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deathtocapslock2006-06-23 03:20 pm
sistermagpie.livejournal.com) wrote in deathtocapslock2006-06-23 03:20 pm
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HBP Chapter Fifteen
*Wow, it’s one of those chapters that actually has something related to the plot in it!
*Of course we’ll have to sit through pages and pages of love shenanigans first.
*Girls are gathering under the mistletoe whenever Harry approaches. And just yesterday I read yet another post on how reading HP helps people deal with being an outcast. I guess because it assures them that eventually they’ll be the dishiest boy in school too.
*Lavender’s already having a terrible influence on Ron. He’s happy and confident. Somebody do something!
*Plus, Harry has to put up with Lavender, which must be a real pain. He’s used to the hassle of having to avoid hoards of admirers, but has very little experience having to spend time with people not on his personal staff who don’t care about him much.
*Harry does not agree with Ron when Ron says he’s done nothing wrong by snogging a girl who wants to snog him even though it makes the other girl angry, which is what I think most guys would do. Straight guys, anyway. However, nor does Harry commiserate with Hermione about how men are cads, like a gay friend would. The mystery lives on!
*Romilda Vane has officially become “that Romilda Vane.”
*Ah, Romilda and her friends plotting with Love Potions takes me back to my high school days. Tons of girls dying to put out and having to drug a guy to do it.
*Harry’s been dreaming about Ginny in ways Ron wouldn’t like. You’re right Harry. Ron would probably be very upset that you were having dreams where your sister turned into Tom Riddle and had sex with you.
*I love the way whenever Harry’s mind is actually making a connection he has to speak slowly because it’s just that difficult.
*Fred and George have an official method of circumventing security at Hogwarts. I expect this is far from the only way they’re undermining the efforts of the good side. All for a good cause, though. Money!
*One day Hermione really must publish her Bizarro Ethics in a book. Slipping a drug into someone’s drink is just as bad as pretending to, really. And nothing like slipping a hex onto someone’s parchment. Or slipping a Potion into someone’s cupcake.
*After muttering darkly about the horrible dangers Harry faces at the hands of 15-year-old Romilda and her Love Potions, Hermione rolls her eyes when Harry brings up that stupid attempted murder that happened the other day. When Harry Potter makes your priorities look wonky, you really need to think about your priorities.
*Something that’s just been put in the wrong bottle won’t register on the sensors. This is surely the part where Hermione the tattletale who wants the rules to run smoothly will go to Dumbledore and point out this flaw, right? Because somebody did just try to slip a deadly object into the school? Oh, of course she won’t. Hermione never enforces the rule when there’s an actual good reason to. If it were Harry who was being targeted for murder maybe, but she can’t be caring about any and all potential murders in the school. The target might be someone who deserves it, like a Slytherin.
*I’m very much against the many Polyjuice theories in HBP, but I do kind of love the idea that Pince is really Draco here, if only because imitating her would probably be the high point in a rather grim year for him. It was him who made the original noise, right? Was he just able to slip/slither away quietly before Pince came out of the same row?
*Hermione makes sure to get in a few jabs at Harry for trusting his HBP book. She’s already begun checking ISPs. Msscribe is the Half-Blood Prince!
*Why am I not surprised we’re told, rather than shown, Harry and Hermione having a funny conversation about whether or not Pince and Filch are in love with each other? Like these two could pull that off.
*"Told you," Hermione said, succinctly. Oh JKR. Succinctly? Really? Was there no editor to take that one out?
*Something must be wrong with me. I’m not rooting for Ron and Hermione to get together at all.
*The class is studying the immensely difficult human transformation in class, amazingly managing to make Tonks even more pointless and redundant than she already was.
*Hermione reveals, to no one’s surprise, that she can dish it out but can’t take it. Ron reminds us that if you scratch the surface of any good character in canon, you find an inner Draco Malfoy doing impressions or being a bigot.
*Luna says she’s noticed Ron can be a bit unkind, which frankly sounds like another one of those, "Listen up, the author is telling you how you should be judging these characters!" If you want me to think of Ron as unkind you might want to stop setting him in the middle of a universe full of vipers. Did Luna not notice Hermione permanently marking one of her housemates, or was that not unkind?
*The authorial voice then hops into Harry’s head to tell us that Luna speaks uncomfortable truths and is unlike anyone our hero has ever met. Just in case you thought that Luna only speaks uncomfortable truths when they get her attention and is only as unique as the stereotype she’s based on.
* Ginny stopped two boys from calling Luna Looney in class and OMG Harry asked her to the party as just friends! How have these kids not gotten together yet? What with the two of them wandering around on such an exalted moral level all alone?
*Harry is keen to make his intention clear; they’re going to the party just as friends. That is, as much as a super cool person and somebody inferior can be friends, which is not much. Just wait until Ginny gives her approval, proving how kind she, too, is to the little people!
*And now the whole school knows who Harry’s taking to the party. Because Harry’s really freaking popular. He never reads the book series about himself or discusses it on the Internet.
*Ron can’t believe Harry’s passing up possible sex to take a platonic date to the party. Gee, Ron, I don’t find that suspicious at all! Harry’s just waiting for the right girl!
*Ginny scolds Ron for using the name "Loony" while not being Ginny herself and reports that Luna is pathetically "really excited" about the party. Harry and Ginny bond over the kind of social charity only the truly popular can understand.
*Parvati seems guilty at having laughed at Hermione in Transfigurations, which is pretty amazing given that Hermione’s never been anything but cold and judgmental to Parvati. Once again a person with a normal level of compassion and goodwill sneaks into the book under the author’s radar.
