GOF Chapter 18: The Weighing of the Wands

[oryx_leucoryx]

Oooh! Harry hates being the hero of Gryffindor now that Ron isn't talking to him! Hermione solves his dilemma by bringing him breakfast, so he can delay meeting the student body for a while. (Yes madderbrad, Hermione/Harry OTP, but only on Hermione's side.) Ah, at least Hermione believes him! (Not necessarily for the right reasons, though, because nothing really prevented Harry from placing his name in the goblet or arranging for it to be placed there. The hard part was arranging it for the Goblet to spout his name out.) But Ron - he is just jealous for the attention Harry is getting, that's it! Not because he thinks Harry selfishly went on an adventure without him, no, not at all. Hmm, I think there is much support for Harry/Ron here (and nice foreshadowing of Ron as the one Harry would miss the most). Hermione recognizes it, thus trying to do some damage control by claiming Ron doesn't really believe Harry entered of his own choice. (So far the trio shipping looks like: Ron->Hermione, Hermione->Harry, Harry->Ron. Which is why no pairings of 2 members of the trio in a mutual relationship looks like it could work.)

Hermione is practicing her Molly skills - nagging Harry into being sensible. He does listen, eventually, and writes to Sirius (3rd letter ever). Aww, Harry remembers to say he hopes Sirius and Buckbeak are OK. See, he can express thought of someone else once in a while. Why doesn't Hermione encourage Harry to talk to Dumbles? I suppose she already drank enough of his Kool-Aid to think that if there was anything Dumbles could do to help he'd already do it or something. I wish I could say she saw through Dumbles' game and realized he wasn't interested in Harry's survival, but her behavior in later books contradicts this.

The Hufflepuffs were usually on excellent terms with the Gryffindors - they didn't mind being ignored or thought of as duffers. Harry's Gryffindor thinking gets him believing the Hufflepuffs are bothered by their glory being stolen. No Harry, that's not what they are thinking. They are thinking you cheated, that's what bothers them. Had the rules said each school has 2 champions they'd have had no problem with you being the other one.

Now Hagrid wants the kids to take the skrewts for walkies. The beasts are now strong and hard to control, but Hagrid isn't supervising the class, he is just taking Harry aside for a private chat. BTW Hagrid believes Harry because Dumbledore does. Well, if Hagrid formed an unpopular opinion on his own we'd have had to suspect Harry has fallen into 'interesting creature' category. Oh and walking skrewts will certainly prepare the students for their OWLs next year.

Harry fails at Summoning Charms, just like Neville. (But apparently unlike Ron. Sometimes Ron does better than Harry at magic, but only when it doesn't matter to the plot and especially if the two of them are estranged so Harry doesn't have to worry about complimenting Ron.)

Harry notices how cute Cedric is. And how popular he had become with the girls. Is Harry just a bit jealous of Cedric or for Cedric? (Harry/Cedric OTP?)

It is now almost 2 weeks since Harry was chosen as champion - when the Potter stinks badges appear. BTW the message supporting Cedric is red, the message taunting Harry is green. So you'd know which House is associated with positive messages and which with negative ones. Draco is proud of his badges because with their morphing ability they are more advanced than Hermione's single-message SPEW ones. Draco/Hermione OTP! (Though since it is Harry's attention Draco seeks with the badges then it may indeed be Draco/Harry OTP.) Notice that almost all of Draco's more inventive ideas are inspired by Hermione? Badges, sending instructions to Rosmerta by charmed Galleon, smuggling poisoned mead into Hogwarts. Though using the cabinet was entirely his own.

