GOF Chapter 14: The Unforgivable Curses
Apr. 1st, 2011 08:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oryx_leucoryx posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
deathtocapslock(or - curses which can be unforgivable or gallant, depending on who casts them on whom)
My sporks may become more sporadic, nor will I be responding as much as I have so far, as Real Life is becoming more demanding. I still hope to create opportunities for discussions among you. Enjoy!
By the third day of classes Neville melted his 6th cauldron. Was that 6 in one lesson or the 6th since he started at Hogwarts? In any case, he disemboweled horned toads for detention. But since horned toads are actually some species of lizard I don't think his near nervous collapse had to do with thoughts on Trevor, just the effort of a repetitive, unpleasant task.
It isn't the fourth year running that Severus 'failed' to get the DADA job, Harry. The world was not created the day you entered Hogwarts.
Severus is avoiding 'Moody''s eyes. Is the real Moody a Legilimens? I think this avoidance supports Moody's involvement in Severus' interrogation during or after VoldieWar I.
Real-Moody's choice of textbook 'The Dark Forces: A guide to Self-Protection' is the same book Quirrell assigned to them in first year. Maybe that's the standard DADA text back from Prof Merrythought's days. At any rate, I'm wondering now about Umbridge's claim that Quirrell's lessons were age-appropriate. Well, maybe it was a very thick book, with sections for each year.
But 'Moody' is much cooler - he is not going to teach from the book at all! (He's just the opposite of Umbridge, who wanted the students to have books out and wands away.) Yes! He is going to bring them up to scratch about what wizards can do to each other! After some 12 years under Imperius, he gets to demonstrate Dark Arts in front of admiring students! Oh, how Barty is going to enjoy himself this year!
Yes, Barty, you owe one to Ron's dad. (I wonder if Arthur ever contemplated how his shenanigans assisted Voldemort's return. I wish he admitted to it when he claimed Percy was being recruited as a spy. If he gave his example of being used without his knowledge it might have gone over better than open accusation.) Barty, your retirement will be much quieter than you think.
Aha, the Ministry approves of demonstrating illegal Dark curses to 6th years like the twins. But 'Moody' claims to have Albus' approval to accelerate the curriculum a bit. Knowing Albus' attitude to the Ministry I wouldn't be surprised if that were true.
Arthur *would* know about Imperius. As one who dealt with victims of it or as a victim himself? Alas, Imperiurized!Arthur was never confirmed.
"Think it's funny, do you? You'd like it, would you, if I did it to you?" That will be put to test next lesson. Interesting that it is a DE who makes the students think of the difference in perspective between a spectator and a victim. Of course he is not just a perpetrator but a former victim himself.
"I could make it jump out of the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats ..." - Thanks to Elkins for pointing out those were exactly Barty's fears - that his father would force him to commit suicide. Especially after the QWC, when it turned out he could throw the curse off and Winky was no longer around to supervise him.
I can see how practice can help recognize when one is under Imperius and therefore one needs to resist it, but how does one avoid being hit by it? Perhaps Barty was trying to give the students a false sense of security - imagining they'd be able to recognize the wand movement or the beginning of the incantation?
(BTW Ron only knew one Unforgivable Curse, and he wasn't completely certain about that one either. I guess Arthur never mentioned the other 2? Nor did, say, the AK come up in the context of how Molly's brothers died?)
It is so creepy to know that it is Barty inviting Neville to speak about the Cruciatus. Yes, it was popular once. With you. (Don't worry, it wasn't the spider Hermione was being compassionate for. Still, I like it that she opposed a teacher for an upset classmate.)
OK, in a class that includes several purebloods and at least one wizarding-raised half-blood, how come Hermione is the only one who knows about the AK?
Harry is the only one who survived the AK. Unless you count all those who managed to duck behind something or conjure a blocking object in time.
The use of any Unforgivable on a fellow human being earns you a life sentence in Azkaban. Casting them on spiders is fine. As well as on human beings who aren't your fellows, I suppose. That can sometimes be gallant, if you are the right kind of person.
Oh, how the Gryffindors enjoyed the demonstration of Dark Arts in class! A pity Hogwarts only teaches defense, really!
If Neville and Harry (and Hermione, of course) were disturbed by the class but Ron wasn't - does this mean Imperiurized!Arthur is false?
Now I'm wondering how this lesson went with the 4th year Slytherins. Did they know the names of the Unforgivables? Did they pretend not to know? Did 'Moody' taunt Draco with the Imperius Curse? Whom did he taunt with the others?
'Moody' invites Neville to tea. So spooky when one knows who that is. I wonder how Neville reflects on his interactions with 'Moody' later on, when he learns the truth. Because Harry is completely unperturbed that it was a DE who gave him the idea to become an Auror.