*Slughorn’s party sounds really good…? We’ll just have to take Parvati’s word on this.
*Thank goodness Ron and Hermione are even again. He’s done a mean impression of her jumping up and down in her seat, and she’s used his most painful humiliations against him.
*Based on my experience with similar couples, thirty years from now Hermione and Ron will *still* be fighting over Hermione kissing Viktor Krum when she was 15.
*Parvati and Lavender are renowned gossips, yet somehow have missed the fact that Hermione has asked Cormac to the party to make Ron jealous. Everyone’s powers of observations must be below Harry’s.
*Harry is left to ponder the depths girls will sink to get revenge. I love it when Harry comments on the sexism of his own universe. I’m a girl. I know what we’re like!
*But wait, we’re not finished humiliating the girls of Hogwarts just yet! A crowd shows up to glare at Harry resentfully as he walks off with Luna!
*Luna says something blatantly untrue, but as it’s not an untruth about Harry he sees no reason to correct it. Remember, people who tell untruths about other people are quirky and fun. People who tell untruths about Harry are The Enemy. Also remember Luna is all about speaking the truth.
*Slughorn decks out his party in mostly Gryffindor colors. Nice touch. He sees the way the wind blows.
*I don’t think there’s a single reference to Slughorn’s weight that I remember in this chapter. Given that he’s dressed in a velvet smoking jacket and a fez, that must have taken some self-restraint. I almost wonder if JKR originally conceived him as a Hugh Hefner type (with a thing for boys) first and only later decided to reinforce the overindulgent/obese stereotype.
*A gaggle of girls stands around Sanguini, looking excited. Is this some sort of vampire power, or is it just more stupid girls who are into bad boys?
*Hermione shocks Harry by announcing she’d considered asking Zach Smith to the party. I kind of wish she had, if only because honestly, I think Zach would have known just what she was doing and railed at the way Gryffindors and friends of Harry Potter went around using people.
*Trelawney’s at the party, drunk as usual on cooking sherry! There’s nothing at all depressing about watching a lonely teacher descend into alcoholism!
*Trelawney says she calls Firenze Dobbin, which somehow hits me as one of the rudest racist jokes in canon ever. Scratch the surface, out pops Draco.
*Hermione furiously tells Harry she would never stoop so low as to tell Ron she interfered with his Quidditch try-outs. She’ll save that one for divorce court, thank you very much! It’ll go nicely between the part where he’ll never amount to anything at work and the part where their usual sex ends with him coming fast and her reading a book.
*Cormac, the jerk, hasn’t asked Hermione anything about herself, just told her all about his great Quidditch saves. I suspect he’s just trying to make sure he doesn’t give her an opening to talk about SPEW.
*Remember SPEW?
*The party finally picks up when a sulking Snape gets dragged over by red-faced, bloodshot-eyed Slughorn and hears how great Harry suddenly is at Potions.
*The conversation gets sidetracked as Luna yanks the spotlight onto herself, just where she likes it. Harry finds Luna hilarious, having wisely arranged to only deal with her in small doses.
*If the party was getting good when Snape was dragged over, it actually becomes good when Filch drags in Draco Malfoy by the ear. (Was he dragged by the ear by McGonagall too? He was 11 then. It’s pretty nice of him not to just Petrify and Obliviate Filch, eh?)
*My chest swells with a mother’s pride as Draco pretends to have been trying to crash the party to cover up his murder plans. My baby’s so grown up he can deal with small humiliations for the greater good! Err..greater bad! You know what I mean.
*Slughorn may not be able to have Draco in his club, but he does know his name, which is more than Ron gets.
*Actually, I would suspect Slughorn always has to remind himself to not treat Draco as one of his own given his background.
*It’s like being woken out of a doze when Snape and Malfoy actually do something intriguing by showing zero interest in the stuff we’ve been killing time with for several chapters.
* I love the way both their faces slide quickly into totally believable covers, with Snape inscrutable and Malfoy’s smiling and thanking Slughorn for his generosity. It’s the Slytherin book all right.
*Not to mention Draco’s got some fabulously dramatic wasting going on. Greyish skin, dark circles. Someone give this boy a big shirt and a book of Romantic poetry, quick!
*Snape, as Draco’s Head of House, will decide how hard or otherwise to be on him. Snape and Malfoy leave, to the accompanying 70s porn music.
*Harry follows Snape and Malfoy out of the party. Readers are eternally grateful to finally leave the inanity of Gryffindor Creek behind.
*Snape tells Malfoy he’s suspected of having a hand in the necklace plot. Malfoy asks who suspects him “angrily.” I can’t help but wonder if he’s angry at Snape for trying to scare him into thinking he’s suspected, or if he’s angry at knowing that nobody would suspect him. Harry suspects you, Draco! He knows what you’re capable of! He always believed in you!
* There’s something so wonderful about Draco’s, “Don’t look at me like that—I know you’re trying to read my mind!” Because I can totally see Snape adopting a big vampire penetrating glare to do Legilimancy and Draco’s all, “Cut that out!”
*A moment ago Harry was still sticking to the usual “Malfoy sucks up to Snape.” But in the face of something important going on he admits Malfoy has actually shown respect and liking for Snape all these years. Good for you, Harry. You’ve surpassed a good part of fandom!
*God, I want to give Snape a drink after this scene. I never felt so sympathetic about Dumbledore having to deal with CAPSLOCK!Harry as I do Snape dealing with Draco Malfoy, Surly Teen Death Eater.
