GOF Chapter 8: The Quidditch World Cup

[oryx_leucoryx]

If Arthur's numbers are correct then the QWC stadium is of the order of Wembley stadium (though not as big as the original Wembley). Since Harry's experience of sporting events so far came from TV and Hogwarts I can see why he is awestruck with the size of he place, though I doubt anything else about it was particularly amazing.

Am I to believe Wizarding Britain can afford to have 500 members of its workforce engaged in preparing the stadium for an entire year? Does this work with a population of 3000? Or even 10,000? Is that why there wasn't enough manpower available to catch Sirius Black? Or perhaps many of these were retirees looking for extra income?

Oh how fun it is to mess with the minds of Muggles (people like, say, Hermione's parents) to keep this event secret. Bless them, indeed. Meanwhile Hermione is taking notes on what magic is acceptable to use on Muggles.

Now that we see the size of the top box we realize that Arthur's party takes up about half of it. No little favor Ludo did him.

Wizarding commercial advertisements are just as lame as Muggle ones.

Is that Dobby? No? Shucks. But it's a house-elf at any rate, so Harry was only half-wrong. Doesn't it sound like Winky knew Dobby from before he was freed and started seeking a paying job? What would that mean? Were the Malfoys frequent dinner guests at the Crouch household way back before Mrs Crouch's death? Did Dobby and Winky grow up together? Did Dobby sneak away from Malfoy Manor to the Crouch residence to complain about his evil masters? Do house-elves have some kind of social gatherings? We'll never know now. Hmm, but if Winky knows of Dobby's search for a paying job and had the chance to hear Dobby speak of Harry 'all the time', doesn't this mean he came to the Crouch home (more than once) after being freed? And never noticed the invisible Barty Jr (in contrast with Bertha Jorkins)? Or perhaps he too was zapped with some memory charm (or several)? Might explain some things.

So ill-behaved elves and goblins are to face the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. Is this the same department that dealt with Buckbeak? I doubt it is the same department that deals with ill-behaved wizards. I think the latter are dealt with by the Department for Magical Law Enforcement. I can see elves getting a different treatment - once one realizes they are a slave-class (though Winky expects the same to apply to a free elf), but goblins are free members of magical society, or so I thought. In any case, elves and goblins are classified as beings which is a category that includes those creatures that have the capacity to understand the laws and take part in forming them. Of course, this does not mean they are actually treated equally by those laws, nor does it mean they actually get to participate in law-making.

Winky is sitting in one of the seats and ostensibly reserving the seat next to hers for Barty Crouch, when in fact the other Barty Crouch is sitting in it, invisible. Which means Crouch Sr got a Top Box seat for his house-elf. I'm wondering how that came across to mainstream wizards. Oh, this is Harry's first meeting with the coming year's DADA teacher (though he doesn't even know anyone is there). And Barty's 1st opportunity to see Harry up close (and steal his wand). Now I'm wondering if Bagman was working for Tom after all.

Harry is indignant on Winky's behalf for her having to reserve her master's seat when she doesn't like heights. 2+ years from now Harry will force his own house-elf to go on spying missions for him against said house-elf's preference. IOIAGDI?

Percy can repair his shattered glasses. Meanwhile Muggles invented plastic lenses that are shatter-proof.

We see Fudge, and the Bulgarian Minister. But no Irish Minister in sight. Has the Wizarding World not caught up with the 1920s? Fudge is alone, BTW. In chapter 28 at some point Crouch will ramble about taking his wife and son to a concert with Mr and Mrs Fudge. I wonder what became of her.