Moody attacks first, asks questions later. Does anyone need more evidence the real one was a Gryffindor?
Oh, Neville received a book about water plants. Which Harry will need later that year. But as Neville is mostly invisible to Harry the book won't be of any help.
Barty's act is going fine - Harry is now comparing him to Remus.
Harry and Ron are making up predictions for Divination. Oddly they actually do reflect the events of the coming year, though on a more extended schedule: danger of burns - may be about the skrewts, as Ron says, but also about the dragon Harry will face in almost 3 months. Losing a treasured possession - foreshadows the second task. Getting stabbed in the back by someone Harry thought was a friend - Ron's reaction to Harry's name emerging from the goblet, or 'Moody' turning out to be a DE who attempts to kill Harry? I'm not sure what losing a fight or a bet were about, though this is Hogwarts so there's always a lot of fighting going on, and of course this is the year of gambling.
Since Hermione isn't around to tell them off, Crookshanks is doing it for her. Why don't you go snarling at 'Moody', Crookshanks?
The twins are conspiring about blackmailing Ludo, again. (No, Crookshanks doesn't care about that either.)
Ron seems to be drowning twice. Well, he will be underwater for hours on end. Does this count? OTOH Harry dying by decapitation is a bit of a stretch - Voldmeort likes the AK, that leaves the victim's body intact.
Here comes SPEW, with 50 badges! Ron is treasurer, because he is so financially responsible and Harry is secretary, because Hermione said so.
Hermione's research revealed that elves have been enslaved for centuries, but not anything about what magic is involved to enforce their status. She came up with goals for her campaign without any input from the elves themselves, which shows just how much she believes in treating them as persons with wills of their own.
Hedwig is back with Sirius' reply. It took her under 2 weeks to fly from Surrey to whichever tropical location Sirius was staying at and back to Scotland. Sirius decides that things are serious enough to justify his return, but Harry blows it off. Doesn't he remember that Peter escaped? That Albus believed Trelawney's prophecy about him returning Voldemort to power was true? Wouldn't that put him in danger? (And not only him...)
Later we will learn that Sirius also reported about Harry's dream to Albus. So at this moment Albus knows the following: Peter left Hogwarts in June, probably on his way to Albania. Bertha Jorkins disappeared in Albania not long afterwards. Tom left Albania (must have been reported by Albus' 'sources') and must have arrived in Britain recently. Albus may already be aware of Frank Bryce's disappearance in Little Hangleton, (Or he may find out this tidbit later on.) Also, someone loyal to Voldemort was (probably) present at the QWC.
My sporks may become more sporadic, nor will I be responding as much as I have so far, as Real Life is becoming more demanding. I still hope to create opportunities for discussions among you. Enjoy!
By the third day of classes Neville melted his 6th cauldron. Was that 6 in one lesson or the 6th since he started at Hogwarts? In any case, he disemboweled horned toads for detention. But since horned toads are actually some species of lizard I don't think his near nervous collapse had to do with thoughts on Trevor, just the effort of a repetitive, unpleasant task.
It isn't the fourth year running that Severus 'failed' to get the DADA job, Harry. The world was not created the day you entered Hogwarts.
Severus is avoiding 'Moody''s eyes. Is the real Moody a Legilimens? I think this avoidance supports Moody's involvement in Severus' interrogation during or after VoldieWar I.
Real-Moody's choice of textbook 'The Dark Forces: A guide to Self-Protection' is the same book Quirrell assigned to them in first year. Maybe that's the standard DADA text back from Prof Merrythought's days. At any rate, I'm wondering now about Umbridge's claim that Quirrell's lessons were age-appropriate. Well, maybe it was a very thick book, with sections for each year.
But 'Moody' is much cooler - he is not going to teach from the book at all! (He's just the opposite of Umbridge, who wanted the students to have books out and wands away.) Yes! He is going to bring them up to scratch about what wizards can do to each other! After some 12 years under Imperius, he gets to demonstrate Dark Arts in front of admiring students! Oh, how Barty is going to enjoy himself this year!
Yes, Barty, you owe one to Ron's dad. (I wonder if Arthur ever contemplated how his shenanigans assisted Voldemort's return. I wish he admitted to it when he claimed Percy was being recruited as a spy. If he gave his example of being used without his knowledge it might have gone over better than open accusation.) Barty, your retirement will be much quieter than you think.
Aha, the Ministry approves of demonstrating illegal Dark curses to 6th years like the twins. But 'Moody' claims to have Albus' approval to accelerate the curriculum a bit. Knowing Albus' attitude to the Ministry I wouldn't be surprised if that were true.
