Let's Read Tales of Beedle The Bard Part Two: The Fountain of Fair Fortune

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

*sighs*

I kind of don't want to review this.

I know it's basically my duty, but...seriously, what's the point? I mean...something about this story...

You know, screw it; might as well.

*Insert Lock and Load Montage Here, mostly regarding putting on Kyoshi Warrior Gear*

All right...bring it on, Rowling. I'm ready. >:)



Summary of Story: There's an enchanted fortune that can make all your dreams come true. Three women travel with a knight to the fountain. Second woman uses the fountain to her advantage in healing/marrying off her companions, respectively, and collecting money in the process (because she...kind of needs the money). Turns out that the fountain wasn't magical at all -- it was in the travelers' hearts all along. What a twist. /Shyamalan reference.

(Seriously, moral of Dumbo with the magic feather -- you're doing it wrong. :P)


Dumbledore's Commentary: We get a little more backstory on the Board of Governors banishing Dumbles from Hogwarts -- okay, not quite. Although we do learn why Lucius Malfoy wanted Dumbledore off the post of Headmaster: he was (gasp) pro-Muggle!

Lucius Malfoy's Letter to Dumbledore (my comments in bold):

"Any work of fiction or nonfiction that depicts interbreeding ( don't you love the way how he describes Muggles like animals? Nothing like a great strawman argument to start off your day. /sarcasm mode ) between wizards and Mugges should be banned from the bookshelves at Hogwarts. I do not wish my son to be influenced into sullying the purity of his bloodline by reading stories that promote wizard-Muggle marriage." ( Well, nice to know that Malfoy cares about his son -- weird as it may be. :P )

...

Well, I've heard of worse reasons why books were banned. :P (Seriously Dumbles, what are you, new?)


But wait! There's more! :D

Dumbledore's reply (brace yourselves, guys):

"So-called pureblood families maintain their alleged purity by disowning, banishing, or lying about Muggles or Muggle-borns on their family trees. They then attempt to foist their hypocrisy upon the rest of us by asking us to ban works dealing with the truths they deny. There is not a witch or wizard in existence whose blood has not mingled with that of Muggles, and I should therefore consider it both illogical and immoral to remove works dealing with the subject from our students' store of knowledge."



...

*Sighs*

Well, Jerkass Has A Point, I guess -- but regarding the "pureblood demonization" thing...yeah, Dumbles, BRB, mopping up the blood that shot out my nose.


And wait! There's more!


"This exchange marked the beginning of Mr. Malfoy's long campaign to have me removed from my post as headmaster of Hogwarts, and of mine to have him removed from his position as Lord Voldemort's Favorite Death Eater." (I Swear To God I Am Not Making This Up)


...

I'd like to quote the lovely Nash Bozard on this from "This Is All Your Fault (Yet Again)", because my own commentary's failing me:

"Quite often, I've used the phrase 'making the baby Jesus cry'. But by the tenance of your own faith you have quite literally made the baby Jesus cry! I think he's on his third box of Kleenex right now. This is a level of hypocrisy so massive, we don't have a weight measurement for it. There are no words that can sum up all the f-k loads of awful this is, because *no such word exists*! I'd propose the word 'dickzillion', but I doubt even *that* sums it up. To sum it up, F--K YOU!"


Yeah, I probably overreacted there. Sorry. *Sighs* But considering Dumbledore's own treatment of Muggles...let's say that anecdote about Malfoy fails on so many levels.


Thoughts: Still pretty generic, methinks. It's really Dumbledore's commentary that catapults it into the Axis of Awful. :P


Dumbles Rage-O-Meter: Eleven. Yeah...it pretty much broke the Rage-O-Meter. *Makes note to fix it*

And it's over. Whew. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to play some KOTOR II to cleanse my mind...

Comments

[oryx_leucoryx]

OK, so Albus tells us *all* pureblood families have Muggles somewhere they don't mention? So even before Molly's accountant cousin there were Muggles among the Weasleys and Prewetts? And among the Potters? But nobody remembers those relatives or their contribution to the family heritage? So how are the good guys different from the bad guys?

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly, where are their muggle families.

There is a lot of nonsense going on with the magical world. On one had they're keeping themselves secret, but on another they're going out and 'breeding' with the outside population they're hiding from.

Yet they're supposed to be in secret from muggles, yet they're allowing these muggleborn children in.

In a way, it sounds like when a child born to muggle parents is found - they sort of in a way 'kidnap' that child.

Hell, look at Hermione. The Weasley's practically adopt her. Now, most women are a little...funny over who they're son dates. We even see that with one of Molly's sons. Yet with Hermione, it's like oddly accepted and I don't remember Molly making any kind of fuss about Hermione always hanging around or being at her house.

And in a house full of growing boys I find it a little odd that Hermione is basicly pulled into the weasley household.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I find anything wrong with Hermione being friends with Harry/Ron or the Weasley family.

But, there is this context going on in the background. If I didn't know better I'd almost say Molly and Aurther claimed Hermione so easily because they wanted the potential to bring new blood into their family.

Does that make sense? I know it's kinda weird to think about...but how can the Weasley's be pureblood if they've got muggle in their background? Unless it's that these so called 'good' purebloods are only mingling with muggleborns.

I don't know the whole Weasley - Hermione situation comes across as a bit weird. And we've all made comments about how she practically abandons her parents for the Weasley family.

If I were really thinking bad thoughts about Molly and Aurther I'd almost say they adopted her so easily because they wanted her for one of their sons.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

If the Statute of Secrecy had been imposed earlier than it was, I'd be convinced that the forced assimilation of Muggle-borns inspired the legends of fairies stealing children.

[dracasadiablo.livejournal.com]

It makes a lot of sense to me.
The way Hermione was adsorbed is bothersome. It's like Molly decided she'll do for one of her sons and started training/assimilating her from the start.
I'll always remember how in the Goblet of fire after reading Rita's writing about Hermione's love life Molly gets cold and unfriendly.
It's especially strange when at the beginning of the book Molly dislikes Rita and the things she wrote about Arthur. :(
So why is she trusting Rita about Hermione?
Is it because Hermione is (allegedly) toying with two boys (one of them Harry who is already seen as Molly's son-in-law) or because she is looking at the non-Weasley boys?

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

I had almost forgot about Molly acting bitchy over that Rita stuff. Wow, that almost makes it looks like Hermione wasn't following Molly's future dreams of interbreeding one of her sons with a muggleborn =p

[dracasadiablo.livejournal.com]

Isn't it strange that Albus "Champion of Muggles" Dumbledore never mentioned that his mother was muggleborn and that his maternal grandparents are Muggles?
If JKR couldn't have put that anywhere else she could have had DD tell Harry how similar(pureblood father, brilliant muggleborn mother) they are.

And we don't see the accountant cousin mentioned more then once. To show how "noble" the Weasleys are JKR could have the "accountant cousin" at the Bill's weeding.

[ladyhadhafang.livejournal.com]

Maybe the accountant was busy...doing things accountants do? Maybe the Weasleys called and asked if she could show up, but she said, "I'd love to, but I'm pretty swamped."

That, or JKR is insufferably lazy. :P (YMMV)