Ron is standing with Dean and Seamus. Because he is a boy with normal social skills - when he doesn't get along with his best friend he has others to turn to. Ah, in typical style Draco managed to provoke Harry into hexing him. And he expected it, which is why he was ready to hex at the same time. Clashing hexes will appear again in this book, but will be different (because the wands involved will be 'brothers') and again in the finale of DH. What I don't understand is why does Harry's hex bounce to Goyle while Draco's bounce to Hermione. Had the spells clashed exactly head on, I'd expect each one to bounce on its caster. If they clashed at a slight angle, I could understand if Harry's spell had hit Hermione who was standing next to him, and Draco's had hit Goyle. But we can't have Harry hexing Hermione, even by accident, so Rowling shows us how she fails at physics once more. (In DH Tom's spell bounces exactly back at him while Harry's goes straight ahead and hits Tom too - that's a different variation of the same physics!fail. Harry should have disarmed himself. But that wouldn't look good, so it didn't happen.)

So, Hermione reacts to being (temporarily) facially disfigured in panic. This is a second time for her, after the Polyjuice mishap 2 years previously. She notes to herself that if she ever wants to hurt anyone badly she should go for the person's face.

Severus arrives and wants an explanation. Draco gives a truthful though very partial and one-sided explanation. Harry tries to add the missing details but it is Ron who forces Hermione to show her face to Severus. What a considerate way to treat his love. Meanwhile the Slytherin girls, while giggling, are making an effort to go unnoticed by Severus - their giggles are silent and they take care to remain behind his back. This tells me they know that their behavior wouldn't go down well with him if seen.

Severus' "I see no difference" has been interpreted many different ways by fans, but whatever he meant by it, the kids on both sides take it as an intentional insult and he does nothing to correct this impression. He has good reasons not to like Hermione's treatment of him over the years, but right here she was a bystander who became collateral damage, so that's most un-nice of him.

I'm not sure why Harry thinks it was lucky Severus couldn't hear what he and Ron called him. He knew they weren't complimenting him, and they ended up losing 50 points and serving detentions anyway. Harry is livid about the injustice done to him and Ron. Right, The-Boy-Who-Lived-To-Be-A-Champion should be allowed to yell and swear at his teacher. It's in the small print of the binding magical contract, I'm sure.

Note that neither Draco nor Harry gets punished for dueling. Because as Terri has shown under Dumbledore teachers are not allowed to punish students for rule-breaking the teacher did not witness hirself, unless the student confesses. Well, one can argue that in this case Harry did admit to hexing Draco. So Harry would be punished in any case. But the way it is presented, it seems that had Harry and Ron joined the class quietly neither would have been punished.

Poor Harry! Even this shared experience doesn't return Ron to him! Most definitely Harry/Ron, from Harry's side. Meanwhile Harry fantasizes of Cruciating Severus. Well, this degree of wanting revenge is certainly the evidence of how full of love he is. Dumbles is right, Harry was never-ever tempted by the Dark Arts, no way!

They were supposed to brew antidotes (to which poison? or are these general purpose, broad target antidotes, while the more specific ones are NEWTs level?), and Severus was going to poison one of them to see if hir antidote worked. He was going to randomly select Harry for this purpose, because those are the rules of this universe. And Harry was going to waste his antidote on some revenge fantasy. Lots of sense he has. Fortunately he is saved by Colin. Severus is not letting go of Harry easily, but eventually surrenders to the words of Bagman, as delivered by Colin. So whom did he poison?

Fleur has the attention of both Cedric and the photographer. But not Viktor. Maybe coming from Bulgaria he built up resistance to Veela charms? Or perhaps only a quarter-Veela wasn't enough for him? Or was he already head-over-heels in love with Hermione?

Turns out this wasn't just a photo-op, there's a wand-weighing ceremony coming too. But before that Harry has to endure his first interview with Rita Skeeter. In a broom cupboard. In the dark. Where Rita pushes him on a box. Hints of child-rape?

I wonder whose intelligence is operating the Quick Quotes Quill - Rita's or something spelled into it by its manufacturer. If Rita really is 43 then she was 2 or 3 years ahead of Lucius at Hogwarts, maybe around Molly and Arthur's age. Also Bellatrix's age. She probably knows from way back then how to get at these people if she wants to.

Dumbles shows up and stops the rape-by-quill. Aww, Rita wants to hear Dumbles' reaction to a piece in which she was nasty to him. She called him an obsolete dingbat. I wonder over what. Which of his ideas are now considered old-fashioned? Aren't we supposed to think Albus was ahead of his day in his pseudo-egalitarianism? Are the 'many wizards in the street' whom Rita considers her audience more exclusivist or more egalitarian than Albus?

