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deathtocapslock* Jeans and a t-shirt seems like quite a scruffy combination for a hearing, even if they are freshly laundered. Doesn’t Harry have a suit or something he could wear?
* So why is it again that moving Harry to No. 12 required a small battalion of witches and wizards to keep him safe, but taking him to the Ministry requires just one middle-aged guy?
* Kudos to Mr. Weasley for getting excited about automatic ticket machines, instead of just assuming that they’re an inferior substitute for magic like everyone else does. Still, it does make one wonder why he hasn’t learnt more about Muggle technology.
* To enter the Ministry, type 62442. This is where the letters MAGIC are on a numberpad. Just thought I’d point that out.
* Nothing triumphalist about that Statue of Magical Harmony at all, is there? Still, it does make the pureblood supremacists look a bit less bad. Wizards clearly think that they’re better than sapient magical creatures; all Mr. Malfoy et al. want to do is add sapient non-magical creatures to the statue.
* So does St. Mungo’s rely on charity to keep itself afloat, then? ’Cause you’d have thought that the WW would be able to fund at least one hospital, especially if it’s literally the only hospital available to them. But then, why get people to donate to it at all, if you can just fund it out of general taxation? And why would people put coins in the well? After all, you never hear people saying “I think the NHS is such a good thing, I’m going to voluntary pay more tax to help fund it.”
* And do we ever see the Department for Experimental Breeding investigate Hagrid?
* An “Official Gobstones Club” just sounds silly to me. Yes, let’s have all these senior governmental officials using public office space to play a game which squirts foul-smelling liquid into your face! I mean, I get that the HP books have a lot of whimsy in them, but the series is supposed to be growing up at this point. Official Gobstones Clubs just don’t fit with the serious atmosphere JKR’s trying to create.
* Does a society as small as the WW really need such a big government? Or are they all just so stupid that they need two bureaucrats to every normal citizen to constantly tell them what to do?
* The fact that the Goblin Liaison Office is part of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magic Creatures should tell you all you need to know about the wizarding world’s mindset when it comes to other sentient beings.
* If it’s any consolation, though, the Goblins do control the WW’s only bank. I bet they laugh about the wizards whilst secretly holding the Minister to ransom by threatening to use their power to take down the entire wizarding economy.
* A bit like Jews in anti-Semitic literature, now that I come to think of it. Normally, I’d just brush this off as a coincidence, and say that anyone trying to compare Goblins and Jews is reading too much into the text. In light of the fact that Rowling constantly bludgeons us over the head with her heavy-handed Nazi analogies, though…
* Oh, and now they have a “Muggle-Worthy Excuse Committee” as part of the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. Once again, “Muggle” is being used as a term of abuse, despite the fact that it’s the Wizarding World, not the Muggle, which is a corrupt, authoritarian, nepotistic dictatorship which breeds Dark Lords like a rotting log breeds toadstools.
* Once again, though, it makes the Pureblood Supremacists look a bit better. After all, if you were brought up to believe that Muggles were inherently stupid, wouldn’t you want to keep their (no doubt equally stupid) offspring at arm’s length?
* In fact, sod it – the Supremacists are actually better than mainstream society. At least their sense of superiority is consistent with their society’s views on Muggles – none of that hypocritical “Oh, Muggles are stupid and inferior – but whatever you do, don’t say so!” crap.
* And now I’m going to shut up on the topic for the rest of this chapter, lest my blood pressure climbs to unhealthy levels.
* Percy appears to have walked out of the photograph. So does this mean that magical photographs are able to know and react to events around them? But how would Photo!Percy have known about the argument? And isn’t there a scene later in the book when Moody shows Harry a picture of the Order of the Phoenix, and Harry thinks something along the lines of “They had no idea that they’d shortly be killed”? Probably Arthur’s removed his son himself.
* So why was the hearing time changed? Was it just to discredit Harry by making him look too arrogant to show up to his own hearing? But then, surely it would emerge that he was meant to turn up several hours later, thereby defeating the purpose of the change?
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no subject
Date: 2011-03-19 01:31 am (UTC)Wow, it took me a while to fully understand what you are getting at here and synchronise with the impact of such a move. Harry would have really had an uphill struggle in that sort of situation, wouldn't he? As well as facing continual resistance at Hogwarts as well.
But proceeding along that path would have opened up a can of worms that Rowling wouldn't have been able to handle. Life at Hogwarts would have been much darker. Hermione would have suffered continual reminders of wizarding bigotry, instead of merely being the target of a few futile taunts from Draco. It would have been much more clear that a proper resolution of the series would have needed to redress the wrongs of wizarding society as a whole rather than just vanquish Voldemort and stop there.