*Snape does slip a little when he directly asks Draco to tell him his plan. A little too obvious there, Snape. But he gets back on track pointing out Draco’s elementary mistakes.
*I have to give JKR props here. For years those of us who actually liked the Snape/Draco stuff wondered how Snape’s double agent stuff would bite him on the arse and here it is. Draco doesn’t reject him because he finds out he’s really on DD’s side, Snape gets trapped by his DE persona. DADA is just an act! We’ve nothing to fear from it, right? DE don’t really help each other! Poor, poor Snape.
*Any bets as to Draco’s “better people” that are helping him? Bellatrix for one, I’d guess.
*I’ve never thought of this before, but you know how Draco says Snape’s trying to “steal his glory” and there’s a pause before Snape says coldly that he’s speaking like a child? There’s a pause there. Snape doesn’t immediately react by sneering that’s ridiculous or whatever. Nor does he lose his temper. Suddenly I wonder if there’s something more significant in that line. Like maybe Snape said something similar to someone once upon a time or someone said it to him. The conversation sometimes goes quickly and sometimes there’s pauses stuck in. There’s one where Snape tries to do Occlumency to find out if Draco did the necklace. Then there’s a pause when Draco suggests Snape report him to Dumbledore (perhaps he’s considering it?). Then they both get excited and talk over each other until the "Steal my glory" line.
* Snape brings up Lucius’ capture and imprisonment and Draco storms out. I sort of hope Draco’s been dealing with some conflicted feelings about Dad’s capture and imprisonment by now. Like maybe he’s getting a bit angry at Dad.
*Snape returns to the party, which was about ten minutes away from a drunken orgy when he last left it, so he may need to restore some order. I suspect Blaise Zabini’s already put on a toga and a laurel wreath.
H/D fanfic cliché alerts:
Draco eavesdrops on a conversation about Love Potions in the library—why didn’t he think of that last year? He’s hiding in the stack but is unable to keep completely silent. I think we all know what H/D!Draco was doing in that book stack.
Harry notes that Draco looks ill!
Slytherin liquid count:
As a Slytherin Chapter, "The Unbreakable Vow" brings the liquid to the yard. We’ve got Love Potions, offers of gilly water and whisky-filled cauldrons, mead, sherry, butterbeer and anything else alcoholic at Slughorn’s party. Drunken Slughorn, drunken Trelawney. A vampire who drinks blood, Slughorn’s eyes are shot with blood. Hermione gets briefly mistaken for Moaning Myrtle when she cries in the bathroom.
This chapter actually wins an award for this category when Harry breathes in his mead in response to Luna says something silly. A moment later he "emerges" "out of his goblet, coughing and soaking wet but still grinning"—and that’s when he sees Malfoy.
Box Picture
Jeremy Irons is The Vampire.
IITS
Really Harry, nobody’s interested in attempted murder. Can’t you talk about something more compelling? Like the Chemistry teacher’s party?
Informed Attributes
Harry and Hermione talk about something less than serious. I think not.
Misdirected Answering
The whole school’s simply buzzing about Harry Potter taking Luna to the party. We’ve forgotten all about that murder plot!
"Watermelon, watermelon, cantaloupe, cantaloupe"
Watermelon watermelon Slughorn’s Party Cataloupe.
Final score: 5
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LOL!! So true. Harry had faith in him. It's really kind of sweet.
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More or less so than Hagrid referring to the centaurs as "mules"?
I don't doubt that in Book Seven the various non-humans (centaurs, giants, house elves, goblins, etc.) will sooner or later take Harry's side in the war. But realistically, what have Harry and his friends done (besides freeing Dobby and trying to help Grawp) that would convince these larger groups to take up the fight against Voldemort? The goblins' reported tactic of holding back and not promising anything looks pretty sensible from here.
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Hahahahaha. If I was reading this aged fourteen or so, I probably still wouldn't think much of Harry's claim to being an "outcast". Mind you, I may not be a proper outcast on account of not being brave like a lion and having a "pure heart", whatever that means :/
He’s happy and confident. Somebody do something!
It is a fake happiness! He only thinks he's happy, but really his victory is as dust and ashes because he isn't licking tongue with his one true love. These sorts of realtionships are only valuable in terms of notches on the bedpost, which are a reliable scale of how mature one is. Lavender could, in fact, have been anyone. It's just a shame it was her, since she's all girly and giggles at things that aren't directly related to someone else's humilliation.
Ron would probably be very upset that you were having dreams where his sister turned into Tom Riddle and had sex with you.
Har :D But hey, dreams are always such sensible ways of looking at the real world. Harry never seems to have sex dreams about other people, just Ginny, which presumably proves that she's his twoo luv. I would have thought it was just as common to have a sex dream about a celebrity or someone you don't even fancy but see around a lot.
All for a good cause, though. Money!
If Fred and George get taken to Azkaban, or put on trial at the very least, for supplying the Death Eaters with weapons, this might just about make six previous books of "LULZ I TRIK U!!!1" bearable. As I've said before. For one thing, Percy would surely be right on that one. Oh yeah, bitches. Have a bit of this! But still, I don't exactly hold my breath.
One day Hermione really must publish her Bizarro Ethics in a book. Slipping a drug into someone’s drink is just as bad as pretending to, really. And nothing like slipping a hex onto someone’s parchment. Or slipping a Potion into someone’s cupcake.
Let's see...if it's Ron trying to be awesome at Quidditch, cheating with a luck potion is bad, although helping him win by making the other guy lose is okay because...