Ollivander will check that the champions' wands are in good working order. Because a school champion might fail to notice hir wand not answering correctly. I find it a bit odd, but never mind. Of course Ollivander can only test that the wand is performing spells, he can't test the degree of mastery the champion has over hir wand. But since the whole mastery business is something Ollivander only learned in preparation for his encounter with Harry in DH (or a convenient lie he made up) he doesn't care about it now.

Wands have personalities. Which sort of match those of their owners. The wizarding world should employ wand-makers as Seers.

Fleur's wand is inflexible and temperamental. Cedric's is pleasantly springy. Viktor's is thick and rigid. Harry's was described in PS as 'nice and supple'. (And Harry is so supple Twinkly can bend and shape him whichever way.) Ollivander is so objective he likes wands he made himself more than those made by others.

Thanks to sistermagpie for the Freudian symbolism of the spells used to test respective wands, foreshadowing all the wand humor of DH. Fleur's wand, appropriately feminine in its shortness relative to the rest, produces flowers. Cedric's wand (which he polished the previous night!) only produces smoke rings, foreshadowing Cedric's death and appearance as shade (no grandchildren to hear of his victory over Harry, sigh), while Viktor's thicker wand lets out a blast like a gun. It also produces birds, though these aren't set to attack anyone. (Did Hermione learn this spell from Viktor?) Harry has yet to start polishing his wand in any frequency. That's why the spell Ollivander chooses for this wand is more reminiscent of urination than ejaculation, according to sistermagpie.

Of course the purpose of the whole ceremony is a page-long trip down memory lane in which Harry reminds us his wand is the brother of Tom's. (The longest wand of a human wizard as far as we know - and yes, Tom was human when he got the wand.)

The ceremony is followed by the promised photo-op. Wizards have no magical solution to getting a group photo of people of different heights. May I suggest a magical equivalent of Photoshop?

Hermione wasn't at dinner, and Harry assumes she was still getting her teeth fixed. The way she described it later on I doubt it took as long as that. Maybe she was spending time at the hospital wing accompanying Ron - the most likely to have been randomly selected for poisoning once Harry was unavailable. (And not very likely to have been capable of producing an antidote that worked.)

Sirius' reply arrived by owl - he wants to set up a meeting for firecalling because his info is top-secret. We know Sirius is now living practically next door. So why does it take him almost 2 weeks to reply, and why does he set the meeting for over a week ahead, only 2 days before the first task? Perhaps that's how long it took him to find a house he could make sure to be empty on that night.

Comments

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Yes madderbrad, Hermione/Harry OTP --



-- but only on Hermione's side.

But it's never from Harry's side. Your restriction on the blessed H/Hr OTP is overruled.

Not necessarily for the right reasons, though, because nothing really prevented Harry from placing his name in the goblet or arranging for it to be placed there.

Oryx, Oryx, your bias against that most magnificent of relationships, Harry/Hermione, is blinding you to the awesome foundation of the pairing, as established in this very chapter. Hermione didn't have to examine the 'reasons' or examine the mechanics of Harry's purported subterfuge - she knows her man boy. She KNOWS he didn't do it.



Ginny who? Right.

Aww, Harry remembers to say he hopes Sirius and Buckbeak are OK. See, he can express thought of someone else once in a while.

It's so nice when Harry is matured in fanfics such that he does this as a matter of course, isn't it? I read one the other day where he asks Hermione over the summer before HBP for some paper so he could write a letter of condolence to Susan Bones, over the death of her aunt. Things like that make Harry much more the noble man/hero that we would have liked to see in the books.

I wish I could say she saw through Dumbles' game and realized he wasn't interested in Harry's survival

Ah, but at this point Dumbles oh jeeze now you've got me doing it Dumbledore wants Harry to LIVE. Because it is essential that he 'try his strength', as we're told in DH. WHAT A LOAD OF RUBBISH.