Good stuff to think about!
no subject
Date: 2011-03-19 02:03 am (UTC)Come to think of it, we had a good lead-in to that in GoF, with Arthur thinking Bagman is a good guy. She could have done a lot more with that (even if Bagman wasn't a DE). And the house-elves, of course. Harry could have started noticing it a bit in that book, maybe with a side of "say, Draco just made fun of Krum's accent, and so did Ernie, maybe that means something?" And then it comes out a lot more on OotP, especially once he realizes that not even Good Ministry Guy Arthur cared much about Sirius not getting a trial back then (which maybe leads to extra guilt about that possessed snake incident...). By HBP he's feeling pretty hopeless and that's partly what sets him off about Scrimgeor (think the kid who didn't grow up spoiled must be a bad guy, do you? like you thought I was last year?). Then... he'd really have a tough time in DH, and all the Dumbledore stuff could lead to some really difficult questions instead of "he made horrible mistakes - but okay, he was right, so we're all good, let's ignore the flayed baby!"
I don't think he'd ever have been as confident and gung-ho as Hermione, exactly, and he wouldn't use any advanced terminology, but that doesn't mean he couldn't have made this journey. It would just have to be handled subtly. And most of the groundwork is there already.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-19 02:41 am (UTC)Whatever Hermione told him to? :-)
Okay, I wasn't (quite) serious there. Hermione wasn't Harry's *consience*; he had his own sense of right and wrong. Although it was a lot less refined than our girl's, his main reason for tracking down Voldemort was out of revenge and not altruism (well, at one stage), etc.
But Harry and his conscience were strictly small potatoes. Limited scope. Short range. He didn't worry about matters of society as a whole. He only took notice of injustice when it materialised in front of his nose.
I could see one possible storyline where he only gradually gets to understand the rot behind wizarding society as he sees how his best friend Hermione is treated. Or maybe as she complains about the bias that *she* is experiencing. After all, most of Hermione's rants are about House Elves, centaurs and so forth; a couple of steps away from Harry's immediate vision.
And then it comes out a lot more on OotP, especially once he realizes that not even Good Ministry Guy Arthur cared much about Sirius not getting a trial back then ...
You're basically suggesting that Harry be made a member of deathtocapslock and not allowed to leave until he'd read our opinions here. :-)
All of this *was* in Harry's face, to some degree. At any time he could have railed against the injustice done to Sirius and gone investigating. Or side with Hermione a little more about the House Elves thing. But instead he keeps to the straight and narrow simplistic path that Rowling kept him on for the convenience of her story and where she wanted him to go.
And I do believe that was one of Ron's major roles; to keep Harry happy with the status quo. Ignore Hermione, Harry, she's mental; come and live at the Burrow and assimilate the prevailing attitudes of wizarding society. Don't *think* about things, just accept 'em!
Interesting stuff to think about!
no subject
Date: 2011-03-19 05:34 am (UTC)I agree with you it would be gradual process, and would be expanding on things he sees happening to Hermione and other people he knows. Harry isn't going to turn into a super abstract thinker and crusader for social justice. But he could have gotten a little better at connecting the dots before they thwap him over the head and seeing that there's a big picture there somewhere, and want to do something about it even if it isn't his life's work. It wouldn't require a radical transformation, just a few tweaks. Since in a lot of stories you get a protagonist who's either narrowly quest-focused like Harry or more of an abstract thinker focused on wider social concerns, it actually could have been very interesting to see how a more concrete thinker like Harry could grow like this. If Rowling wanted Harry to do was fight one dark wizard, why did she set all this up and then not follow through? (I mean, besides "it would be complicated and I didn't put that in the outline.") He could get more clueful without getting to DTCL levels of Potterverse critique XD
Interesting point about Ron's role of pushing Harry back in the box - nope, nothing to see here, it's all normal! This also could have been very interesting if it were eventually addressed, even slightly (and I'd much prefer slightly and subtly to anviliciously). Hm. Maybe Ron isn't a representative of mainstream wizarding attitudes so much as he's JKR's subconscious, going, "No, it's too complicated and messy, we don't want to deal with this."