The Malfoys make their entrance. All three of them this time around. There have been many men by the name of Lucius in history and in literature, as the wikipedia disambiguation page shows (at the bottom there are links to additional lists of Luciuses), but I tend to think Lucius Malfoy was named after Lucius Tiberius from Arthurian legend, because it seems one of the main reasons for Lucius' existence in HP canon is to serve as Arthur's antagonist, to be compared to Arthur and be found wanting. (This looks even more true in light of aasaylva 's 'Arthur cuckolded Lucius' theory.) In PS neither man is present, but we hear their opinions of each other quoted by their respective sons.  In COS we get to meet each of them individually - Arthur being excited that the twins took the car without permission, Lucius expressing disappointment with Draco's grades - and then they meet and clash at the book store. In this book they are both in the Top Box and in OOTP they are both waiting outside the courtroom for the outcome of Harry's hearing (no, Lucius' ties did not go far enough to grant him entry to the Wizengamot). Their trajectories cross at the end of OOTP - Lucius goes to Azkaban, Arthur gets promoted - and leads searches of Lucius' home. DH shows one thing they have in common - love for their respective families.

(Heh -Arthur and Lucius are like Albus and Gellert, though probably without the love affair - red-haired 'good' guy and a slightly younger blond 'bad' guy.)

Back to chapter 8:

Lucius donated to St Mungo's. He is so evil for (possibly) receiving 3 tickets as a perk in return! He should have done something more wholesome, like, say, help Fudge cover up illegal and harmful acts. Since I am in the biotech field I like to imagine that Lucius founded The Abraxas Malfoy Memorial Fund for Dragon Pox Research, though of course it could have been just  a general donation to the hospital.

No Harry, the Malfoys don't consider anyone from Muggle descent second class (Bellatrix does, but she is still away in Azkaban). Narcissa's visit to Severus' home in HBP seems not to have been the first one. But they do consider Muggle-borns like Hermione to be second class. The way the Weasleys consider Muggles, such as Hermione's parents.

Arthur feels the need to polish his glasses upon spotting the Veela. To see them better? Or to avoid looking at them? This used to be evidence in support for Imperiurized!Arthur theories - or alternately theories about Weasleys being more susceptible than average to mind-control.

Harry notices the Veela - and his mind goes blank. Blanker than usual, that is. This is his first direct experience with mind-control, which will be very important in this book. (And to a lesser extent in later ones.) Meanwhile Ginny thinks, 'when I grow up, I want to be a Veela too!'

Leprechauns give the crowd a golden shower :^ I notice that many among the crowd were rummaging for gold - were they as ignorant as Ron, or were they hoping to find others just as ignorant? (BTW leprechaun gold is explained in Fantastic Beasts, a book Harry and his friends had to buy for 1st year. I wonder if the boys ever read it?)

Veela can be part of human society, can interbreed with humans and are considered 'beings' (don't appear in 'Fantastical Beasts and Where to Find Them'). Leprechauns are capable of speech in human language but are classified as beasts and have never requested reclassification as beings (I suppose because they don't want to be bound by human laws? Not that being a beast helped Buckbeak in any way). Anyone find their use as mascots just a bit icky?

Are all Veela female? Are all leprechauns male? Are they like Pratchett's dwarfs - the sexes are indistinguishable to humans? How do human heterosexual females respond to male Veela? Was Lockhart a male Veela?

Krum is thin, dark, sallow-skinned, crooked-nosed and is likened to a bird of prey. He looks like teen-Snape! And Hermione ends up liking him! Surely she'd find Severus attractive too, once she is a bit older? Alternately - remember those theories about Viktor and Severus being related? Perhaps they are - it doesn't really matter who Viktor is related to. How does a professional player of an outdoors sport get to be sallow-skinned at the end of summer, anyway?

The Irish team rides Firebolts, which automatically makes them worthy of victory. You can skip to the end of the game, we know who has the better brooms.

As an example of the lengths us fans went in attempt to decipher Rowling's supposed 'master plan' I offer you Quidditch World Cup, Shadows of the Future - An essay by a fan who disliked the Quidditch in the series so much he thought there had to be some meaning to them for Rowling to go into such detail about the games. It's still fun to do these things in retrospect: Is Harry's watching the game in slow-motion until he misses events symbolic of how he has no idea what is happening in the war because he is hiding in the tent reading about Dumbles' youth? Is Viktor's skill at flying a foreshadowing of Superman!Voldie? Is Harry watching Lynch's fall in slow motion a foreshadowing of him seeing the extremely long fall of Albus' body from the tower? Is Viktor's broken nose a foreshadowing of noseless!Voldie? And obviously, catching the Snitch while losing the game is what Voldie did with the Elder Wand. But also what Rowling did with Harry's story - she managed to get him to outlive Voldemort while completely denying him convincing growth. (This was not intended to mock SCollins. Most of us were doing this sort of stuff for a long while.)

