OOTP Chapter Ten: "Luna Lovegood"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

 

* Harry wakes up late and has to rush to avoid missing the train. Apparently wizards have not yet invented alarm clocks.

* Indeed, so late is he that he apparently doesn’t have time to get washed.

* Such a pity that Ginny didn’t break her neck as she fell down the stairs; it would have been kinder than being turned into JKR’s favourite Mary Sue and then yoked to Harry for the rest of her life.

* Harry hates having to go with a guard. TBH I wouldn’t be surprised if the guard hate it, too. “Babysitting the Chosen One today, Sturgis? Bad luck. Try telling him your best friend was in Slytherin, he won’t try to speak to you after that.”

* “How Muggles can stand travelling without magic…” I doubt this is the intention, but every time a wizard talks about how difficult Muggles must find things without magic, they just end up looking really spoilt and entitled, a bit like people who wonder how anyone managed before TV and the internet were invented.

* Sirius scaring the local cats is a source of great entertainment to Harry. For a Christ-metaphor overflowing with love, he can come across as rather sadistic sometimes.

* If Sirius is going to go out with Harry, he should at least try and keep a low profile. Standing on his hind legs and placing his paws on Harry’s shoulders is not a very responsible thing to do.

* Once again, Hermione and Ron look nervous at telling Harry anything with even the slightest chance of upsetting him. Seriously, they should find themselves a better friend.

* Ron seems so defensive about being made a prefect. TBH I have to question Dumbledore’s judgement in giving the position to someone who clearly isn’t going to enjoy it.

* “‘I’m not Percy,’ he finished defiantly.” No, worse luck; Percy might actually have something useful to bring to the Trio.

* Luna’s here! :) Luna’s always been one of my favourite characters; her “I’m so weird act” may obviously be a way of getting attention, but it’s better than, say, bat-bogey-hexing everyone who annoys you.

* I wonder what it says about Harry that the only thing he can think of about Neville is that he once got a Remembrall five years ago?

* So what exactly is the point with Neville’s new cactus? I don’t think it appears at all later in the books. Is it just to give Harry an opportunity to angst about how Cho finds him covered in pus?

* Note how Harry’s embarrassed to be seen with Neville and Luna Lovegood. Normal teenage behaviour, but Harry’s not supposed to be a normal teenager, he’s supposed to be a Christ-metaphor, and Christ spent far more time with unpopular outcasts than he did with very cool people.

* Ginny waits till Cho’s gone before cleaning away the Stinksap. Could it be that she was intentionally waiting till Cho had gone to make Harry look bad in front of her, and thereby reduce the chances of her stealing away Ginny’s future husband?

* Of course Malfoy’s the Slytherin prefect, says Ron. After all, we can’t expect JK Rowling to come up with another Slytherin character to give the job to. Conservation of detail, and all that.

* Pansy Parkinson is “a complete cow”, according to Hermione. I’m still not sure what she’s done to merit the trio’s dislike, aside from being in Slytherin. Although in JKR’s mental universe, that’s probably enough.

* She’s also “thicker than a concussed troll”, apparently, giving yet another example of Slytherin seeming less the House of cunning people, and more the House of racist thugs. If Slytherin really were for cunning people, we’d expect members to have a fair degree of intelligence, even if it’s not the academic kind.

* Luna’s little sally into the conversation is enough to make Ginny stuff her knuckles into her mouth to stop herself from giggling. Either Ginny’s easily amused, or JKR is just desperate to make us think of Luna as a funny character, but cannot in fact write her as such.

* I like how Ron’s first thought is to use his position to get at people he didn’t like. Still think he was a better choice than Dean or Seamus, Dumbledore?

* I think (hope) that Luna actually is taking the Mickey here.

* “How Far Will Fudge Go to Gain Gringotts?” Quite far, if he’s sensible enough to realise that placing your entire financial system in the hands of a people who’ve consistently rebelled against you for the past few centuries is a rather bad idea.

* “Cornelius ‘Goblin-Crusher’ Fudge” is quite a cool nickname, I think. A pity we don’t hear him called it more often.

* Apparently it doesn’t occur to Harry that it might not be a good idea to antagonise the new Slytherin prefect.

* For that matter, given that the Trio’s got the better of Malfoy and Co. every time they’ve clashed, why do they apparently hate them so much? If anything, they should have come to look down on Draco, Crabbe and Goyle as being beneath their notice, and ignore them accordingly.

