OOTP Chapter Five: "The Order of the Phoenix"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

* Thought I should perhaps point out that by this point in COS we were at Hogwarts. Ah, the days when the Potter books were reasonably well-paced…

 

* Apparently they’ve been trying to remove Sirius’ mother for a month. IOW, someone annoys you, you kick them out of the house. What a charming group of people.

* Yes, Ginny, let’s all laugh at the unkempt, drunken petty criminal. What a hilarious man!

* Also, given Mundungus’ proven unreliability, why do they let him join the Order or attend meetings?

* Yes, JKR, Tonks is clumsy, we get it. You don’t need to show her knocking over chairs every time she does something. Less is more, remember, and doesn’t make us want to strangle the character every time we see her.

* So why exactly is Sirius getting so angsty about staying at No. 12, again? This is the man who’s been incarcerated in an impregnable island fortress for twelve years, surrounded by an army of depression-inducing monsters, whilst staying sane enough to escape and evade the biggest manhunt in recent wizarding history for almost a year. How is his current situation worse than that?

* Although come to think of it he didn’t have Ginny with him then. Canonical proof that Ginny Mk. 2 is officially more depressing than a Dementor? :p

* I know Sirius doesn’t like his family, but distastefully surveying his antique silverware like that just makes him look really spoilt. Most people would be glad to own something so valuable, but I suppose we can’t have Sirius counting his blessings, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to angst all the time and make Harry feel all miserable.

* Let’s all laugh at the Twins and their reckless use of magic! That’ll really do their behaviour a whole world of good.

* So how are magical pests any different to Muggle pests? Do they only live in places with high concentrations of magic? But then, surely they wouldn’t have enough habitat to survive, and would pretty soon go extinct? Or are they just like normal pests, only magical, in which case how come Muggles haven’t discovered them yet?

* I’m glad that the goblins did, by and large, decide to stay out of the war. If were in the books, I’d want my species to stay as far away as possible from these violent, stupid, permanently infantilised people. Whilst embezzling all the gold they left in my bank, of course. ;-)

* As if to prove my point, the Weasley children are all howling with laughter at Mundungus’ rather unfunny story.

* Remember when I asked why they let Mundungus be part of the Order? Turns out he’s loyal to Dumbledore. Silly me for not guessing that.

* Let’s be reminded of how overweight Dudley is. Unlike Harry, who can eat three helpings of dessert at every meal and not get fat.

* Note how Sirius had to stick his oar in and ruin the atmosphere. His maturity level’s really dropped in this book. Maybe killing him off was the kindest thing to do, as it stopped him becoming even worse later on in the series.

* And now the adults are all arguing in front of the kids. After all, it’s not like that’ll undermine their authority or anything.

* “Harry felt sure that Lupin, at least, knew that some Extendable Ears had survived Mrs. Weasley’s purge.” And did nothing about it. How depressingly IC.

* Ginny’s raging clearly proves that she’s a tough, independent, strong girl, fully the equal to the Chosen One. As opposed to, say, an immature, whiny brat, who throws a tantrum every time she doesn’t get what she wants.

* “‘Dumbledore’s got a shrewd idea,’ said Lupin, ‘and Dumbledore’s shrewd ideas normally turn out to be accurate.’” Aargh, this Dumbledore sycophancy, it’s too much! Why can’t I be reading a sensible series, with characters who can think for themselves? Heck, I’d even prefer to be reading My Immortal than this.

* BTW, why does nobody wonder where Dumbledore gets his information about Voldemort from? Very suspicious, if you ask me…

* “Fudge thinks Dumbledore is plotting to overthrow him.” Knowing our Dumbles, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest to learn that he was plotting to overthrow the Minister, and replace him with someone who’ll do what he, Dumbledore, says – for the greater good, of course…

* Fudge has become more confident in the exercise of his power. Which is a bad thing. Everyone should stay tied to Dumbledore’s apron strings for all their life!

* Still, this chapter makes the whole war sound so exciting and underhand. A pity it turned out to be such a disappointment, really.

 

Comments

[oryx_leucoryx]

Rowling killed Sirius off to isolate harry in DH. And to give Harry the power to command Kreacher and call him. Oh, and to give the locket a chance to change hands a couple of times. Had Sirius lived the locket would have still been in Kreacher's nest when the moment arrived for Harry to make the connection between RAB and Regulus.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

Well, ok, I guess those are reasons. But those reasons make me think even less of her decision to kill him off. Isolating Harry might have been a good reason, except that all she did with it was leave Harry aimlessly wandering around the countryside and relying upon deus ex machina for most of DH. Chasing down the locket did create some adventure in DH, but it was basically adventure for the sake of adventure, which she could have achieved in any number of alternative ways. Needing to give Harry the power to command Kreacher might be the worst excuse. I refuse to believe that the only way to give Harry power over Kreacher was to kill off Sirius. It's not like she had established any rules in the earlier books about how a house elf is inherited and who in a family can command it. She could have easily have had Sirius say, "Yo, Kreacher, Harry is my heir. I order you to obey him," similar to how Winky obeyed both Barty Crouch Jr. and Sr.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

I was really upset at Sirius' death also. JKR has also admitted in an interview that she meant originally for Arthur to be the one to die, but at the last minute couldn't bear to do him in, and so did Sirius in instead. Which just makes a dog's breakfast of the notion that she did it for any pre-conceived needs of the plot. So it not only didn't accomplish anything truly vital for the story, it also IMHO wasn't properly set up. I went into OotP KNOWING (thanks to an acquaintance) that either Sirius or Hagrid would die, and I still went 'WTF?' at the end.

[oryx_leucoryx]

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by 'not well set up'. OOTP has associations between Sirius and death - eg when Harry first enters 12GP he feels like he is entering a dying man's home.