Harry fails at Summoning Charms, just like Neville. (But apparently unlike Ron. Sometimes Ron does better than Harry at magic, but only when it doesn't matter to the plot --

Heh, never noticed that. Gawd that's artificial writing, isn't it? The universe moulding itself to Rowling's wishes so her plot could work out. This being a minor example of her laziness.

Still, Harry's incompetence provided for constant one-on-one action between Harry and Hermione SO I AM NOT COMPLAINING in this instance!

Is Harry just a bit jealous of Cedric or for Cedric? (Harry/Cedric OTP?)

Oh for goodness's sake!! It's Harry/Hermione. *points up*

Draco/Hermione OTP!

Oh now you're just taking the mickey!!

-- smuggling poisoned mead into Hogwarts --

What was Hermione's original analogue there?

If they clashed at a slight angle, I could understand if Harry's spell had hit Hermione who was standing next to him, and Draco's had hit Goyle.

What? No, that doesn't make sense. A 'slight angle' would create a *slight* deviation, so Harry's curse would bend only slightly, hitting someone standing next to Draco; not the almost full one hundred and eighty degrees that you're describing! No, that makes sense.

But we can't have Harry hexing Hermione, even by accident

AGREED.

In DH Tom's spell bounces exactly back at him while Harry's goes straight ahead and hits Tom too - that's a different variation of the same physics!fail.

No matter what we say about that a Jo apologist will just wave his hands and proclaim SECRET ELDER WAND MAGICK!! Which I do think was the idea for that one; Rowling's narrative explains that the Elder Wand refused to strike 'the master it would not kill'. That's the master it had killed just an hour earlier in the forest. Yeah.

So the second blow is explained, but just puts more FAIL in the forest event.

Thanks to sistermagpie for the Freudian symbolism of the spells used to test respective wands ... That's why the spell Ollivander chooses for this wand is more reminiscent of urination than ejaculation, according to sistermagpie.

Oh for goodness's sake. Sometimes you look too hard into things. Or are you joking? I hope so. Eww.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Oh now you're just taking the mickey!!

What else? :) (I'm just using the kind of stuff shippers of all kinds in fandom use as support. You can justify almost any combination of characters that ever got mentioned on the same page.)

What was Hermione's original analogue there?

Draco got the idea of smuggling in poisoned mead when he overheard Hermione warning Harry that Filch can't detect adulterated liquids and that girls are having love potions smuggled in, disguised as cough syrups or something.

Or are you joking?

As I said, this chapter foreshadows the wand humor of DH. It's Rowling's level of humor that is a problem.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Oh now you're just taking the mickey!!

What else? :)

Look, you can joke about any other pairing you like, but not Harry/Hermione. That relationship is not a joking matter. Okay? Please? :-)

As I said, this chapter foreshadows the wand humor of DH. It's Rowling's level of humor that is a problem.

I seriously don't recall any 'wand humour' in DH. Other than Rowling's whole artificial deus ex machina and inverted wand lore being a (bad) joke. But that's not something she would have intended.

So I'm still of the opinion that some HP fans try too hard to find wand/phallic humour in the books. Unless there's obvious wand jokes that I've forgotten, I only read DH once.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Well, addressing this would require the painful experience of either (or both) of us rereading DH, which is a bit much. But I recall Tom visibly comparing the length of his original wand with the one he took from Lucius. I recall when Hermione denied the existence of the Elder Wand she said some wizards said theirs was bigger than others'. Of course Harry/Draco shippers like to point out how friendly Draco's wand felt in Harry's hand, and I'm not sure if they are being serious or funny.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

The sexual innuendo is funny, but the fact that Draco's wand had such an affinity for Harry is srs bsns.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Well, addressing this would require the painful experience of either (or both) of us rereading DH, which is a bit much.

True. You remind me of an on-line friend who, at the peak of our critical analysis of DH resolved to re-read DH ... but she wasn't able to do it in the end. And I don't blame her. Or us.