Ginny hears Arthur telling Harry not to go for looks alone and promptly decides to adopt Veela personality once she can manage it. (BTW, this is the girl who has been flying secretly since she was 6. Notice we hear nothing about her reaction to the game. What does Ginny know about Quidditch?) Of course in Rowling's world all adult women are Veela. The pretty ones do it naturally, the less pretty ones can be Veela by choice, with the aid of a Love Potion.

Viktor throws the game for personal glory. Yet his team doesn't seem to mind - he is still an active player 3 years later. Hermione thinks he was brave. Since Durmstrang becomes a stand-in for Slytherin in this book we can speculate that he too was 'Sorted too soon', just like the grown wizard he resembles.

Fudge receives the Cup on behalf of Ireland. Looks like wizards have their own borders.

Bagman finds himself in debt to the twins, goblins and others. His manner of paying them marks the beginning of his real troubles. How did he hope to get away with it? Maybe he didn't read Fantastic Beasts in his student days either.

Comments

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

Great update. :)

Arthur/Lucius, eh? (Where's the fanfic, guys? Seriously. XD)

Fanfic

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

Where's the sex appeal in writing about Arthur!

Re: Fanfic

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's not about that. It's just for kicks. XD

[oryx_leucoryx]

This is HP-fandom, where any two characters that ever appeared on the same page in canon got paired off by someone. So I just searched fanfiction.net for Arthur/Lucius Romance and got the following.

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the linkage. :)

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

>> If Arthur's numbers are correct then the QWC stadium is of the order of Wembley stadium (though not as big as the original Wembley). Since Harry's experience of sporting events so far came from TV and Hogwarts I can see why he is awestruck with the size of he place, though I doubt anything else about it was particularly amazing.

Am I to believe Wizarding Britain can afford to have 500 members of its workforce engaged in preparing the stadium for an entire year? Does this work with a population of 3000? Or even 10,000? Is that why there wasn't enough manpower available to catch Sirius Black? Or perhaps many of these were retirees looking for extra income? <<

JKR can't count remember? Her numbers mean absolutely nothing.

[snapes-witch.livejournal.com]

JKR can't count remember? Her numbers mean absolutely nothing.

Considering it never improves in the later books, I wonder if she even cares. After all the books are for little kids, aren't they? ;-(

[mmmarcusz.livejournal.com]

Not to mention 20 or so professional Quidditch teams from the wizarding populations of Britain and Ireland - who even goes to games? No Hogwarts students, anyway.

[merrymelody.livejournal.com]

Notice we hear nothing about her reaction to the game.

I think she's mentioned at being shocked at the particularly violent moves. (Which doesn't fit in with her later personality, but what does?)
And she falls asleep later discussing it. (Which not only is weird for someone who's supposed to be a huge fan of the sport, but also continues the way she's written prior to OotP, where she sounds about six years old.)

How do human heterosexual females respond to male Veela?

Oh, god. With Rowling's respect for women, the male Veela wouldn't even need to be sexually attractive, they'd just be dripping money or incredibly famous or be holding dirty underwear that girls can fight over washing.

we can speculate that he too was 'Sorted too soon', just like the grown wizard he resembles.

I kinda ship him with Ginny, since he too has a drastic personality transplant off-screen. in GoF, he's this shy guy who avoids the mass of giggling girls following him around (for his fame!111! Gold-digging hussies!) and hangs around in libraries; in DH, he's become a guy who brags about his fame and tries to pull 'good looking' girls. (And he was already famous in GoF, so it's not like it's how celebrity and money goes to your head unless you're Harry. Or JKR.

