OOTP Chapter Eight: "The Hearing"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

* And we’re up to p. 126, and the first interesting thing in the book. Back in COS we’d already had the whomping willow, the writing on the wall and the trio coming up with the plot to spy on Malfoy. Oh, for the good old days of tight plotting...

 

* Hey, Percy’s eager to do his job, the rotter! Good people know that government is never anything but evil (unless it’s a Labour Party government, of course), and therefore expect civil servants to do their job in the most unenthusiastic and dispirited manner possible.

* I’m a bit surprised that the Minister of Magic is allowed to sit as judge in a criminal trial. Wouldn’t that rather compromise judicial impartiality? I mean, I know that wizards are generally a bit behind muggles, but I’d have thought that they’d have at least reached 1689 by now.

* I’m not sure how they do things in the WW, but I’d be surprised if they didn’t take a dim view of their judges being interrupted. It’s a bit odd for Dumbledore to interrupt Fudge here, then.

* It’s clear that this trial has nothing to do with underage magic, and everything to do with Fudge trying to get Dumbledore through Harry. Really, this is what you get when your constitution doesn’t have even the most basic legal safeguards.

* For all that wizards look down on the muggle world, I’d feel a lot safer being falsely accused and then tried in a muggle court than I would being falsely accused and then tried in a wizard court.

* Producing a corporeal Patronus is such an achievement. Until the plot demands that the whole DA need to learn it, when it suddenly becomes a spell a group of teenage schoolchildren can cast. Either that, or Harry just displays a hitherto un-guessed-at genius for teaching. Gary Stu? Don’t be ridiculous!

* Also, note how it’s specifically Percy’s reaction that goads Harry into action. Is this because Percy was, if not especially close to Harry, then at least closer to him than Fudge or the other Wizengamot members, and his bad opinion therefore matters more to him?

* Does anyone know what Harry’s supposed motivation for this crime was? Because randomly casting Patroni for no reason seems a bit odd.

* Fudge doesn’t know anything about wizarding judicial procedure, it seems. Yes, he’s really making himself and his case look good here, isn’t he?

* I like it how Squibs are apparently so marginalised that nobody knows whether or not they can see Dementors. Sometimes, the WW’s just so bigoted it just makes me want to swear loudly and throw my book through the window.

* Why does Mrs. Figg feel the need to lie about seeing Dementors? Does she worry that she won’t be taken seriously if she doesn’t look magical enough? Remember kids, racism’s the fault of a few posh bigots like Draco and Tom Riddle! It can be easily solved by killing one person and making his group of followers marry outside the aristocracy. It’s not at all a deep-seated problem with complex societal and sociological causes, which can take decades to reduce and can never be truly eradicated.

* Fudge isn’t being very professional here. Snorting derisively? For heaven’s sake, man, you’re the head of Wizarding Britain’s government; why not try and act like it?

* “But naturally, you would not care how many times you heard from a witness, if the alternative was a serious miscarriage of justice.” Yep, say what you like about Dumbledore and his chums, they sure hate miscarriages of justice. Unless they can get Quidditch tickets out of it, of course. Or one of the criminals knows that you’ve been illegally letting a werewolf study in Hogwarts. Or they’ve told the authorities of your illegal student organisation. Or you can’t be bothered to try and prove the defendant innocent. Or…

* So, do Wizard courts not have barristers to cross-examine witnesses? Or is that the judges’ job?

* I can’t help but have a sneaking respect for Dumbledore’s handling of the trial. He’s a bastard, but (as TV Tropes would say) a magnificent bastard nonetheless.

 

Comments

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

"Given the fact that the main point of contention between wizards and Muggles is that wizards have magic and Muggles don't, I'm surprised that Squibs weren't the main targets of the Death Eaters. Muggle-borns can pass for pureblood wizards as long as nobody asks about their family trees. Squibs, however, stand out by virtue of having no magic."

Yeah... a lot of the blood prejudice thing makes more sense if you assume that it's culturally- rather than racially-motivated. Squibs, for example, would be raised by their wizarding parents, and so be properly assimilated into wizarding culture; unlike those newcomer Muggle-borns, they'd "know our ways" and wouldn't want to betray the wizards to the Muggles. It would also explain why Half-bloods are apparently accepted into wizarding society by all but the most ardent Pureblood believers, even if they like to play down their Muggle heritage (and really, can anybody seriously imagine Hitler trusting a half-Jew as much as Voldemort trusts Severus, or a white supremacist and son of a senior KKK member liking a half-black teacher as much as Draco likes his Potions professor?): whilst they may be half-Muggle, they are nevertheless reasonably familiar with wizarding culture, and therefore "acceptable" in the eyes of most wizards.

"Even though Grindelwald's defeat didn't do anything to improve the wizarding world's relationship with the Muggle world. What makes everybody think that Voldemort's defeat will?"

But Voldemort's more evil, which makes all the difference! And they've got Harry now to help them! Seriously, though, imagining that killing Voldemort will get rid of all of Wizarding's Britain's ills is woefully naive. A bit like if someone suggested that we could sove all the UK's problems by killing Nick Griffin.