Thanks for your recollection of those two scenes; I did a quick search and found them:

"Your wand, Lucius. I require your wand."

"I …"

Malfoy glanced sideways at his wife. She was staring straight ahead, quite as pale as he was, her long blonde hair hanging down her back, but beneath the table her slim fingers closed briefly on his wrist. At her touch, Malfoy put his hand into his robes, withdrew a wand, and passed it along to Voldemort, who held it up in front of his red eyes, examining it closely.

"What is it?"

"Elm, my Lord," whispered Malfoy.

"And the core?"

"Dragon – dragon heartstring."

"Good," said Voldemort. He drew out his wand and compared the lengths. Lucius Malfoy made an involuntary movement; for a fraction of a second, it seemed he expected to receive Voldemort’s wand in exchange for his own. The gesture was not missed by Voldemort, whose eyes widened maliciously.

"Give you my wand, Lucius? My wand?"

Some of the throng sniggered.

and

"The Deathstick, the Wand of Destiny, they crop up under different names through the centuries, usually in the possession of some Dark wizard who’s boasting about them. Professor Binns mentioned some of them, but -- oh it's all nonsense. Wands are only as powerful as the wizards who use them. Some wizards just like to boast that theirs are bigger and better than other people's"

Meh. I can't see any 'wand humour' in either of those two quotes. I think some people just go looking for things and are predisposed to find them upon the slightest pretext - phallic humour, homosexuality, Ginny Weasley soulmate apptitude ... :-)

[oryx_leucoryx]

Oh for goodness's sake!! It's Harry/Hermione. *points up*

No, it's Hermion/Harry. And Harry/Ron. Everything is one sided like that.

What? No, that doesn't make sense. A 'slight angle' would create a *slight* deviation

A slight deviation from being bounced directly back at their casters.

No matter what we say about that a Jo apologist will just wave his hands and proclaim SECRET ELDER WAND MAGICK!! Which I do think was the idea for that one; Rowling's narrative explains that the Elder Wand refused to strike 'the master it would not kill'. That's the master it had killed just an hour earlier in the forest. Yeah.


The completely unnecessary explanation is about why Tom's spell didn't hit Harry, not about why Harry's spell didn't hit Harry.

Imagine spells as rays of particles. If they clash they rebound - each on its own originator.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

"A slight deviation from being bounced directly back at their casters."

Not necessarily: if the spell just glanced off each other, they could have their direction changed but not enough to stop them from going in a generally forward direction.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

No, it's Hermion/Harry. And Harry/Ron. Everything is one sided like that.

Sadly I have to agree with you. Well, everything but the Harry/Ron. But yeah, the H/Hr friendship was lopsided. And the 'anvil sized hints' as to R/Hr was all going one-way too, all Ron's jealousy towards Hermione's suitors, there was nothing romantic in Hermione's attitude to Ron.

I'll allow that Harry prized Ron's friendship as slightly higher than Hermione's, if you dig out the microscope - in the grand scheme of things they were both his 'best friends' - but there was nothing romantic about it IMO.

[oryx_leucoryx]

I'll allow that Harry prized Ron's friendship as slightly higher than Hermione's, if you dig out the microscope - in the grand scheme of things they were both his 'best friends' - but there was nothing romantic about it IMO.

I doubt Rowling intended Harry to be anything other than straight, but when she adds almost complete Veela-resistance (he only fell under that influence once, didn't even notice it later) to his 'specialness' and he pays so much attention to the appearance and body language of some boys I can see where some people get gay vibes from him.

[fishinginthemud.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm positive Rowling didn't intend Harry to sound at all gay. She comes off just as cluelessly self-centered as he is, and would be shocked at the suggestion.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

>>>>...but when she adds almost complete Veela-resistance (he only fell under that influence once, didn't even notice it later) to his 'specialness' and he pays so much attention to the appearance and body language of some boys I can see where some people get gay vibes from him.