* Even though Draco’s got a much better reason to dislike Harry than Harry has to dislike Draco, he doesn’t give Harry a detention, even when Harry insults him in front of his friends. This seems rather inconsistent with Hermione’s report of power-mad!Draco bullying the normal students.

* Hagrid’s not here. Enjoy it while you can, chaps; he’ll be back with a vengeance in Chapter Twenty.

* Malfoy, being a bad guy, doesn’t have friends, only “cronies”. Because it’s impossible for anyone who doesn’t like Harry to have ordinary friendships with other people. Clearly.

* So wait, Dumbledore has a load of flesh-eating monsters pull carriages full of excited schoolchildren who can’t see them and don’t even know they’re there? Why haven’t there been any accidents?

Comments

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

Well, she's pug-faced and doesn't get her man, so that's the worst destiny ever! What more do you want?

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

(AND childish, AND pathetic - I mean, how old are you, Jo? Ten?)


Maybe I'm just dumb and not adult enough to get it, but if I was a writer and EVEN if I did make a character to resemble someone I hated, ya know, just to get revenge. There would be no way in HELL I'd ever tell anyone.

Because what you end up with is someone you hate getting some fame when they find out what you did.

I just find it rather curious for an adult to come up with an answer in an iterview that is something like...Oh I made this character to get revenge on the girls who were mean to me at school.

It's sounds kinda silly doesn't it.

I would think if I was a writer I wouldn't want to share my fame by suggesting I got inspiration from someone who was horrible to me.

[snapes-witch.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'm just dumb and not adult enough to get it, but if I was a writer and EVEN if I did make a character to resemble someone I hated, ya know, just to get revenge. There would be no way in HELL I'd ever tell anyone.

Because what you end up with is someone you hate getting some fame when they find out what you did.

Which is exactly what happened when she revealed that John Nettleship, her chemistry teacher, was the main inspiration for that nasty Prof. Snape.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

Jo's 'revenge' sounds rather empty to me (AND childish, AND pathetic - I mean, how old are you, Jo? Ten?).

I was thinking the same thing, reading this thread.

Jo Rowling couldn't have been more bullied than *I* was in school, hell I had GANGS of girls targeting me, and it often was more than just verbal.

But I didn't give a single one of them a thought once I was out of school because none of them was worth me expending that much emotional energy on. I definitely wouldn't give any one of them validation by making them a character in a story I wrote, horrid tho the character may be.

And what's funny is that in the years immediately after graduation I'd periodically run into one of my ex-bullies, then another. And to a person, they all acted like a long-lost friend and wanted to be buddies!

Once I was in a certain organization, I'd joined a few months previously and had made friends there, we were jokingly referred to as "The Peanut Gallery" because we'd joke around and make funny comments to the group, etc.

One night, in walks a gal who'd been one of my worst bullies in school; this was now like 4 or 5 years since graduation. She'd just joined this organization but didn't know anyone, then she spotted me. Came right over and sat with me and my new friends, acted liked we'd been almost sisters, she actually started to suck up to me!

Over the following weeks she'd continue to sit with me at these meetings, and kept pressuring me that we should get together on our own, go out to discos and clubs and such on our own.

I was polite enough to her, but I DID NOT LIKE HER! LOL

This whole 180-degree turn that I saw in my ex-bullies showed to me what herd animals they all were, and once the herd was broken up, they were lost. But I did have to give them credit, for making *me* emotionally and intellectually independent.

I don't know if these ex-bullies thought I should be grateful that they were now extending what they considered a hand of friendship, when in fact it was the pathetic grasping of lost souls who'd never developed a healthy sense of self, and so they grasped at what they saw as a "steady rock" as they sunk.

And perhaps I *was* a "steady rock" compared to them...but not one of them had a decent personality, nor enough intellect to fill a thimble. I was never mean to any of them, I felt enough sympathy for them to spare them what they'd done to me. But there wasn't a one of them I wanted to be friends with.

And as I said, not one of them is worth me creating a character in their image! LOL

[https://me.yahoo.com/a/gNLVidA.xeLuPiOU_2B_USM.HYNFjA--#b0b6b (from livejournal.com)]

I think JK's actual words on Pansy were that she embodies all the girls who ever teased her at school. So really, Pansy was in the books just to say mean things, which of course meant she had to be ugly as well and get the occasional schoolgirl comeuppance.

