OOTP Chapter Four: "Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

* The Order HQ is called Grimmauld Place, ’cause it’s a grim, old place, geddit? JK Rowling, you comic genius, you!

* Mrs. Weasley is “rather thinner” than she was last time, which given the series’ attitudes to fat people is probably a sign of her improving morally.

* Harry “needs feeding up”, so obviously he’s OK from a moral standpoint. Unlike Dudley, who’s heavy enough to almost break Harry’s back.

* Would it really take Mrs. Weasley that long to explain that she doesn’t want Harry to wake up the portraits?

* So the house-elves’ noses all look similar. Is this a sign that families of house-elves serve the same human family, then?

* Hermione’s clearly been missing Harry, and is very pleased to see him. Remember this when he starts yelling at her a couple of pages later.

* Given what she knows about Sirius, it’s touching (in a pathetically naïve sort of way) that Hermione imagines Harry will get off just because he didn’t do anything wrong.

* So why does Ron still have the cut from Hedwig? Couldn’t he have magicked it away/got Hermione to magic it away for him? Is it because Hedwig is a magical owl, rather than a normal Muggle one?

* Harry “found that he was not at all sorry” to see cuts on Hermione’s hands. Even though she and Ron had a perfectly good reason for not telling Harry anything in their letters. It’s clearly a sign of Harry’s Power Of Love. Or something.

* Of course DD should be angry at Mundungus, but he should also ponder whether his security arrangements were actually adequate. Being a good guy, though, he doesn’t really need to do this. It’s only villains like the Malfoys who have to actually learn from their mistakes.

* Hey, Harry, here’s an idea: maybe Dumbledore was too busy stopping the most evil wizard in a century from taking power to spend time coming up with novel and inventive ways of giving you information. Believe it or not, the entire wizarding world isn’t your personal newspaper service.

* Harry reminds me a bit of Umbridge from A Very Potter Sequel here. “Does Dumbledore like me? Well he didn’t send me any letters. Why didn’t he give me information some other way?”

* And HERE COMES THE CAPSLOCK!

* I like the way Harry’s belittling his friends’ achievements, especially since the reason they couldn’t help him was so often that they’d got injured helping him out earlier. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.

* “CAN’T’VE WANTED TO THAT MUCH, CAN YOU, OR YOU’D HAVE SENT ME AN OWL” – God, Harry is being almost unbelievably dense here. Can’t he tell that there are good security reasons for not telling him anything? What a moron.

* What I wouldn’t give to have Hermione tell Harry to shut the hell up and stop whingeing, rather than grovel at him like this.

* I like how Harry is getting angry at Ron and Hermione for not telling him about Voldemort, even though he hasn’t asked anything about him. And how Ron and Hermione are clearly terrified by him. You can tell that this is a relationship of equals, alright.

* So, having invented Extendable Ears, why don’t Fred and George offer to make some for the Order? It sounds to me like they could come in useful. And if inventing magical objects is so easy that a pair of schoolchildren can do it, why don’t more people try? Are wizards just that lacking in creativity? (Actually, given that their cultural pinnacle seems to be The Adventures of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle, they probably are.)

* I’m sorry, but Harry’s just really pissing me off in this scene. He’s meeting his best friends after several weeks at the Dursleys’ – he should be happy to see them. Instead, he’s shouting at them, belittling their achievements (and ignoring the number of times they risked their lives/got injured helping him, and the times Hermione figured out what the baddies were doing), and generally treating them like they’re utterly beneath him. Someone really needs to give him a slap.

* And Ginny Mk. 2 enters our lives. Courage, friends, and try not to be too disheartened by the prospect.

* Hey, look at how Ginny’s ignoring Harry! That, like, totally shows she’s his equal, or something.

* Really, though, would it kill her to add a polite “How are you?” or something? But then, I suppose politeness is for losers. Real men yell at and belittle their best friends.

* And why flick Dungbombs? Wouldn’t they just make a nasty smell and inconvenience everyone? Wouldn’t rolled-up balls of paper do just as well?

* “Percy had committed the fairly large oversight of failing to notice that his boss was being controlled by Lord Voldemort” – not that large, when you consider that (a) he was relatively new to the job, so probably wouldn’t have had much time to get to know his boss; (b) due to the difference in status, he probably wouldn’t have known Crouch that well anyway; and (c) everybody else (including other Ministry wizards who’d presumably known Crouch much longer than Percy had) had similarly failed to notice.

* Hey, here’s an idea: perhaps Percy just ran the department really well when Crouch was “ill”, especially considering that he was only one year out of high school, and got his promotion as a reward for that.

* Also, out-and-out saying that Percy only got the promotion because he was supposed to spy on his dad is probably the most tactless thing Arthur could have done. No wonder Percy got angry.

* Anyway, Percy’s been the unfairly maligned member of the family since the books started, and now he’s finally achieved something, and his father just throws it back in his face. Can you blame him for finally snapping?

* I think it’s quite likely that Arthur’s lack of ambition is the cause of his family’s poverty. Didn’t Ron say something to that effect when Draco taunted him in GOF (“Dad could get a promotion anytime, he’s just happy where he is”)?

* I suppose slamming the door in Mrs. Weasley’s face is better than pelting her with parsnips.

* Gosh, how silly of Percy to take the Daily Prophet seriously. Quite unlike all those characters for whom “Dumbledore is always right” seems to be an article of faith.