In addition to that, she just didn't write him as believably interested in girls. Lavender and Parvati, for instance, are just giggly airheads in his eyes. His reaction to his first kiss is that it was "wet." His interest in Ginny seems to be mostly driven by his jealousy that she's dating Dean. And he spends weeks in a tent with just Hermione and never sees her as anything more than a sister.

I'm sure she envisioned Harry as straight; she just did a crappy job of writing him that way. I'm not sure if it's because she didn't know how to convey sexual desire in a children's book, or if it's because she kept him in the "girls have cooties" stage of emotional development for too long, or if it's because she couldn't get out of her own head enough to realize that a typical teenage boy's reactions to various girls might sometimes be very different from her own reactions. Jo might have felt nothing but contempt for girls like Lavender and Parvati when she was a teenager, but Harry should have noticed whether or not they had big boobs.

Harry and best friends

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

Harry is presented as being so self-centred in the series that being his best friend was not much of a status. I would say that Hagrid was the one he was prepared to make the biggest sarifices for without expecting much in return.

[fishinginthemud.livejournal.com]

the Elder Wand refused to strike 'the master it would not kill'. That's the master it had killed just an hour earlier in the forest.

But it didn't really kill him. It knew he wouldn't really die, honest. It was just playing! He's the hero, he can't die!

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

He's the hero, he can't die!



And that's what ... that's what ... no, I can't say it ... give me a moment ...

thatswhatdidit.

Yeah.

"You won't be killing anyone else tonight," said Harry as they circled, and stared into each other's eyes, green into red. "You won't be able to kill any of them ever again. Don't you get it? I was ready to die to stop you from hurting these people - "

"But you did not!"

" - I meant to, and that's what did it."

WHAT A LOAD OF RUBBISH.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

Actually, I thought that was one of the few things in DH that made sense. Harry thought he was going to die, so his thought processes were all exactly the same as they would have been if he had genuinely been killed. That what he sacrificed was later given back to him in no way invalidates the original sacrifice itself.

[karentheunicorn.livejournal.com]

LOL!!

Wait, didn't that AK spell bounch again, if I remember rightly wasn't Voldemort knocked out to or something? I need to go back and read but I seem to remember Bellatrix hovering over Voldie as he was getting up or something.

So, apparently that AK spell the elder wand cast actually killed the VoldieBit that was in Harry - but since when does an AK only kill part of a persons soul?

We're to assume that Voldie has broken his soul into these bits of Horcuxes. Yet a AK when it kills you, it kills you full dead but this AK apparently only went after the Voldie bits and not the Harry bits. So if this Voldie bit was attached to harry's soul then by right shouldn't harry have died as well?

I still think it sounds like the Princess Bride - He's only mostly dead.

But also we sorta see the actual physical Voldie knocked out to, or at least knocked down. So how did that happen being that Harry didn't send out any kind of spell.

So what gives?

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

ut also we sorta see the actual physical Voldie knocked out to, or at least knocked down. So how did that happen being that Harry didn't send out any kind of spell.

I assumed that was the blood link draining him to keep Harry alive. He doesn't show the same reaction when Nagini dies.

So, apparently that AK spell the elder wand cast actually killed the VoldieBit that was in Harry - but since when does an AK only kill part of a persons soul?

We're to assume that Voldie has broken his soul into these bits of Horcuxes. Yet a AK when it kills you, it kills you full dead but this AK apparently only went after the Voldie bits and not the Harry bits. So if this Voldie bit was attached to harry's soul then by right shouldn't harry have died as well?

Whose theory was it that the Deathly Hallows were genuinely Death's artifacts, and the Elder Wand is so offended by Voldemort's immense efforts to achieve immortality that it takes whatever opportunities it can get to kill him?

[mmmarcusz.livejournal.com]

Now Hagrid wants the kids to take the skrewts for walkies. The beasts are now strong and hard to control, but Hagrid isn't supervising the class, he is just taking Harry aside for a private chat. BTW Hagrid believes Harry because Dumbledore does.

Didn't Dumbledore also believe Quirrell?

