not to foreshadow something that's already planned, and acknowledgement all round that to do so makes for superior storytelling.

It's just that she hadn't planned the Hallows at all prior to writing the seventh book.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Show me a sign - just one! - of a Hallow before book 7.

There is talk about the philosophical aspect, about the need to accept death as the next adventure, and there is his friendship with Flamel. So perhaps she had Albus in her head as one who at one point sought immortality or something related but learned a bitter lesson. However considering all the situations when someone sees or otherwise perceives Harry while he is under the cloak I seriously doubt that Rowling ever planned for the cloak to be part of a set of uber-magical items that are related to immortality. IOW she may have had some vague idea but not how it was supposed to be applied in practice.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

IOW she may have had some vague idea but not how it was supposed to be applied in practice.

Yes, that.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

And if Rowling did know anything about the Hallows before she sat down to right the final novel in 2006 then she would have surely put in some foreshadowing in the earlier books.

Other than the clues about Snape being good, the twin wand cores, and the mention of Grindelwald in PS (if that even counts as foreshadowing), I can't think of a single climax-related plot point in any book that was foreshadowed prior to the book in which it was important. I'm not convinced she had even the slightest clue on how to structure a proper arc plot.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Or were HBP asnd DH completely different from what she originally intended?

I'm quite sure most of HBP and DH weren't 'intended' or planned at all before she sat down to write them.

Horcruxes, maybe. But aside from them and Dumbledore's death there was nothing else of import for Harry's sixth year, so that's why most of that book is full of filler that, like OotP, goes nowhere until Dumbledore has to die.

And most certainly she had no idea of the Deathly Hallows before she sat down to write the last book, in my opinion. There's absolutely no sign of the Hallows whatsoever in books 1 - 6. Plus when she brings them in she contradicts her own continuity in those earlier novels; something she would surely not have done had she known what she was doing.

I think - from various interviews I've read and the like - that she'd 'planned' books 1-4. Book 5 was where the brakes were let off and she was big and powerful enough to do whatever she wanted. That and the fact that she didn't know how the series was going to end were the grounding for OotP.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Horcruxes certainly. Those were pretty clearly in the mix from the beginning. Clumsily handled and inconsistent, but present.

I think part of the problem with Rowling is that she doesn't know how to be consistent, or doesn't think that consistency matters. Consequently, you can't trust anything she says, because as soon as she gets what she thinks is a better idea, or someone points out a minor inconsistency, she *changes* everything and you're lost in a bog.

There is no consistency to things that ought to be solid. The mechanics of the Fidelius charm changes every time its mentioned. Harry reacts to LV, but has no reaction to any of the other Horcruxes, or even the Diary revenant until DHs when the Locket (and *only* the Locket) is suddenly acting like the One Ring, and affecting everybody but Umbridge, who'd been wearing it for over a year. It would almost be easier to believe that it was acting like the One Ring *because* Umbridge had been wearing it for a year and it had absorbed her personality instead of Tom's.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Horcruxes certainly. Those were pretty clearly in the mix from the beginning.

I'm hazy on the official timeline for Dumbledore and the horcrux trail, but I'm not sure 'those' - as in horcruxes, *plural* - were in there from the beginning? And in book 1 why was Riddle after the Stone if he had even one Horcrux? Of course, one was necessary to have him exist as a wraith in the first place I guess.

I think part of the problem with Rowling is that she doesn't know how to be consistent, or doesn't think that consistency matters.

That latter, I think (assisted by her lack of ability per the former). It's all part of her 'oh, maths!' personality. She's got the 'artistic' sort of temperament that can't be concerned with the practical details of any effort; as the series went on things became more and more of a 'wave your hands' sort of thing. She just didn't care about the details; not *those* sorts of details, anyway.

Harry reacts to LV, but has no reaction to any of the other Horcruxes, or even the Diary revenant ...

That's always a goodie. The inconsistent behaviour of the horcruxes is what makes me think that they - certainly there being more than one - wasn't part of her early plan.

Although, in working out where the Horcruxes turned up, we're now getting close to the 'Rowling Flaw Horizon' where there are plot contradictions and singularities wherever we turn in trying to work things out. :-)

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

>I still don't get it. Was she so stupid as to really believe she needed all that turned out to be mere filler? Or were HBP asnd DH completely different from what she originally intended? Or could she just not bear to throw something away she'd already written just because it had cost some effort?<

*le sigh* A bit of all of the above I suspect. Frankly, the fact that about 85% of what she buried us in in OotP *never came to anything of note* to me says, right there, that she is probably lying in her teeth when she claims to have had the whole series drafted out in detail before she started writing it. That she only had the first half of it *planned*, and had only the loosest of outlines as a guide for the rest.

This was the point that she had to start inventing the rest. And it is clear that she was *inventing* like nobody's business. There were all sorts of things that she could have potentially *done* with what she was inventing in this book. And fanfic writers have had a blast spinning off from it. But the series had run off the rails by this point, and she'd burnt out with GoF, and she really wasn't ever able to settle down and really *plan* what she was going to do with the rest.