Arthur *would* know about Imperius. As one who dealt with victims of it or as a victim himself? Alas, Imperiurized!Arthur was never confirmed.
"Think it's funny, do you? You'd like it, would you, if I did it to you?" That will be put to test next lesson. Interesting that it is a DE who makes the students think of the difference in perspective between a spectator and a victim. Of course he is not just a perpetrator but a former victim himself.
"I could make it jump out of the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats ..." - Thanks to Elkins for pointing out those were exactly Barty's fears - that his father would force him to commit suicide. Especially after the QWC, when it turned out he could throw the curse off and Winky was no longer around to supervise him.
I can see how practice can help recognize when one is under Imperius and therefore one needs to resist it, but how does one avoid being hit by it? Perhaps Barty was trying to give the students a false sense of security - imagining they'd be able to recognize the wand movement or the beginning of the incantation?
(BTW Ron only knew one Unforgivable Curse, and he wasn't completely certain about that one either. I guess Arthur never mentioned the other 2? Nor did, say, the AK come up in the context of how Molly's brothers died?)
It is so creepy to know that it is Barty inviting Neville to speak about the Cruciatus. Yes, it was popular once. With you. (Don't worry, it wasn't the spider Hermione was being compassionate for. Still, I like it that she opposed a teacher for an upset classmate.)
OK, in a class that includes several purebloods and at least one wizarding-raised half-blood, how come Hermione is the only one who knows about the AK?
Harry is the only one who survived the AK. Unless you count all those who managed to duck behind something or conjure a blocking object in time.
The use of any Unforgivable on a fellow human being earns you a life sentence in Azkaban. Casting them on spiders is fine. As well as on human beings who aren't your fellows, I suppose. That can sometimes be gallant, if you are the right kind of person.
Oh, how the Gryffindors enjoyed the demonstration of Dark Arts in class! A pity Hogwarts only teaches defense, really!
If Neville and Harry (and Hermione, of course) were disturbed by the class but Ron wasn't - does this mean Imperiurized!Arthur is false?
Now I'm wondering how this lesson went with the 4th year Slytherins. Did they know the names of the Unforgivables? Did they pretend not to know? Did 'Moody' taunt Draco with the Imperius Curse? Whom did he taunt with the others?
'Moody' invites Neville to tea. So spooky when one knows who that is. I wonder how Neville reflects on his interactions with 'Moody' later on, when he learns the truth. Because Harry is completely unperturbed that it was a DE who gave him the idea to become an Auror.
Moody attacks first, asks questions later. Does anyone need more evidence the real one was a Gryffindor?
Oh, Neville received a book about water plants. Which Harry will need later that year. But as Neville is mostly invisible to Harry the book won't be of any help.
Barty's act is going fine - Harry is now comparing him to Remus.
Harry and Ron are making up predictions for Divination. Oddly they actually do reflect the events of the coming year, though on a more extended schedule: danger of burns - may be about the skrewts, as Ron says, but also about the dragon Harry will face in almost 3 months. Losing a treasured possession - foreshadows the second task. Getting stabbed in the back by someone Harry thought was a friend - Ron's reaction to Harry's name emerging from the goblet, or 'Moody' turning out to be a DE who attempts to kill Harry? I'm not sure what losing a fight or a bet were about, though this is Hogwarts so there's always a lot of fighting going on, and of course this is the year of gambling.
Since Hermione isn't around to tell them off, Crookshanks is doing it for her. Why don't you go snarling at 'Moody', Crookshanks?
The twins are conspiring about blackmailing Ludo, again. (No, Crookshanks doesn't care about that either.)
Ron seems to be drowning twice. Well, he will be underwater for hours on end. Does this count? OTOH Harry dying by decapitation is a bit of a stretch - Voldmeort likes the AK, that leaves the victim's body intact.
Here comes SPEW, with 50 badges! Ron is treasurer, because he is so financially responsible and Harry is secretary, because Hermione said so.
Hermione's research revealed that elves have been enslaved for centuries, but not anything about what magic is involved to enforce their status. She came up with goals for her campaign without any input from the elves themselves, which shows just how much she believes in treating them as persons with wills of their own.
Hedwig is back with Sirius' reply. It took her under 2 weeks to fly from Surrey to whichever tropical location Sirius was staying at and back to Scotland. Sirius decides that things are serious enough to justify his return, but Harry blows it off. Doesn't he remember that Peter escaped? That Albus believed Trelawney's prophecy about him returning Voldemort to power was true? Wouldn't that put him in danger? (And not only him...)