[oryx_leucoryx]

Did he? Hard to tell. Did he bring the Stone to Hogwarts and invite Quirrell to be among its protectors because he trusted him or because he wanted to make sure Quirrell knew where the Stone was so as to be caught in Albus' clever trap? He did tell Severus to watch Quirrell early on, bu again it isn't clear if he ever told Severus anything else about Quirrell.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/The beasts are now strong and hard to control, but Hagrid isn't supervising the class, he is just taking Harry aside for a private chat./

And Harry and Co. wonder why nobody else defends Hagrid when Rita Skeeter writes an article about him. One of the last things that a teacher should be is negligent. And not only is this risky and dangerous, it's pointless because skrewts won't be covered on the exams. *sighs*

/Ron is standing with Dean and Seamus. Because he is a boy with normal social skills - when he doesn't get along with his best friend he has others to turn to./

Yeah, I did think that it was funny the first time that I read it, considering that we haven't seen Ron interact with Dean and Seamus that much before this point. We're always led to believe that Ron only hangs out with Hermione and Harry, but this book proves that that isn't true. I wonder if Ron ever complains about Harry and Hermione to Seamus and Dean.

/She notes to herself that if she ever wants to hurt anyone badly she should go for the person's face./

Which is why she scars Marietta's face and sends vicious birds at Ron's face. Either she has no sense of empathy or she's slowly becoming brainwashed by the wizarding world's lax attitude to harm and torture.

[night-axe.livejournal.com]

Meanwhile the Slytherin girls, while giggling, are making an effort to go unnoticed by Severus - their giggles are silent and they take care to remain behind his back. This tells me they know that their behavior wouldn't go down well with him if seen.

Agreed. The fanon idea that the Slytherins are his little Dudleys, who misbehave under his doting eye and get high grades without earning them, has no textual support. It's not that he's unbiased: he'll praise a Slytherin who's done well but not a Gryffindor, for instance. But he expects his students to show discipline, and they wouldn't respect him otherwise.

Aww, Rita wants to hear Dumbles' reaction to a piece in which she was nasty to him. She called him an obsolete dingbat.I wonder over what. Which of his ideas are now considered old-fashioned? Aren't we supposed to think Albus was ahead of his day in his pseudo-egalitarianism?

Rita is clearly supposed to be the kind of unethical journalist who makes shit up without compunction (http://nosleeptilbrooklands.blogspot.com/2011/01/true-story-of-daily-mail-lies-guest.html). But since there's no legitimate forum for critiquing DD, she comes out looking like a much-needed counterweight to his relentless personality cult.

Perhaps "obsolete" was simply a jab at his age? Or she's implying his egalitarianism (such as it is) is outmoded, because us modern wizards know inferior races are inferior, q.v. the Ministry fountain?

[oryx_leucoryx]

he'll praise a Slytherin who's done well but not a Gryffindor, for instance.

And even that doesn't happen that often. I can only recall one instance of praise to Draco in the entire series. (Of course we don't know what he says away from Harry's ears.)

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

>> Thanks to sistermagpie for the Freudian symbolism of the spells used to test respective wands, foreshadowing all the wand humor of DH. Fleur's wand, appropriately feminine in its shortness relative to the rest, produces flowers. Cedric's wand (which he polished the previous night!) only produces smoke rings, foreshadowing Cedric's death and appearance as shade (no grandchildren to hear of his victory over Harry, sigh), while Viktor's thicker wand lets out a blast like a gun. It also produces birds, though these aren't set to attack anyone. (Did Hermione learn this spell from Viktor?) Harry has yet to start polishing his wand in any frequency. That's why the spell Ollivander chooses for this wand is more reminiscent of urination than ejaculation, according to sistermagpie. <<

JKR's idea of humour is often so warped it's nauseating. I won't bore anyone by reiterating that a wand should never ever both be a phallic symbol and used by witches.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

I won't bore anyone by reiterating that a wand should never ever both be a phallic symbol and used by witches.

Since I'm maintaining that the wand *isn't* a phallic symbol in the series - that's just the preconceived external notions that folks are bringing into it - I'm going to steal this point of yours and use it as additional proof. Thank you. :-)