It's okay if Hermione does it. I think that's the basic idea. Hermione = win. Or, if she doesn't do it, she might approve, and that would be okay too. But not if she had nothing to do with it.
Oh yes, and if you can make some tenuous connection to "the greater good", that's cool too. Romilda Vane wanting to love-potion Harry probably has nothing to do with Hermione's fight for whatever she's fighting for (Truth? Justice?
A hard-boiled egg?) so is therefore unethical. Scarring someone for life, even though it didn't stop whatever was going to happen from happening anyway, is fine, since it was about Protecting The DA :OThis is surely the part where Hermione the tattletale who wants the rules to run smoothly will go to Dumbledore and point out this flaw, right?
As you mentioned in your last recap, talking about things when it would make everything much easier, would also make the book shorter and we couldn't have that!
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I started reading the books at 13, and I remember having the distinct feeling that Harry was having it both ways--or rather, JKR was trying to let Harry have it both ways. E.g., Harry got to have all the glamour and sympathy that comes with being a ZOMG OUTCAST!1!!, but none of the humiliations and social ineptitude and low self-respect. Kind of like the way we're supposed to think Gryffindors are the plucky underdogs of the four Houses, yet they ALWAYS win...
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The odd thing is, I don't think anyone who wasn't an outcast knows the difference. I have unfortunately had occassion to discover that a lot of the time, people mistook me for being brave when really I just was blundering along not knowing any better.
I would have thought it was just as common to have a sex dream about a celebrity or someone you don't even fancy but see around a lot.
Or random people on LJ.... *shifty eyes*
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Yeah, I've had some people thinking I'm "brave" for doing or saying certain stuff, when I really just didn't know not to :P
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I heart you immensely! "Night Watch" is a masterpiece of modern literature, for me, but, even if it wasn't, at least its protagonists have a clear sense of reality and justice and their priorities straight :D.
Nothing like HBP to hammer home once again that the only ethos of the WW is 'whatever Harry, and by extension his minions and mentors, does is RIGHT and GOOD. Whatever anyone else does that's not sucking up to Harry up to asking him inconvenient questions is TEH EBUL! Choice is all important so you better choose to be born in the right family'
Sorry to barge in, I'm just loving the recaps and comments
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FTW! I think I hurt something laughing at that. Beautiful.
I’ve never thought of this before, but you know how Draco says Snape’s trying to “steal his glory” and there’s a pause before Snape says coldly that he’s speaking like a child? There’s a pause there. Snape doesn’t immediately react by sneering that’s ridiculous or whatever. Nor does he lose his temper. Suddenly I wonder if there’s something more significant in that line.
Oooh yes, there's definitely something there! I wonder if it's like when Severus gives his little 'people who wear their hearts on their sleeves are prime targets for Voldie' speech in OotP. He sees his younger self in Draco in this instance, the same way he saw himself in Harry. (Canon proof! OT3!!!)
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See...I really feel as though he's bluffing here. I mean, he out-and-out lies very smoothly to Snape about the necklace, and bluffing is what he's so good at. Just because he seems so adamant about doing it himself, and I think that if he were allowing people to help him, Snape would be the first person he'd go to because he's...Snape. Unless Bellatrix has been telling him that Snape's not loyal but then again, who are you going to believe, the teacher you've looked up to and admired for 6 years or the crazy aunt just out of Azkaban who was probably pretty terrifying when she tried to claw inside your mind? Obviously I think he's getting information from Borgin just because it would be completely impossible without some sort of instruction, but it's hard for me to believe that he'd a)want any kind of help or that b) Voldemrt would bother to spare him any, since he's hoping he'll fuck up and get himself killed.
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The poor boy has to use all his navigational skills through secrete passageways to keep clean from them. Eww, girls!
Something that’s just been put in the wrong bottle won’t register on the sensors.
Was ever anything or anyone dangerous registered by the fantabulous magical defenses of Hogwarth?
She’s already begun checking ISPs. Msscribe is the Half-Blood Prince!
Snape wouldn't be so shabby with his ISPs and backstories.
Also remember Luna is all about speaking the truth.
In this book Luna is all about mocking everyone in sight AND working the great Gryffindors like a pro.
Harry’s just waiting for the right girl!
Yes, but shuldn't he keep himself in exercise with some negligible entity while waiting?
*Trelawney’s at the party, drunk as usual on cooking sherry!
I wonder why. There are far better beverages to get drunk with at the party.
*Trelawney says she calls Firenze Dobbin, which somehow hits me as one of the rudest racist jokes in canon ever.
It is not too far from calling him an 'horse', and Firenze was not taking Hermione's job. And she was not drunk. Hagrid calls Centaurs 'mules', also.
*Slughorn may not be able to have Draco in his club, but he does know his name, which is more than Ron gets.
He introduced himself, which is more than Ron did.
I never felt so sympathetic about Dumbledore having to deal with CAPSLOCK!Harry as I do Snape dealing with Draco Malfoy, Surly Teen Death Eater.
Maybe that's because the two really like each other and Snape tries to be an effective father figure to Draco, even if he is the less fatherly man in existence.
Also, I wonder if Draco understands what he is saying when he says that Snape will have to break the Unbreakable Vow.
A little too obvious there, Snape. But he gets back on track pointing out Draco’s elementary mistakes.
"Wandering the corridors without lookouts or backup". I wonder if it is was the usual procedure when Snape was a student, for kids to move like SEALS in their own school, or if it only applies when crashing a party for poisoning purposes.
*Snape returns to the party, which was about ten minutes away from a drunken orgy when he last left it
So Parvati was right, after all.