Interestingly, the context I remember this from is a post-DH interview where JK was asked if Draco ended up marrying Pansy. JK's answer was very emphatic:
"No! God, it wasn't Pansy Parkinson. I loathe Pansy Parkinson. I don't love Draco but I really dislike her. She's every girl who ever teased me at school. She's the Anti-Hermione. I loathe her. Yeah, sorry! Sidetracked there by my latent bitterness."

By this I assume JK believes that women who were a bit unpleasant when they were young either don't deserve to get married, or don't deserve to marry rich men of the calibre of Draco.

Speaking of mean girls, in hindsight this is the first place I began to dislike Ginny. For all that she's Luna's "friend" and is allegedly "nice" to her, she has no qualms about calling her "Loony Lovegood" behind her back, even though she'll snap at anyone else who does the same.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

THIS.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Actually, the woman lies like a rug and I wouldn't take anything she spouts in an interview as anything more than an attempt to sound clever.

Pansy Parkinson is obviously Ethel Hallow from the 'Worst Witch' books. It's a school story, so that particular stock character is necessary for verisimilitude.

The Worst Witch books are old enough that Rowling might have read them as a kid. Not that she'd ever admit it. She carefully never admitted to having read any author who wasn't dead until she mentioned (I think) Terry Prachet and Philip Pullman.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

You know, I think the interviews were the thing that really started me down the road of being an anti-fan. To see that an author that I had adored previously start saying such horrible and unlikeable things made me really start to question the worldview of the series in general. There were always things about it that bothered me (muggle treatment, anybody?), but I ignored it because I was young and believed that she was really writing a great story of good triumphing over evil. I loved Hermione at that time, oddly enough, but looking back on it she seems, like Lisa Simpson (another childhood hero of mine) to have been a miserable, self-righteous know it all. I have to wonder what I was thinking sometimes. The sad thing is that none of my friends seem to have realized this, so I probably just seem like a spoil-sport to them.

I also question the maturity of an author "loathing" their own character, since to me that implies an unwillingness to sympathize with them and thus be able to look through their eyes enough to make them a well-rounded, believable character. By no means am I an amazing writer myself, but at least I can sympathize with all my characters, even if I dislike what they do. To me, this is critical for making a story filled with living, breathing people. If one only focuses on the hero to the exclusion of everybody else, it comes off as one special person living in a world filled with cardboard cutouts.

Also, why is it Pansy that gets all of her hatred? If she is going to hate anybody, shouldn't it be somebody who is actually evil, like, uh... maybe Voldemort?

Sorry for the novel...

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

What's wrong with being a know-it-all? :p

Certainly people who actually know things are thin on the ground in these books...

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

There is a difference between knowing a lot and being a know-it-all, I think. Knowing a lot usually comes with a fair amount of humbleness because one recognizes how much that one doesn't know yet. Know-it-alls are naturally arrogant because they, by definition, believe that they know it all. ;-)

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

I know NOTHING, I am merely the messenger.


Now if someone can tell me what movie that is a quote from, they win the internet...for today.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

Knowing a lot usually comes with a fair amount of humbleness because one recognizes how much that one doesn't know yet.

"Usually" being the operative word, I take it.

*Hugs the Sixth Doctor*

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

Yes, but the Doctor could get away with it because, well, he's the Doctor. Hermione is no Doctor. ;-)

[mmmarcusz.livejournal.com]

So really, Pansy was in the books just to say mean things, which of course meant she had to be ugly as well and get the occasional schoolgirl comeuppance.

I can't really recall her doing anything mean. She just doesn't have enough screentime for it.

[dracasadiablo.livejournal.com]

She laughed at Hermione when Draco made her teeth grow, clearly a horrible thing to do. While laughing at the fellow student who is transformed into an animal and slammed into the things repeatedly is perfectly o.k. /sarcasm

And once she said to Harry something like "Potter I heard that ________(insert Slytherin's quidditch player name here) will aim a Bludgers at you."

That's all I remember.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

I think she also said nasty things about Hermione in one of Rita Skeeter's GOF interviews, but that's about it.

[sunnyskywalker]

And she insulted Angelina's hair, but that was almost too childish to believe in a girl her age (not to mention really awkward, what with JKR trying to imply Pansy was racist by insulting Angelina's hairstyle without then ever bothering to show wizards particularly caring about Muggle-style human races again, being too hung up on failing at being very prejudiced against halfbloods and all).