OOTP Chapter Nine: "The Woes of Mrs. Weasley"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

* Mr. Weasley insists that they couldn’t have found Harry guilty based on the evidence. Why do all these people maintain their faith in the wizarding justice system? This applies double for Mr. Weasley, since he (a) has the example of Sirius for someone who was wrongfully convicted, and (b) helps petty criminals evade justice on a regular basis.

* “Muggle-baiting might strike some wizards as funny.” Possibly because they’ve got relatives whose first response to Muggle-related problems is to wipe their memories, eh, Arthur?

* Lucius Malfoy again showing off his dislike for Harry in the most ridiculously unsubtle way. Remind me again, where did he get his reputation for Machiavellian cunning from?

* Mr. Malfoy is, of course, quite right that Arthur spends a lot of his time “sneaking Muggle artefacts home and bewitching them”; once again, though, we’re expected to treat him like a horrible person for pointing out the truth.

* We’re probably meant to infer from the clinking of gold that Mr. Malfoy was trying to bribe the Minister, but I don’t think so. After all, a cunning politician such as Lucius wouldn’t just carry his bribe around like… Actually, wait, no, let’s not forget that this is a JK Rowling book, after all. Of course her characters would go around doing stupid things like that.

* Personally speaking, I’d rather manipulate the government by making generous donations to charity than by perverting the course of justice, but hey, that’s just me.

* “Dumbledore thinks that Fudge is acting of his own accord at the moment” – given that this is the man who failed to notice that one of his staff members was an impostor for the best part of an academic year, I’m not sure we can really trust his opinion on this matter.

* Again people seem to be assuming that wizards give a toss for due process and the rule of law, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

* Ron seems happy that Dumbledore’s intervention got Harry off, as opposed to worried that simply having a celebrity on your side is enough to swing it for you, or about what happens to people who Dumbledore doesn’t believe (guess he can ask Sirius about that last one).

* Fred and George’s chant is really annoying. If I didn’t know better, I’d assume they were twelve rather than seventeen.

* Once again, I can’t help but think that living in No. 12 can’t be worse than Sirius' experiences in Azkaban. Nevertheless, it is No. 12 that makes him all surly and moody, whereas he manages to stay (relatively) sane in Azkaban. Consistency? What’s that?

* It’s not surprising that Dumbledore can’t find anyone to fill the Defence post “when you look at what happened to the last four”. Err, shouldn’t that be the last twenty or so at least? (I don’t think we’re ever told exactly when Voldemort curses the DADA position, but it has to be before he starts his anti-Ministry war, which in turn must be a few years before Harry was born. Which makes me think – wasn’t it a bit irresponsible of Lily and James to have a child whilst involved on covert work for the Order of the Phoenix? They could have got killed at any time, and then who would look after the baby?)

* “‘Ron?’ said Hermione, her jaw dropping. ‘But… are you sure?’” Well done, Hermione, way to make Ron feel proud of his achievement. Clearly that girl respects him a lot. Of such things successful relationships are made.

* If the Weasleys can afford to buy Ron a new broom for becoming prefect, they either (a) don’t have much financial sense, or (b) aren’t as poor as they make everybody think.

* Nice to see Fred and George undermining Ron like that even before he gets to school. What a charming pair they are.

* Note how Hermione’s speaking “tentatively”, as if she’s worried Harry will lose his temper again. How on earth could the Prophet possibly make him look unbalanced?

* If Harry had thought about it, he’d have expected Dumbledore to make him a prefect. Well, I suppose being treated like the centre of the universe for four years is likely to do that to someone.

* Harry thinks indignantly that Ron and Hermione didn’t do as much as him, forgetting that this was usually because they’d already been injured helping him.

* It’s sad, but this probably is the first time Ron’s beaten Harry at something. And the last time. And even this time, Dumbledore later says that he’d have given the prefecture to Harry if Harry didn’t have so much to worry about anyway, so it doesn’t really count. Still, enjoy it while you can, Weasley: it’s the closest you’ll get to beating Harry at something. Ever.

* “I never thought it would be me! I thought it would be you!” Why is everyone acting like Ron and Harry are the only two boys in Gryffindor House? What about Neville, Dean and Seamus? Couldn’t Dumbledore have given the badge to one of them?

* Probably a good idea for Ron to lock his prefect badge away, given what Fred and George used to do to Percy’s.

* The trouble with using fantastic racism as a stand-in for real racism, as JKR seems to be doing with Hermione’s views on house-elves and werewolves, is that Potterverse races literally are different in a way that real-world races aren’t. Segregating people because of their skin colour = wrong. Segregating people because they regularly turn into dangerous animals = rather sensible, actually. Similarly with house-elves: they (or at least all of them apart from Dobby) literally want to be slaves, and literally cannot cope without a master or mistress telling them what to do. If Rowling wants to make some heavy-handed points about racism, she should probably find better analogues.

* “It all stems from this horrible thing wizards have of thinking they’re superior to other creatures,” says the girl who’ll end the series mind-wiping her parents and sending them to Australia.

* Buying illegal products in the same room as everybody else seems a bit incautious, I must say. Couldn’t they at least go to another room to do it?

* So even Kingsley is assuming that Harry was the natural choice for the prefecture, despite his insularity and lack of any real leadership skills whatsoever.