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OMG, it's so right. Dumbledore/Harry so just does not move me, and these two idiots I love. Harry can make as many "I'm loyal to Dumbledore!" speeches as he wants and I'm still believing these two so much more. Snape probably went to sleep that night thinking about the good old days when Draco followed him around like a puppy and could not conceal his boycrush.
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And didn't Dean or Seamus hope for a vampire DADA professor a few books back? Maybe that's why Slughorn invited Sanguini - to introduce him and make sure everyone likes him before next year, in case something happens to Snape the way something has happened to the last 25 DADA professors.
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Why am I not surprised we’re told, rather than shown, Harry and Hermione having a funny conversation about whether or not Pince and Filch are in love with each other? Like these two could pull that off.
A character's sense of humor is only as good as the author's, too.
Though, "What have you been doing to that book, you depraved boy?" has to be one of my favorite lines in all of HBP.
Jeremy Irons is The Vampire.
Squee!
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Wow, is this ever a winning fic idea. I would LOVE to read this.
Msscribe is the Half-Blood Prince!
Magpie FTW!
they’re going to the party just as friends
:( This made me sad, because as much as Luna has been pissing me off in this book, I was still rooting for H/L to prevail over the inevitable H/G.
I think Zach would have known just what she was doing and railed at the way Gryffindors and friends of Harry Potter went around using people.
That would have provided some much-needed sanity in this book. It's bad that most of the
interestinglogical character movement is coming from Draco Malfoy here. I don't think I've ever loved him so much.no subject
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No kidding. (Not to mention 'Stop telling me to come to your office then!' And of course, the sucking up, which I shall wilfully misinterpret.) Even my sister noticed this bit. Of course, that's because I read it out to her when the book was released, raised one eyebrow (I'm bragging here, I'm not that cool, I had to raise both) and leered.
I never felt so sympathetic about Dumbledore having to deal with CAPSLOCK!Harry as I do Snape dealing with Draco Malfoy, Surly Teen Death Eater.
I hope at the end, there's a really random conversation as they Apparate away. They'll be shouting over Dumbledore's death, and suddenly Snape will interject with 'You may, perhaps, have wondered why I never swung you an invitation to Slughorn's party? I must confess…that I rather thought…you had enough on your mind.'
Jeremy Irons is The Vampire.
Jeremy Irons will always be Snape to me, thanks to that Comic Relief show.
Luna says she’s noticed Ron can be a bit unkind, which frankly sounds like another one of those, “Listen up, the author is telling you how you should be judging these characters!” If you want me to think of Ron as unkind you might want to stop setting him in the middle of a universe full of vipers.
This is the Luna who's closest 'friend' is Ginny. Especially since she says she noticed this last year. What, the same year Hermione was thrilled to lead Umbridge to the murderous centaurs? Round about the time Harry and George beat up Draco? When the DA who were so much like having friends were hexing people into jelly? What did Ron do? (Wasn't Luna the one laughing at Ron mocking Goyle?)
However, nor does Harry commiserate with Hermione about how men are cads, like a gay friend would. The mystery lives on!
He does feel she's failed by not protecting him from the 'crucial' issue of having icky breasty creatures after him. Gosh, the evidence is mounting up...
It just cracks me up how dramatic Harry is about having to get along with both. He's 'endured' Cranky!Ron (OMG, Harry, he's got a lot to be upset about! Plus he's a teenager!) - plus the little jab about how Ron would have made an 'excuse' to be jealous of how popular and cool Harry is in previous times. Now he's not the centre of attention with Hermione, either! Note the noble sacrifice of him being literally 'hoarse' after 45 mins (?!) of not speaking. LOL!
Oh JKR. Succinctly? Really? Was there no editor to take that one out?
Her editor is too busy with other vitally important issues, like making sure that JKR doesn't accidentally make a character better than Harry at anything.
Or maybe she committed suicide thanks to professional shame?
He’s done a mean impression of her jumping up and down in her seat, and she’s used his most painful humiliations against him.
Interesting that on the impressionists side, we have Draco and now Ron who's specifically linked to unkindness this chapter and...Ginny. (What's wrong with doing impressions anyway? It's not like JKR can be objecting because it can be comedy based on mockery and vindictiveness.
I do them. Of course, I hate sport too, so it's really time to fall on my sword.)
Weird that Fred and George don't do them, either.
And I love that Harry's all 'I was laughing at you too, you looked stupid!' I guess that's a mark of the strength of his friendship with Ron, or something.
Remember SPEW?
Hermione's curiously silent here, considering there are house-elves serving at the party.
Something that’s just been put in the wrong bottle won’t register on the sensors.
Love that it's noted that Filch won't notice, since he isn't a 'very good wizard' (does Hermione even know he's a Squib? Because I remember Harry telling Ron.) I guess if he's just untalented and stupid, it makes it easier to laugh when he gets hexed than if it was something less fashionable like the equivalent of Muggle-baiting.
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Hur. He was being Rickman!Snape in particular, though, right? Anyway, he looks the part more than Alan Rickman. Got that "been living in a basement for fourteen years" look about him.
plus the little jab about how Ron would have made an 'excuse' to be jealous of how popular and cool Harry is in previous times.
Ron, like everyone else, doesn't understand what a sacrifice it is to be adored and chased as Harry is. Doesn't he know what's really important? Harry's the CHOSEN ONE!!! Does Ron know what a stress that is? Does he? I think not!
Or maybe she committed suicide thanks to professional shame?
Perhaps she's drinking herself to death in a comedic manner.