* Feeling satisfied about your blackmail, Hermione? Good. We’ll rid you of that pesky conscience soon enough.

* Gosh, I can’t possibly imagine how the Prophet could succeed in making Harry look like a “deluded, attention-seeking person who thinks he’s a great tragic hero”. That sort of behaviour would just be so out-of-character for him.

* “You really shouldn’t be [expelled], not if they abide by their own laws.” Because as the previous books have shown, the wizarding justice system if a beacon of fairness and rule of law.

* Hey, Ginny’s lying to her parents! And she’s not even blushing! ZOMG that is so cool. Like, no other teenager in the whole world would be spunky enough to lie to their own parents.

* Seriously kids, it’s cool to lie to people. You’ll never get married until you learn to mess up your house and blame it on the pet cat.

* Ginny grimaces at the idea of going with her mother. She’s just that much of a rebel that she doesn’t even bother to hide her disgust at other people.

* Ron and Hermione are terrified of Harry flaring up again. Yup, you can tell he’s a nice boy, alright.

* Still, at least he notices and starts to apologise, so all is not lost.

* How sad is it that I feel grateful and relieved whenever the hero of these books shows any kind of normal human remorse?

* Snape’s still Harry’s least-favourite teacher, because heaven forbid that a little thing like risking his life to save Harry should cause Our Hero to re-evaluate his opinions in any way.

* I like the way the Black portraits all seem criminally insane. Obviously, a family whose members were all in Slytherin needs to be humiliated by giving them all madness.

* In my own personal canon, all these portraits are perfectly sane, but just pretend to be mad in order to annoy the Order. Let’s face it, who wouldn’t want to annoy this society of self-righteous hypocrites?

* Now Mrs. Weasley is Stunning the portraits with her wand. Remember chaps, knocking someone out is justified if they’re annoying you in some way!

* How nice to see Sirius shouting abuse at his mother like that.

 

Comments

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

Great update. :)

I'll definitely admit that Harry's jackassery in this chapter was pretty...yeah. :/ In fact, looking at it, it's a little unsettling. Just everything in this chapter stinks of Ron and Hermione basically being domestic abuse victims, with Hermione apologizing like a battered wife.

(And I don't usually go there)

I know Rowling was trying to show Harry was under a lot of stress, but I really doubt it came out well. And the capslock didn't help either. Kind of threatens to rupture your eardrums, really. :P

If I'd been writing this scene, I would have taken a leaf from Matthew Stover's book. (Warning: *Shameless* Stover pimpage. XD) There's a scene where Anakin returns to his apartment after Palpatine not-so-subtly insinuates that Padme and Obi-Wan are up to something, and Padme comes in. While Anakin doesn't capslock (Stover seems in favor of italics instead. :P), he does get quite emotional, and at one point, he describes Padme being a bit like a bug he could squash and keep on walking. (Which genuinely made me shiver) Fortunately, Padme snaps him out of it before it gets too bad, and Anakin just starts venting.

Why does it work where the Grimmauld Place scene failed? Let me try and list it.

First off, Anakin's actions, while unsettling, make sense in terms of the circumstances. He's being manipulated by both the Jedi Council and the Chancellor, he's been having horrible nightmares, and his sanity's generally slipping. Second of all, Stover doesn't shy away from Anakin's dark side (in fact, it's the focus of the book) while Rowling keeps trying to justify Harry's actions. (I understand it's mostly because he's like a child to her, and that's okay, but you shouldn't let it leak too much into the story) And finally, both sides are portrayed sympathetically, with Padme trying to keep Anakin from sliding into insanity and Anakin becoming more bitter and stressed, and torn between his duty to the Jedi and his filial love -- twisted as it may be -- for Palpatine. The fact that Stover's quite poetic in the process ("freefall in the dark") definitely helps, and the fact Padme's basically a Morality Chain for Anakin, even more so.

/end pimpage.

But pimpage aside, Rowling should have done something like that. She should have let us have a bit more of a glimpse into what Harry was feeling and thinking. And probably abandoned the capslock, or done it rarely. Like bungee jumping. ;-)

In fact, reading these capslock posts makes me realize how unintentionally mean-spirited HP is. It's funny and sad at the same time that Rowling didn't notice it. :(

Again, great analysis, and I really hope my reply wasn't too...irritating. XD

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Much of the problem with this scene, and this book, and the whole back half of the series is that Rowling was clearly no longer writing it for fun, or having fun with it. And neither do we.

She may have found herself out of her depth and was unable to cope, or she may just have convinced herself that now the story was supposed to become "serious" and just isn't competent at writing serious (or what she identifies as serious). Because it just doesn't work. The first half of the story was exaggerated symbols and silly jokes. In the back half she still is making jokes, but they no longer fit, because the story is no longer being written in fun.

And there is no real transition between the over-the-top cartoon abuse of the first half -- which no one ever *really* took seriously, because it clearly wasn't *meant* seriously, and the retaliation was just as exaggerated and implausible as the provocation -- and the overblown trashy melodrama of the last, which is no fun, and not supposed to be.

Or, at any rate, I cannot believe that she ever regarded any of the stuff packed into the back half of this series as being *fun*.

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

Didn't really think of that one, jodel...but very well said. Better than I would have said it. :)