I wonder if one of the problems is the way time passes in the books? I mean in the technical writerly sense. Whole months just *poof* disappear when there isn't a troll in the dungeons or some other major incident, which makes sense because there's no need to spend much time on stuff that isn't happening... but then maybe she just couldn't wrap her mind around those months actually existing? A real Harry might have had some thoughts during those months, even accidentally, like, "Hey, Ron, your dad told you about when Lucius Malfoy was arrested and got off, so did he ever talk much about when Sirius was arrested?" or "Hey, now I know that was a Death Eater recommending I be an Auror - is that weird?" But if Rowling was jumping from bullet point to bullet point (now it's Christmas, got to have a dance), it would be easy not to realize what might have been going through his head during that time.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-19 06:12 am (UTC)In addition to "it would be complicated and I didn't put that in the outline"? Hmm.
You got me wondering at that. Why wasn't Voldemort just another dark lord? Rowling wanted to set Harry up as (a) someone special, and (b) as the hero who is 'connected' to the dark lord. Which wraps the story into the whole mythical 'destined to fight' thing.
(She did the same with Dumbledore/Grindelwald too.)
But why the whole 'blood purity' movement? Because she needed some excuse/way for Voldemort to recruit minions? But she could have just set him up as a bank robber with a very good health plan. :-)
Because she wanted to clearly establish that Voldemort was BAD - not just an enemy of society, but EVIL? But being a murdering dark lord would automatically establish that.
I don't know. Maybe she just picked 'racism' as the most contemporary issue to copy. She really didn't do too much with it. A couple of taunts from Draco against Hermione and that's about it until the last book where we are told muggle-born are being put in concentration camps off page. Oh, and Hermione gets to be first in line for a spot of torture.
Maybe she wanted to set things up from the start with we muggle readers being firmly against Voldemort - who is firmly against us. But muggles barely appear in the story.
(And that WOULD be because it would have made everything too difficult to write. Like all those many fan fiction stories that introduce guns and modern armaments into the wizarding world and quickly bog down.)
But if Rowling was jumping from bullet point to bullet point --
Which is most definitely the case, at least for the last book, which was either Harry going to A to B to C to collect the information we needed on the Hallows ... or otherwise massive information dumps on the latest gimmicks or what Voldemort was doing.
... it would be easy not to realize what might have been going through his head during that time.
Towards the end I don't think Rowling could see anything but the immediate narrow path of where she wanted Harry to go to get him across the finish line.
When it comes down to it, it would have been trivial for Rowling to put in a sentence or two into the epilogue at how Harry & Co. *improved* things in general, at how wizarding society as a whole had gotten better over those 19 years. Hermione's success at passing house elf legislation, werewolves being integrated into society, anything. But she didn't.
Which leads me back to thinking that she just simply didn't care about such things, or didn't see them. Dark Lord attacks boy, boy becomes hero, hero vanquishes dark lord, boys awarded their girls, the end.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-19 06:46 am (UTC)Maybe she did glom onto racism as a button to hit that would make readers go "okay, he's even more bad than a regular mass murderer." Although she could have just had his animal cruelty be consistent and bring it in earlier than the HBP revelation about the other kid's rabbit. Having Voldemort kick puppies would be cheap, but not any more so than dragging in the giant issue of racism as scenery and then pushing it offstage once it gets inconvenient. (Plus then we'd have to wonder about the ethics of Fred and George feeding salamanders firecrackers and all that.)
What other recruiting tactic could he have used, if she didn't go with the blood purity thing? Because there usually is some ostensible "plan" even in real-world equivalents besides just "whee, killing is fun! join me!" I suppose she could have made it more of an internal wizarding power struggle - maybe she could have tweaked her racism metaphor, actually, and had Voldemort's party be about suppressing the other magical races more while the... Dumbledore party, I guess... think it would be bad to cut down the centaurs' forest and that the goblins shouldn't be denied wands, and that werewolves who take their medicine or some other measures to keep from eating people (like locking themselves up during full moon) should be treated like regular people. Although then we'd probably have goblins in concentration camps in DH instead of Muggleborns, and the WWII parallels were already horribly anvilicious as it was. Hm. Maybe just straight-up democracy vs. fascism, which is always popular with readers? Voldemort and co. think using Imperius on wizarding world citizens to reduce crime and make the trains run on time is a good thing for law and order (and Obliviating any magical folks who were about to go public with dirt on the DEs), and the designated good guys don't like that idea at all.
Harry was practically just a camera for us to look through by the end. Almost literally during the Voldiecam scenes, which had to break all kids of rules of common sense and logic to exist so very conveniently.
JKR and heavy handed analogies
Date: 2011-03-20 12:37 pm (UTC)Alan Moore was able to make a picture book about a ruthless anarchist fighting a neo-nazi government and his story did not insult the reader's intelligence by making out that all the categories were simple. The anarchist is only just less terrible than the government officials who are his primary targets. JKR never had the imagination or the grit to write about a story where everything is meant to be in shades of grey and the protagonist is himself an acknowledged bad guy. She only knows the motto: "IOIAGDI!"