What's wrong with doing impressions anyway? It's not like JKR can be objecting because it can be comedy based on mockery and vindictiveness.
Perhaps because it's...pretending to be someone else, and therefore deceitful? No, I don't know. Maybe Rowling has been personally stung by impersonations. Did the aforementioned Comic Relief thing distress her?
does Hermione even know he's a Squib? Because I remember Harry telling Ron.
My copy of CoS seems to suggest that Hermione was there when Ron explained the matter> Perhaps she forgot...with that clever brain that memorises whole chunks of textbook? Hmm.
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LOL. It's not in the vid file, but she announced it when it aired. I remember, cause she had a 'humourous' intro where she told everyone what a blasphemy it was and not to watch it, but instead of laughing, I just got kinda creeped out. She's scary.
I love Rickman!Irons, though, especially when he kept straightening his cuffs.
Ron, like everyone else, doesn't understand what a sacrifice it is to be adored and chased as Harry is.
Ron doesn't understand that Harry would trade it all in for a normal life! Well, not all - don't want a normal life if you end up chubby like Neville, or having to date ordinary chicks, or not being Teh Bezt Evar!1! at DADA and Quidditch, or having average parents instead of the sexy saints that were James and Lily... But if he could have his own life, only without the bad stuff, he'd switch TOMORROW!
(I guess in previous books, Harry would have made an excuse to be jealous over Ron having some tiny petty responsibility he didn't have, but now he's matured, and has realised being Captain is much cooler and exclusive.)
Perhaps she's drinking herself to death in a comedic manner.
Bwhahaha!
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(Anonymous) 2006-06-24 02:52 pm (UTC)(link)It is strange, now you mention it. F&G don't clown around much at all, do they? That's partly why it's hard to see them as great entertainers the way Harry implies at the end of GoF ("we could all use a laugh"). Some of their pranks are meant to be public, but others work equally well if nobody but the victim finds out.
-L
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More for great yay!
I love it because, as I've said to you before, it would suggest that Draco doesn't merely get Crabbe and Goyle to do all the sticky business, but also participates himself. Would be one in the eye for all those people suggesting that Draco has no real friends, just "minions". He's willing to go that extra inch too!
Something must be wrong with me. I’m not rooting for Ron and Hermione to get together at all.
That's probably because you're a bigot, or a sexist or something. You hate mudbloods! That's what it is! How could you??? *fakeangst*
amazingly managing to make Tonks even more pointless and redundant than she already was.
I'll go and get my Tonks icon back later, it would have been the only correct one to use here :/
Did Luna not notice Hermione permanently marking one of her housemates, or was that not unkind?
I think that was probably not supposed to be unkind. There's a very odd scale of things going on here. It's like the gossip meter in a way - big things like murder get little attention, while Harry's sex life goes round the school before you can say "Who?" Besides, if Hermione does something "for the greater good", even though it achieved nothing but hurting someone, it cannot be anything less than noble. Bleuch :P
Luna speaks uncomfortable truths and is unlike anyone our hero has ever met.
Since Harry thinks anyone saying "I don't think that was a good idea" of one of his awesome plans of bravery is speaking uncomfortable truths that he'd rather not hear, I can understand this. Harry only really wants to hear unqualified praise, apparently. Also, since a majority of the people Harry knows seem to be cut from a similar pattern, any noticeable differences would really stick out.
I'm trying to excuse the blatant authorial insertion here! Is it working?
What with the two of them wandering around on such an exalted moral level all alone?
It really says something about this universe that not treating someone like shit is considered the mark of moral superiority. Even if a look into someone's brain suggests that they clearly don't see that person on anything like the same level, as long as they're not actively attacking them, it's very impressive and moral.
And now the whole school knows who Harry’s taking to the party. Because Harry’s really freaking popular.
Harry's a very, very popular outcast. The kind that has hair over his eyes and scruffy jeans. The kind who writes poetry in his leather-bound notebook (no LJs in the magical world?) about how his soul is black like the infinity of the universe and his heart bleeds like Voldemort's slaughtered victims WOE. Real outcasts would read that poetry and call it "doggerel", before going back to their crosstitch or bird-watching or whatever was not really cool amongst teenagers. I am stereotyping here. Do excuse me.
Gee, Ron, I don’t find that suspicious at all! Harry’s just waiting for the right girl!
It's times like this when I think it's painfully obvious that Rowling is writing this from the POV of a very, very heterosexual woman. I don't think she really grasps the sexuality of a heterosexual teenage boy, no matter how well she might understand the rest of his life.
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I like the wording here where it's pointed out Harry's used to Luna repeating her father's views as fact, as opposed to her own. (I guess that's how we know she's a good girl - there's a guy in her life she's fanatically devoted to and apes the beliefs of!)
It also cracks me up that she's comforting Hermione in the toilets, but the interaction is written as her greeting Harry, Hermione thanking Harry, and exiting, with no words exchanged between the girls. Clever JKR, you didn't have to mention how catty girls are with each other!
Harry is left to ponder the depths girls will sink to get revenge.
And yet no girl has crippled someone for a year, nearly killing them over house points. I guess that's because we're not brave enough. Bitchy plans and minor hexes are the highest form of justice we can deliver.
A gaggle of girls stands around Sanguini, looking excited. Is this some sort of vampire power, or is it just more stupid girls who are into bad boys?
It would be interesting if vampires had the equivalent of Veela powers over people; but then that would give the girls an out for their behaviour, rather than just Making Bad Choices Through Being Shallow. (Look, there's ideal boyfriend Harry walking past, ladies!)
