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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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Re: JKR and hypocrisy
Date: 2011-03-21 12:30 pm (UTC)That's what I've heard from a lot of disappointed fans. I've heard other fans claim that it wasn't necessary and that what was important that Dumbledore was a wizard who happened to be gay, not that Dumbledore was a gay man who happened to be a wizard.
But like others have said before, there were places in DH where JKR could have told us that Albus was gay. Why didn't she just have Rita Skeeter or Aberforth reveal that Dumbledore and Grindelwald were a couple and then have Dumbledore briefly confirm it in the King's Cross scene before moving on with the rest of his story? It wouldn't have been a big deal if the text didn't make it a big deal.
/There is a interview where she implies that "homosexual men having sex is icky"?/
Is that true? I've never heard that.
Re: JKR and hypocrisy
Date: 2011-03-21 02:13 pm (UTC)I never automatically see homosexual in the word friend. Maybe I need to reread it to find it. JKR says in a responds to an interview question it's there...but really I think it's only there if you already had it in your mind that Dumbledore was gay. I don't think a reasonable person with no preconcieved ideas reading canon will automatically say, YEP, JKR meant this character to be gay, it's right there in black and white for all the world to see.
Dumbledore doesn't say he was in love with G. I'd have to go back again and review what words he did use in his kings cross confession but I honestly never got gay from the relationship. So it's almost like JKR is saying we who didn't see it are stupid, especially when she insists it's there in the story when it isn't.
Re: JKR and hypocrisy
Date: 2011-03-21 08:58 pm (UTC)Why didn't she just have Rita Skeeter or Aberforth reveal that Dumbledore and Grindelwald were a couple and then have Dumbledore briefly confirm it in the King's Cross scene before moving on with the rest of his story? It wouldn't have been a big deal if the text didn't make it a big deal.
And that too.
Re: JKR and hypocrisy
Date: 2011-03-23 11:25 pm (UTC)Is that true? I've never heard that.
I haven't heard it before. I'm only quoting urbanman1984's comment :
"She definitely ranted to the effect that she believes homosexual men having sex is icky in one of her terrible interviews. Whether or not she is throwing stones while being in a glass house, that alone would exclude her from really having egalitarian views."
And I agree that she could have had Dumbledore or any of the characters confirm they were a couple.
Re: JKR and hypocrisy
Date: 2011-03-25 02:36 pm (UTC)Is that true? I've never heard that.
It depends on how much subtext you see - she says something about how the general homophobic rationale is a fear of men* loving each other and how it's not really about the sex. This is, as I think most people would agree, nonsense, and it may betray her own discomfort with the idea of male/male sex and her desire to convince herself that no, that's not real homophobia and she has nothing in common with homophobes, no, not at all.
*Apparently there's no homophobia aimed at lesbians in her world?