Arthur telling Harry not to go for looks alone

ROFL, my favourite part! It's not even 'Don't go for looks, boys, go for someone who's nice' (obviously slattern-ish women who use their sexual wiles to control men are ugly monsters inside, women should really just pick a male avatar to defend and support instead of having any agency), it's 'Go for looks, but also demand a personality purpose built around your likes and dislikes. When you're ready for your chosen girl, she'll magically blossom into a hottie, you can't possibly slum it with an average chick!'

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

I think she's mentioned at being shocked at the particularly violent moves. (Which doesn't fit in with her later personality, but what does?)

It could be that she's shocked that someone other than a Gryffindor is getting away with it without penalties being called. The acronym is, "IOIAGDI," not "IOIAOEDI." (It's okay if a Gryffindor does it / It's okay if anybody on earth does it) It's supposed to be one way and only one way but, don't worry, Hermione will fix all that soon enough!

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

Am I to believe Wizarding Britain can afford to have 500 members of its workforce engaged in preparing the stadium for an entire year?
It all comes down to the fact, that nothing in the WW according to Rowling would work on her perceived scale of magical people in Britain. Neither the economy (how on earth are a few people supposed to finance an obviouls huge burocratic apparatus like the ministry?)nor the number of Quidditchteams nor the fact, that in DH the snatchers obviously don't have a clue about how their potential prey does look like when everybody should know everybody else by sight?

Oh how fun it is to mess with the minds of Muggles
You know - it could have worked. If these obliviations etc. were presented as something like in cartoons banging your head sometimes is shown: the person in question rolls their eyes for a moment, looks goofy and then it's back to normal. In a series where messing with your free will is depicted as one of three unforgivable curses, however...?

Now that we see the size of the top box we realize that Arthur's party takes up about half of it. No little favor Ludo did him.
But that's not a sign of outrageous corruption, no Madam! It's due to Arthur's likeability which, in its turn, is a sign that Ludo IS a good person and therefore, could never ever really have been a DE. So there!

Did Dobby sneak away from Malfoy Manor to the Crouch residence to complain about his evil masters?
Ooooh - now I see it: Dobby is the quintessential bad-boy-houseelf and he sneaked into the Crouch's kitchen to get something from Winky which she - handwringing good girl she is - supplied and then had to punish herself most severely for. Sort of like the good-for-nothings of old who preyed on innocent housemaids.

Harry is indignant on Winky's behalf for her having to reserve her master's seat when she doesn't like heights. 2+ years from now Harry will force his own house-elf to go on spying missions for him against said house-elf's preference. IOIAGDI?
Maybe, but I rather suspect it's due to his megajerk gene still being dormant at that time.

They do consider Muggle-borns like Hermione to be second class. The way the Weasleys consider Muggles, such as Hermione's parents.
Like someone said: these books do not preach any kind of tolerance towards people who are different from yourself. They just insist on treating equally who is the same anyway.

Was Lockhart a male Veela?
Hahaha, that's a good one. And it would explain why Mrs Weasley and Hermione fell for him whereas their types seem to be quite different.

Ginny hears Arthur telling Harry not to go for looks alone and promptly decides to adopt Veela personality once she can manage it.
Now if he had only adhered to this advice. As we all know he went for looks and the harpy personality Arthur warns him of. At least unless Ginny reverted to Ginny 1.0 for which there are signs in DH.

JKR and numeracy - the scale of the magical world

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

>> Am I to believe Wizarding Britain can afford to have 500 members of its workforce engaged in preparing the stadium for an entire year?
It all comes down to the fact, that nothing in the WW according to Rowling would work on her perceived scale of magical people in Britain. Neither the economy (how on earth are a few people supposed to finance an obviouls huge burocratic apparatus like the ministry?)nor the number of Quidditchteams nor the fact, that in DH the snatchers obviously don't have a clue about how their potential prey does look like when everybody should know everybody else by sight? <<

It would be redundant to write *again* that JKR cannot count. I think the member who posted this spork wrote a numerate person's estimate of the probable size of the magical world, based on the premise that most of the witches and wizards in the UK attended Hogwarts and Hogwarts has fewer than 300 kids, going by the size of Harry's year and the number of staff. It would come to something like 300 multiplied by 20, hence a population of about 6000.