Cormac, the jerk, hasn’t asked Hermione anything about herself, just told her all about his great Quidditch saves.
How outrageous! Just because Hermione asked you out, doesn't mean that she could care less about anything you have to say. It's not like Quidditch is popular among the WW, or that she was discussing earlier how much she loves players.
And where does he get this idea that because a girl asks him to a party and tells people she fancies him that she might want to kiss?
(Once again, I love Harry's reaction, though: a 'severe' "Serves you right." Yeah, what a shame the guy didn't just date-rape her on the spot, then she'd really have learnt a lesson about dating outside the Weasley family. I guess he's not going to rescue her from the big bad boy like he did Ginny from Ron.
Wtf is his crazy resentment against McLaggen and Smith, anyway? I know they dared to disagree with him, but fuck! See, this is where fandom's moved ahead of canon. In fanon, the Trio are cheerfully shipped with all ranges of genders, ages and houses. In canon, not only must every relationship with a person of a different race or house fail miserably, but even fellow heroic Gryffindors are revealed as worthless. Accept OBHWF or perish.)
Trelawney calls Firenze Dobbin, which somehow hits me as one of the rudest racist jokes in canon ever.
But who can object to it? Hermione 'I've never cared much for horses' or Harry the slave keeper? (Notice no-one does. Combatting racism is most fun when the racist is someone you can beat up or when they're a group you already hate and it confirms your own prejudices.)
Ah, Romilda and her friends plotting with Love Potions takes me back to my high school days. Tons of girls dying to put out and having to drug a guy to do it.
Poor guys. There's a beauty behind every bush. Must be hard to know who's the most deserving of you.
I've not read the Love Potion theory, and to my mind, most of these complex ones relying on previous books being proved false is wishful thinking; but there is something really dodgy about the part where Harry notes how much Hermione knows about these potions, with her ultra-casual 'I noticed every single detail on the back of a bottle I reluctantly looked at weeks ago! With Ginny! The girl you now mysteriously desire!'
Just in case you thought that Luna only speaks uncomfortable truths when they get her attention and is only as unique as the stereotype she’s based on.
Must be really uncomfortable to hear Luna ragging on the guy everyone already thinks of as inferior. Thank goodness she never actually says something truly uncomfortable, like pointing out what a patronising two-faced cunt Ginny is, or that Harry is the last person in the entire universe to be making judgements on how unkind others are.
Also, personally, I'm beginning to associate Luna with the goth girl in the Breakfast Club.
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It's all a part of that clever "show, not tell" thing Rowling has going on there :) Hang on...
Just because Hermione asked you out, doesn't mean that she could care less about anything you have to say.
Presumably, Cormac should have been aware that Hermione was just using him to get back at Ron, and respected that. Wait, what?
Wtf is his crazy resentment against McLaggen and Smith, anyway?
I think, as you say, they disagreed with him. Never mind Luna, there's some real uncomfortable truths right there.
there is something really dodgy about the part where Harry notes how much Hermione knows about these potions, with her ultra-casual 'I noticed every single detail on the back of a bottle I reluctantly looked at weeks ago! With Ginny! The girl you now mysteriously desire!'
That is odd, now you come to mention it :O
Mind you, it's probably just a plot-slip. Hermione is that clever just because she's that clever! Nothing funny about that!
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Poor Hermione. Her jokes don't work like Harry's, then her plans to use people don't work like Ginny's! There's a nice attempt to blame the guy (same as with Dean and the whole 'ZOMG don't open doors for me!') but she recieves a lot more censure, especially from Harry (of course, she admits it openly to him, rather than Ginny, who'll only break her Cool Badass image when being dumped.)
Hermione is that clever just because she's that clever! Nothing funny about that!
There has been less heavy-handed exposition than this. But it's odd. It'd be a nice parallel with Harry faking drugging a friend and Hermione's also the one who points out how love potions aren't dangerous or dark (despite tarts like Romilda trying to spoil OBHWF.) Of course, again, what's dark and dangerous appears to come down to whether or not Harry and Hermione are personally affected by it - see, the whole of OotP and the 'counter-jinxes', so it's hardly concrete proof. I doubt it'll happen myself, but the whole essays here: http://www.dracoandginny.com/viewstory.php?sid=3300
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He gets a whoop later!
Hermione furiously tells Harry she would never stoop so low as to tell Ron she interfered with his try-outs. She’ll save that one for divorce court, thank you very much!
It's gonna be so cute when they have ten or so redheaded (pureblood genes dominate, baby) kids to drag through there, too.
I love Harry's reaction here, though. 'If you damage Ron's self-esteem, he'll screw up my team! What about my near-perfect Quidditch record?!'
The party finally picks up when Snape gets dragged over and hears how great Harry suddenly is at Potions.
It's so hilarious that it makes Harry's party to have all his enemies shamed while Slughorn gives him a verbal blowjob. I had to read this part twice, I was so sure his pure heart and natural modesty and dislike of attention would interfere! (Although there's that amusing bit where the author guy offers to write his biography, and once he mentions cash, Harry's all 'I'm not interested!
I have enough of that, thanks!' Nice tactic, dude, next time try focusing on how brave it would be to share The Truth with the world.)Any bets as to Draco’s “better people” that are helping him? Bellatrix?
Poor old Crabbe and Goyle. They're apparently taking their exam again (note that Snape points out that they're not working hard enough. No lack of confidence here!) and now they're being dissed by their head of house and their bff!
(I think he's relying on the DEs - ie. Fenrir and Bellatrix are his backup if worst comes to worst, maybe helping with the technical stuff - Imperio'ing Rosmerta, etc. but pretty much I agree with
Harry has to put up with Lavender, which must be a real pain.