Instead she distracted herself by inventing things that she never really used. Yes, at this point we really did need to get a glimpse of some part of the wizarding world apart from Hogwarts and two shopping districts. Particularly if the scope of the story arc were anything like the epic she kept hinting at.

We *did* need to see something of the Ministry. It was slated as being a major player in the upcoming confrontation. I'm not sure that we really *needed* to spend time at St Mungo's but there was more that could have been done with it than there was. As it was, apart from sending Katie Bell off to St Mungo's to recover, half way through HBP, we never heard of the place again.

The fact is that halfway through an epic is no time to suddenly stop and invent the 2nd half of the story. That's the point that you should start tying things together rather than keep spinning them out. You should already have the 2nd half set up and ready to go. And she clearly didn't.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

There was an interview ...

Okay. I've had an idea. :-)

The thing that demands sporking - DEMANDS it, I tell you - is the set of Rowling interviews. To go through them all, from first to last, rejoicing in pointing out each and every time she contradicted herself, showed that she had no idea where she was going, lied (outright, by omission or implication) to her fans, etc.

I've never seen a critique of the complete set. The most comprehensive examination of her interviews that I've witnessed was just in looking at a few to try and discern her own feelings about DH. There's interviews where she was nervous, where she pre-emptively prepared for the backlash, where she pridefully asserted herself, where she's defended asinine things like the 'soul mate' rubbish and so forth. We did this quick analysis to try and settle just one question - did Rowling herself know how bad DH was? Was her failure due to her becoming tired of her series, did she simply not care any more, or did she truly not see the errors? (Well, that's two questions.)

But I've never really seen the early interviews. Like this one you talk about.

We've gotta do it!!!

[oryx_leucoryx]

Well,have a go at them. See http://www.accio-quote.org/ they are all there, sorted by year.

[koi-no-soshan.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that could be interesting! Normally author interviews are just interesting bits of side information, but given that Rowling is so determined to tell us how to think about the series, I'm surprised that her interviews haven't been picked over in more detail.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Like Oryx Leucoryx says below, the interviews spork themselves. :-)

[oryx_leucoryx]

Hey, from 1997:

JKR: "The idea that we could have a child who escapes from the confines of the adult world and goes somewhere where he has power, both literally and metaphorically, really appealed to me."

Right, because wizards can stay kids forever. Their entire history is just a continuation of the Quidditch matches from school and each wizard's social life in adulthood is determined by where s/he fit in at school.

From 1998:
"To invent this wizard world, I've learned a ridiculous amount about alchemy. Perhaps much of it I'll never use in the books, but I have to know in detail what magic can and cannot do in order to set the parameters and establish the stories' internal logic."

"it's indecent the amount of time I spend thinking up wizarding ways to subvert arrogant Muggles."

I think she sporks herself. All you need is the laugh track.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

I think she sporks herself. All you need is the laugh track.

Hee! You're so right!

That one about alchemy hurts a bit. There were some big Alchemy followers in the H/Hr camp who latched onto this and decided that Rowling was following the 'alchemical' template for the hero's journey. If I've got the term right; I never understood it myself.

Or maybe the movement was based on or triggered by Rowling's bookshelf; she had one or two books there which followed the 'alchemical' pattern. Yes, I think that was it; 'alchemy' means one thing for magic and another for the development of literary characters?

Anyway, still, 'ouch'. A few people were quite let down by Rowling regarding 'alchemy', even if it wasn't triggered by this interview.

But reading that Alchemy line again ... the very idea that she honestly thought she had 'learnt' about magic, that she had 'established' her 'internal logic'. My God. Putting aside the whole unpleasantness of listening to an author blow her own horn ... was she truly an idiot, then? Or simply give up later on? You see, I'm still not sure which it was, even now.

[cyotix.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty convinced now that she just read snippets of someone possibly Jung and then just mined it for names and plot devices. The language and terms is there in her books, whatever understanding she had unfortunately fled her by HBP.

[koi-no-soshan.livejournal.com]

Perhaps much of it I'll never use in the books, but I have to know in detail what magic can and cannot do in order to set the parameters and establish the stories' internal logic.

.... *laughs self sick*

HP has possibly one of the worst magic systems I've ever seen, and she, she...

Go play and RPG as a spellcaster or healer, Rowling. The concept of not being able to cast indefinitely would probably shock you, but it's good for you, I promise.

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

I second this idea! Maybe it's too much to do it all simultaneously, but once for diddled is through with OotP it would be fun to do this - you think you might be up to it?

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

you think you might be up to it?

You know, I really think I might! I'll see what real life is like once the OotP series is done.

(Thanks for the second. :-))

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

Hooray!!!! I'll go on seconding and thirding and quatering for all I'm worth...

[ioanna-ioannina.livejournal.com]

Yes, please! Do it! Pretty please... Destroy Ms. OhMats with logic!

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

YES!

What purpose did the brain room and that other crap serve, it's such a bunch of random things we're being show in that section that never come to anything; makes the whole thing wondering and distractive.