JKR stated in one of the terrible interviews that Hogwarts has 600 kids and the witches and wizards number 3000... oh dear, maths/ world building/ remembering what she wrote. Remember in Prisoner of Azkaban, Slytherin house suddenly numbered 200 at the time of the Quidditch Final. That would contradict both her nonsense in the interview and what is usually put forward in the text. If Hogwarts has 800 pupils then the magical world would have to have at least 16000 witches and wizards

Re: JKR and numeracy - the scale of the magical world

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

It was worse back when she insisted that there were about 1000 kids at Hogwarts, and *still* claimed that there were only something like 3000 witches and wizards in wizarding Britain.

And yet they get cancer or any number of muggle diseases, and they don't die of old age. And yet nobody but Neville has a living grandparent.

Honestly. No numerical sense *at all*. Even rabbits can count up to four.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/Oh how fun it is to mess with the minds of Muggles (people like, say, Hermione's parents) to keep this event secret. Bless them, indeed. Meanwhile Hermione is taking notes on what magic is acceptable to use on Muggles./

I just cannot believe how laid-back Hermione is with the wizarding world's overall treatment of Muggles. Her *parents* are Muggles. She'll be up in arms about the rights of house elves, but she won't say anything about wizards routinely mind-wiping people like her parents? Even when we get to the Muggle-baiting scene, Hermione doesn't say anything to the effect of "Those could have been my parents up there!" Just how isolated is she from her own parents, from the community that she's grown up in for most of her life up until now?

/Of course, this does not mean they are actually treated equally by those laws, nor does it mean they actually get to participate in law-making./

No wonder goblins mistrust wizards. Yet the wizards apparently trust them enough to keep them as managers of wizarding finances.

/Which means Crouch Sr got a Top Box seat for his house-elf. I'm wondering how that came across to mainstream wizards./

Good point, I'd never thought of that before.

/Percy can repair his shattered glasses./

Yet Harry never thinks to ask him (or Hermione) for the name of the spell so that he can use it. *sighs*

/We see Fudge, and the Bulgarian Minister. But no Irish Minister in sight. Has the Wizarding World not caught up with the 1920s?/

You're right, that is weird. Unless JKR meant Northern Ireland...but that still wouldn't make sense, since it would have to be explicitly mentioned by the announcers and everyone else that Bulgaria was playing against Northern Ireland, not Ireland. Well, Ireland apparently doesn't have its own wizarding school, since Seamus Finnigan goes to Hogwarts, so I guess that it doesn't have its own Minister either. :(

/Lucius donated to St Mungo's. He is so evil for (possibly) receiving 3 tickets as a perk in return!/

I think that JKR intended him to come off as the hypocritical philanthropist, who donates money to make himself look good, but is secretly corrupt.

/How do human heterosexual females respond to male Veela?/

Aw, come on, don't tell me that you've never seen any Veela!Draco fanfics. ;)

/BTW, this is the girl who has been flying secretly since she was 6. Notice we hear nothing about her reaction to the game./

The only excuse I can think of is that somehow she just didn't want to give away that she'd been flying secretly by showing an avid interest in Quidditch. But yeah, I've seen some fan defenses of Ginny's sudden prowess in Quidditch, but I don't remember if any of them addressed this scene.