Re: JKR and heavy handed analogies
Date: 2011-03-20 06:50 pm (UTC)Siruis did not receive a trial
Date: 2011-03-20 12:30 pm (UTC)Re: Siruis did not receive a trial
Date: 2011-03-21 01:20 am (UTC)Who was head of the Wizengamot.
Who turned up as primary witness on Harry's behalf in book 5.
Who was Sirius's commanding officer in the OotP.
Who had his nose rubbed in the truth once Pettigrew appeared in book 3.
*sigh*
no subject
Date: 2011-03-20 10:58 pm (UTC)I could see one possible storyline where he only gradually gets to understand the rot behind wizarding society as he sees how his best friend Hermione is treated. Or maybe as she complains about the bias that *she* is experiencing.
Hmmm. Not unlike a certain Slytherin of our acquaintance. Of course, that's entirely different. :)
BTW, madderbrad, if you don't mind my asking, since you think Harry's a jerk and Hermione's great, why do want to ship them? Shouldn't you want your favorite girl to hook up with a guy who's worthy of her?
no subject
Date: 2011-03-20 11:25 pm (UTC)I think so. One isolated incident - Snape's Worst Memory, yes? - does not an entire society of discrimination make.
BTW, madderbrad, if you don't mind my asking, since you think Harry's a jerk and Hermione's great, why do want to ship them? Shouldn't you want your favorite girl to hook up with a guy who's worthy of her?
Yes. It's no coincidence that many of the best H/Hr stories do exactly that; writing a more mature version of Harry who's a suitable match for his distaff best friend.
Hermione's steadfast devotion to Harry and her continual striving to help him is one of the reasons I admire her. So any H/Hr story that has the 'hero' grow up and appreciate her for all that she has done, all of her good qualities, is delivering a considerable payload based on all those books that have come before and led to that epiphany.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-21 12:32 am (UTC)Um, no. I was referring to his abandoning Voldemort to protect Lily. In both cases (Snape's actual and Harry's hypothetical), you have a guy who's not much concerned about the bigotry and rot in his society until it harms or potentially harms a girl he cares about.
It's no coincidence that many of the best H/Hr stories do exactly that; writing a more mature version of Harry who's a suitable match for his distaff best friend.
OK, so you're not talking about shipping Harry as he is in the books, but a new, improved version of him. That makes sense.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-21 12:44 am (UTC)Something like that (given that we're talking about a version of the series where HP becomes more aware of society's failing because of its effect on Hermione).
Harry's not quite that bad in the canon, though. While his conscience and ethical radar only work on short range they *are* operative:
He thought of his mother, his father, and Sinus. He thought of Cedric Diggory. He thought of all the terrible deeds he knew Lord Voldemort had done. A flame seemed to leap inside his chest, searing his throat.
"I'd want him finished," said Harry quietly. "And I'd want to do it."
I believe he considers the innocents whom he wishes to protect once or twice in DH too?
OK, so you're not talking about shipping Harry as he is in the books, but a new, improved version of him.
Yes, the one in the books is a suitable match for Ginny Weasley. 'Nuff said. :-)
no subject
Date: 2011-03-21 01:28 am (UTC)But even there, he's almost exclusively concerned with people he knows who've been harmed. He doesn't care much about strangers, let alone the damage society as a whole would suffer if such a monster were in charge of it. He's the opposite of the person addressed in the song "Easy to Be Hard," from Hair.
How can people be so heartless
How can people be so cruel
Easy to be hard
Easy to be cold
How can people have no feelings
How can they ignore their friends
Easy to be proud
Easy to say no
And especially people
Who care about strangers
Who care about evil
And social injustice
Do you only
Care about the bleeding crowd?
How about a needing friend?
I need a friend
Yes, the one in the books is a suitable match for Ginny Weasley. 'Nuff said. :-)
Gak! What an insult! Especially knowing how you feel about Ginny.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-19 02:40 pm (UTC)I do so wish Rowling had gone this way, tho. At least there's fanfic.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-19 04:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-20 11:03 pm (UTC)This is yet another reason why Warriors is a better series than HP: When Fireheart encounters this kind of attitude among the cat clans, he recognizes it's bad and tries to fix it. He's repeatedly subjected to ridicule and rejection, over a period of years, because he refuses to accept bigotry and oppression as "just the way things are."
no subject
Date: 2011-03-21 06:19 am (UTC)