* I wonder if anybody deliberately buys brooms where the vibration control’s a bit dodgy…?

* The people in the photo have no idea they’re dead, unlike Percy, whose picture apparently knows that he’s had an argument with his father… Consistency? What consistency?

* This boggart scene just serves to illustrate how bad Lupin’s lesson on them in Book 3 was. “Defeat boggarts with laugher” is all very well when it turns into a variety of wacky monsters, but it’s quite hard to see the funny side in – say – all your family being horribly murdered.

* And now the long slog through the pre-Hogwarts chapters is finally over. Doing this read-through, I can’t help but think that OOTP is disgracefully padded.

 

Comments

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

I thought that Harry was an accident all along, but I also thought that Rowling had attempted to argue otherwise.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

Wasn't her argument the, 'Lily being a woman and you know how we women are' comment.

But I still don't know what she means by that because if I had been faced with a James Potter kinda dude abusing my best friend, I wouldn't have waited around yelling at him to let my friend go...If not myself tackling him I would have at least run to get an adult teacher.

What the hell was up with Lily needing to make a big show and yell stop?

Even if Severus was an ass, How the hell would I ever feel comfortable dating a guy like James after witnessing him abuse people? That just suggests that Lily really was a shallow cheerleader type girl only interested in looks and popularity and not this amazing woman.

Hell, Why else put on a mock show of wanting to defend your friend. A real friend would have tackled James Potter and beat the crap out of him without yelling stop.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know... it's not even like Lily wanted to help Snape but was too scared that the Marauders would turn on her instead, because she went up and flirted with James.

Credit to Rowling, though: Harry is (IIRC) shocked and appalled by his father's behaviour, so I think Rowling wanted us to judge James and Lily negatively. It doesn't explain why everyone in-universe thinks they're so great, though.

[fishinginthemud.livejournal.com]

I really wonder what Rowling was trying to accomplish by making James such a dick every single time he appears in a scene. Is it just supposed to drive home the point that everyone Harry likes is a good guy regardless of what they do, even when Harry acknowledges what dicks they are? I feel like she had a point she was trying to make by shaking up Harry's worldview like that, but of course it never went anywhere.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

I really don't get it either. I agree with you in that I also thought that the revelation that James was a vicious little bully was supposed to challenge Harry's beliefs and views on who was right and who was wrong. Instead, Harry angsts about it for a chapter and then forgets about it. He's never bothered about it again, not even when he sees how awful his father was the second time around in DH.

The fans weren't supposed to be bothered about it either. We were supposed to think that James was a bully, but that was okay, because he "grew out of it" and became the noble, loving father and husband that we'd thought he was. Even though there was no evidence for that assumption, since he and Lily got married right out of high school, died young, and he apparently kept hexing Snape behind her back even after he supposedly reformed.

But yes, James definitely changed for the better, or so the text says. Unlike Draco, who's always going to be a cowardly, prejudiced brat and Snape, who's always going to be bitter and unjustly angry at the man who tormented him for seven years and was the real reason why his only friend dumped him. It's not like *those* two ever changed or could have ever made up with Harry. *sighs*

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

JKR was too successful at "hiding" the friendship between Lily and Severus in that scene. When I read OotP, Lily didn't look to me like she even *might* be someone who cared about Severus. To me, she looked like (one reading of) Hermione helping Neville periodically in PS/SS: helping him, but kind of doing it to show off how either helpful or good at magic she was.

So, Lily (under that reading) isn't out to help Severus so much as to show herself off as someone who doesn't stand for that kind of thing. I didn't find it surprising that Severus would insult her, whatever his character might be like (although I wouldn't've predicted that he'd call her a Mudblood, which obviously *wasn't* called for).

Frankly, Lily *always* came across to me as clearly flirting with James in that scene. It's to Harry's credit that he didn't recognize it, since it isn't what I'd call healthy-relationship-flirting, but still flirting.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/JKR was too successful at "hiding" the friendship between Lily and Severus in that scene. When I read OotP, Lily didn't look to me like she even *might* be someone who cared about Severus. To me, she looked like (one reading of) Hermione helping Neville periodically in PS/SS: helping him, but kind of doing it to show off how either helpful or good at magic she was./

That's what I thought too, and that's why I couldn't understand why there were so many Lily/Snape fans after OotP. In no way did it seem like Lily and Snape knew each other personally in that scene. To me, Lily wasn't trying to help Snape (or, at least, trying to *appear* to be helping him) because he was her friend; she was just doing it because he was a student who needed help. That's all it was...or so I thought.

Then I read "The Prince's Tale" and I thought, "Wait a minute. You mean that the Lily/Snape fans were *right?* Seriously?" That's why the chapter felt like fanfiction to me.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. TPT was just...omg. I got the Lily/Snape vibe from POA (don't ask me where it came from there, but it did). The scene in OotP had me going 'wtf? I guess I was wrong in POA.' Because it was very much not a scene indicating friendship on Lily's part to me. DH just... arg. It read like very very BAD fanfiction.

What I don't understand is how JKR - who has *endorsed* the reading of that scene being Lily flirting with James - can still not see the huge problems it created for her story! But then, this is JKR.