/Fudge receives the Cup on behalf of Ireland. Looks like wizards have their own borders./

And the text doesn't even say that maybe the Irish Minister was ill or something and Fudge had to stand in for him/her. I give up. *sighs*

Hermione and muggles

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

>> I just cannot believe how laid-back Hermione is with the wizarding world's overall treatment of Muggles. Her *parents* are Muggles. She'll be up in arms about the rights of house elves, but she won't say anything about wizards routinely mind-wiping people like her parents? Even when we get to the Muggle-baiting scene, Hermione doesn't say anything to the effect of "Those could have been my parents up there!" Just how isolated is she from her own parents, from the community that she's grown up in for most of her life up until now? <<

Hermione is a psychopath, remember? She has the same mental state as Voldemort. She is only conscious of her own desires, nothing else. Notice she is very eager to start practicing mind-wiping ON her *parents*, not merely on any muggles! It was just the same as Voldemort bumping off the Riddles to end his ties to the unworthy muggle world.

I personally much prefer Voldemort to Hermione, not because he has any more integrity - he really doesn't - I suppose because he never made me physically sick just by reading about him.

Re: Hermione and muggles

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Hermione is a psychopath, remember?

HA HA HA!!! :-) Good one.

No, wait ... you're serious? Urk.

Look, this is wrong for starters:

She is only conscious of her own desires, nothing else.

That's just simply not true. The girl lives and breathes to help Harry; there's no-one in the books more selfless! Furthermore she's keenly aware of his relationships and desires - viz her analysis of and assistance with his amorous designs on Cho and Ginny. She's warm and comforting any number of times. Light centuries distant from "only conscious of her own desires, nothing else".

You can concentrate on the bad aspects of the character ... but that just means that YOU are the one "only conscious of your own desires" (when it comes to critiquing the HEROINE of the Harry Potter books, one HERMIONE GRANGER!). :-)

Notice she is very eager to start practicing mind-wiping ON her *parents*

I didn't notice that. But I did notice how choked-up she was about doing same. POOR HERMIONE!!!

[mmmarcusz.livejournal.com]

You're right, that is weird. Unless JKR meant Northern Ireland...but that still wouldn't make sense, since it would have to be explicitly mentioned by the announcers and everyone else that Bulgaria was playing against Northern Ireland, not Ireland. Well, Ireland apparently doesn't have its own wizarding school, since Seamus Finnigan goes to Hogwarts, so I guess that it doesn't have its own Minister either. :(

But Ireland competes as a single island in almost all sports anyway (because the teams were formed pre-1922 and they didn't want to split), except for soccer. In the Olympics, Northern Irish athletes can compete for Great Britain or Ireland. I doubt JKR thought much about a British MoM representing Ireland, but at least we were spared the spectacle of Minister Micky Seanie Joe O'Reilly wishing върха на сутринта* to the Bulgarian Minister.



(*top o' the morning in Bulgarian)

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

/We see Fudge, and the Bulgarian Minister. But no Irish Minister in sight. Has the Wizarding World not caught up with the 1920s?/

You're right, that is weird. Unless JKR meant Northern Ireland...but that still wouldn't make sense, since it would have to be explicitly mentioned by the announcers and everyone else that Bulgaria was playing against Northern Ireland, not Ireland. Well, Ireland apparently doesn't have its own wizarding school, since Seamus Finnigan goes to Hogwarts, so I guess that it doesn't have its own Minister either. :(

/Fudge receives the Cup on behalf of Ireland. Looks like wizards have their own borders./

And the text doesn't even say that maybe the Irish Minister was ill or something and Fudge had to stand in for him/her. I give up. *sighs*

I sincerely apologize if I sound totally insensitive or idiotic here, but I wouldn't necessarily expect the wizarding world to have the same political boundaries as the modern muggle world. When Hogwarts was founded, the islands of Ireland and Scotland both consisted of several small kingdoms, so perhaps at this point in history there wasn't even yet a cultural identity of being "Irish" or "Scottish." Plus, there may have only been enough wizards and witches in the British Isles to support one school. When the Statute of Secrecy went into effect in 1692, Ireland was under the control of the English monarchy, and had been so on and off for several centuries, so it makes sense that wizarding Ireland and England were part of the same political entity at that time. After 1692, wizards had less and less to do with the political concerns of the muggle world.

I realize that England and Ireland have a very bloody history, but it seems like the issues over which they were fighting--land ownership, fidelity to the crown vs. the pope, political and economic power, etc.--are not necessarily issues that would have been relevant in the wizarding world. After all, the wizards were hiding from both the Catholics and the Protestants.