Later we will learn that Sirius also reported about Harry's dream to Albus. So at this moment Albus knows the following: Peter left Hogwarts in June, probably on his way to Albania. Bertha Jorkins disappeared in Albania not long afterwards. Tom left Albania (must have been reported by Albus' 'sources') and must have arrived in Britain recently. Albus may already be aware of Frank Bryce's disappearance in Little Hangleton, (Or he may find out this tidbit later on.) Also, someone loyal to Voldemort was (probably) present at the QWC.
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Date: 2011-04-08 03:35 am (UTC)Character assassinations also abounded in DH* - but, I'd say, they started in HBP, or perhaps even earlier. Like you, I disliked HBP, and absolutely loathed DH. It's interesting to me that the filmmakers have worked hard to present Harry as nicer and more heroic than he actually is in the books. In the last two books, this boy is not worthy of your vision of Hermione. Book Hermione - maybe. Oddly enough, like you, I was a Harry/Hermione shipper, but right now I don't ship Harry with anyone, not even Ginny. Because book Harry simply doesn't seem to care about anyone.
How's that for changing the subject?!
*Characters who were given short shrift, written about in mocking tones and then played for pathos, presented inconsistently, or otherwise damaged, written in a contradictory fashion, or ignored ---
Snape. Minerva. Lupin (though his cowardice was canon in POA. His pompousness was something new, however.) Ginny, little as I like her - she was just a nonentity in this book. Ron - what happened to his gift for strategy? Tonks. Molly Weasely - since when did she become a great duellist? Harry. And on it goes. The one thing Rowling did consistently and well in the last two books was the character so many of us call rat bastard Dumbledore. He was consistently creepy and arrogant!
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Date: 2011-04-08 10:03 pm (UTC)Yes. Rowling had those two growing up into decent kids until she decided to turn book 6 into a tale of Sweet Valley Hogwarts and made Hermione into a caricature of a befuddled sex/lust-mad teenager. And Harry was horrible to her in book 7.
Still, things aren't quite that black-and-white. I've been remarking recently that - while Harry in general, I believe, was a worse friend to Hermione than vice versa, and also valued Ron's friendship more (which really makes me mad, given how much Hermione did for Harry) - book 6 was perhaps the one tome where Harry really did put some effort into being a friend. When Hermione and Ron are playing their stupid and unsatisfying-to-read games of puerile jealousy and not talking to each other Harry's making sure that he spends time equally with both of them. Sometimes I forget that, book 6 being such a bad book.
Because book Harry simply doesn't seem to care about anyone.
That's a big exaggeration, isn't it? He chooses to *die* for everyone in DH! Yes, he's on 'automatic' by then; like a Pavlovian dog raised to meekly accept his fate as his 'job'. Exiting Snape's memories he never really *thinks* about his death or explores options; the passage is horribly fatalistic and passive. Harry was given a job to do by Dumbledore and he has to do it.
But, still, even if he's a dolt, even if his free will has been largely squelched by Dumbledore's brainwashing, Harry still (a) doesn't want to die but (b) is doing it because that way society will be freed from Voldemort's tryanny. That's 'caring', I think. Even if he was stirred to get to that point mainly by his own personal brushes with the dark lord rather than reasoning about society as an abstract whole.
Ginny, little as I like her - she was just a nonentity in this book.
Ginny was painted as a not-very-nice girl so I was glad not to see much of her in DH. It's funny how Rowling emasculated her in DH, still showing her as not-very-nice - all those bouts of childish jealousy in every second appearance, her display of petulance at Hogwarts - but outside the books proclaimed how wonderful Ginny was. There was a real dissonance between what Rowling wrote of the youngest Weasley and what she told us we're supposed to have read. And the deliberate shelving of Ginny to the far far background in DH just adds to that.
Ron - what happened to his gift for strategy?
I don't think it appeared long enough to be called a 'gift for strategy'. You're talking chess, right? Outside of book 1 I don't think we saw a single case of 'strategy', did we? We can't blame Rowling for writing something that was never there in the first place. I think Ron's 'strategy' genius is pretty much a fandom creation.
Molly Weasely - since when did she become a great duellist?
Oh, she wasn't. That bout at the end of DH is just a ridiculous farce, horribly bad writing, Rowling just throwing in the cliche because she wanted to see it, despite it hanging loose and unattached to any of her previous canon. Don't give it a second thought, it was simply a bad Rowling error/mistake. :-)
(Sad to read of the review that's recently been released after an advance showing of the final movie where the audience gave 'raucous cheers' upon watching the Bellatrix/Molly scene. Damn it, it's so SAD that Rowling can get away with such inelegant and bad writing!! People are so dumb ... :-))
The one thing Rowling did consistently and well in the last two books was the character so many of us call rat bastard Dumbledore. He was consistently creepy and arrogant!
Yes, he was a patronising smug arrogant son of a gun in book 6, and book 7 upheld that.