[oryx_leucoryx]

I think that JKR intended him to come off as the hypocritical philanthropist, who donates money to make himself look good, but is secretly corrupt.

As opposed to Arthur who is (almost) openly corrupt.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

I've theorized that the post-seclusion ww maintains whatever borders they choose to recognize as they stood at the time seclusion was adopted. Why not? They haven't enough population to support nationalist agendas, support no standing armies, and who cares about muggle fishing rights, etc?

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

...in OOTP they are both waiting outside the courtroom for the outcome of Harry's hearing (no, Lucius' ties did not go far enough to grant him entry to the Wizengamot)

It seems strange to me that neither man has a seat on the Wizengamot.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

For all the good the Wizengamot seems to do, maybe they were part of the 500 idlers who fiddled with the pitch for a year.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Heh, I love the Ginny reflection. I guess a Ginny/Jo apologist would just say that the girl's super-duper expertise in flying and keen interest in quidditch - remember, Quidditch is the (sole) thing that she and her soul mate have in common! That is a critical part of the H/G manifesto - is hidden because Harry just doesn't take any notice of her. Which is the whole trick behind the canon H/G; we're supposed to believe that Ginny was really and truly AWESOME - kicking off in this book, wasn't it? Certainly she's "behaving more like herself" in book 5 - but that Harry just never noticed, she was nothing to him.

Until suddenly "a lot of boys liked her" and Harry caught her locked in an amorous embrace with Dean.

Viktor throws the game for personal glory.

I *detested* this when I read it. This is back in the days of books 4 & 5 when I thought the HP series were adequate/good and was in raptures over the quality of the associated fan fiction. Even then I picked up on how SELFISH Viktor was in throwing the game. That was absolutely *preposterous*, how Harry - or was it Ron? - tries to justify it. Nonsense. As long as the game was in play there was a chance, however small, however remote, that Bulgaria would bounce back and have a shot at winning the game. Once Krum caught the Snitch, however - it was all over.

Viktor's catching the Snitch was *criminal*. Even I could see it back around 2002. Pfah!

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

Oh how fun it is to mess with the minds of Muggles (people like, say, Hermione's parents) to keep this event secret. Bless them, indeed. Meanwhile Hermione is taking notes on what magic is acceptable to use on Muggles.

The division between muggles and wizards in the Potterverse reminds me most of real-world intellectual divides in societies between those who are well-educated and those who are not. The wizards are like intellectuals who believe that common people (muggles), lack the education and critical thinking skills to make informed decisions about government policy (which is sometimes true). The muggles are like populists who believe that intellectual elites (wizards) are out of touch with the needs and values of the average citizen (which is also sometimes true).

JKR's perspective on this is very confusing to me. On the one hand, her depiction of muggles, and the lack of any criticism in her narrative about how wizards treat them, suggests that she believes that most people are too ignorant and too stupid to know what's best for them. On the other hand, her mockery of schools and teachers, and the fact that her heroes rarely need the advice or assistance of their teachers or other experts, suggests that she is very anti-intellectual.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's much of a contradiction. She reminds me of the anti-intellectual authoritarian types that seem to be becoming more prominent in America (and probably elsewhere but the Americans get the most press coverage), who as far as I can tell believe that they have "common sense" or are in touch with "traditional values" or something like that, and thus know better than most people, but that people who are better educated or more intelligent or knowledgeable have become out of touch with the real world due to all that book-learning (because, presumably, as soon as you write down something relevant to the real world it becomes fiction? I guess?)

Have you ever read Dan Hemmens' article on JKR's Calvinist influences (http://www.ferretbrain.com/articles/article-161)? It's possible she genuinely thinks some people are just better than others, and it has nothing to do with intelligence. (Instead it has to do with courage, because everyone knows that that can never be found among evil or untrustworthy people! Being brave is a sign that you care for other people, rather than a sign that you won't be cowed into submission.)