Naturally no-one will find it irritating when Harry and Ginny publically kiss a lot (they'd better not! THAT'S LIKE CALLING HER A WHORE!) They'll just feel blessed they got to share such happy events.
Also note, with no surprise, that it's Lavender who regards moments spent not making out as time wasted, not Ron. No being suddenly kissed out of the blue for this girl, she's trying to wear the trousers. Just like Parvati leading at the ball. See, ladies, this is why boys don't like you.
He has very little experience having to spend time with people not on his personal staff who don’t care about him much.
I know, this bit is great. Like, why is Lavender here? For...Ron's benefit? She hasn't even risked her life and earned the right to sit on a train seat with me! She takes his best
minionsidekick, and never even flatters him once! (Big surprise that Harry will end up shipping R/Hr, since Hermione knows her place when dealing with him.)Romilda Vane has officially become “that Romilda Vane.”
Gotta make much of how awful (remember how she was confident? Ugh!) she is now so that we know how funny it'll be when she gets to see the guy she fancies tonguing someone else publically.
Why am I not surprised we’re told, rather than shown, Harry and Hermione having a funny conversation about whether or not Pince and Filch are in love with each other? Like these two could pull that off.
LOL. An entrant for the Selling Wood category. 'Rather than using each other for research/flattery and power/prestige respectively, we are true friends who have a relationship based around common interests and shared humour! We laugh at silly jokes, not people's mutilated faces!'
It's so bizarre that this is true, isn't it? Pince and Filch are standing together mourning Dumbledore at the end? Even our heroes jokes have to be right.
Hermione reveals, to no one’s surprise, that she can dish it out but can’t take it.
But out came the tears again! I know I was moved. Oh, no, wait, that was my bowels. (Poor Hermione! She expected this to go like it does for Harry, where you make a joke, everyone laughs in unison, and the other person just falls over and splits their pants.)
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Some sterling priorities there. If Ron dies, how would that affect the team??? If Ron deflected to the other side, I'd have to find another keeper!
I was so sure his pure heart and natural modesty and dislike of attention would interfere!
Harry was so embarassed, he couldn't even begin to contemplate how embarassed he was. Which is why he didn't. Clearly.
*brain deflates*
Naturally no-one will find it irritating when Harry and Ginny publically kiss a lot
Now when Ginny follows him around and sits at his feet gazing up at him adoringly. That's just the natural order of things. Someone following Harry about to ask after Ron is just freaky.
It's so bizarre that this is true, isn't it? Pince and Filch are standing together mourning Dumbledore at the end? Even our heroes jokes have to be right.
That's a fair point, although it's still an awesome ship. Well, it's awesome probably because we don't have to be bashed about the head with how awesome it is.
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(Anonymous) 2006-06-24 02:45 pm (UTC)(link)The other day I stumbled across a discussion of the scene where Snape takes Harry up to the castle. Everyone was agreeing that Snape is a very cruel man. Well, DUH. He's a wizard. Thomas Aquinas has been cited as saying that in order to better appreciate their own blissful state, the saved will get to watch the tortures of the damned: "the saints shall rejoice at the punishment of the impious" [my translation]. Wizard heaven!
Anyway, certainly Ron is unkind by Muggle standards. But I'd still feel safer in his company than with his friends Crucio Dude and The Mutilator.
Ginny scolds Ron for using the name "Loony" while not being Ginny herself and reports that Luna is pathetically "really excited" about the party.
Is there any other evidence that Ginny hangs out with Luna and talks to her, as opposed to occasionally defending her against teasing? I could see Ginny, as one of the biggest bullies on the playground, appointing herself Luna's bodyguard without actually ever spending time with her, and JKR thinking that's a good enough friendship for a weirdo loser like Luna.
Luna says something blatantly untrue, but as it’s not an untruth about Harry he sees no reason to correct it. Remember, people who tell untruths about other people are quirky and fun.
Oddly, unlike Luna's usual potted tabloid reports, that's not an obviously insane claim. Vampires exist. Can this be another of those left field notions that are really a sign of her Deep Insight? If you scramble SCUM UR FANGS R GOREY, you get "Rufus G.A.N. Scrymgeor". Just sayin'.
I never felt so sympathetic about Dumbledore having to deal with CAPSLOCK!Harry as I do Snape dealing with Draco Malfoy, Surly Teen Death Eater.
So much love for that scene. Again, it's not news that Snape is a bastard to people he doesn't like; but with someone he does like he's amazingly patient. He's acting like a normal adult with normal self-restraint here. Of course he's obliged to try to catch Draco with honey since Legilimency failed, and he can't use any form of coercion and risk losing Draco's trust. But still, imagine if it had been Harry giving him "Looks like you'll have to break it then". There'd be a Chosen-One shaped smear on the ground.
Also, the fact that Snape likes Draco is officially in the realm of the Really Freakin' Obvious. Yay! (What is it with the fandom resistance to a S&D friendship, anyway? It's like, if Snape really cares about the Malfoys he must be evil, because no good guy in the history of the world ever found himself opposing his friends in a war.)
-L
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Ha! This is what Draco Dormiens Nunquandum Titallundus (I'm gonna have to look up how to spell that, aren't I?) really means.
if Snape really cares about the Malfoys he must be evil, because no good guy in the history of the world ever found himself opposing his friends in a war.
If Snape gets along with the Malfoys, he might influence them to good (I think lack of active evil would be the best to hope for in Lucius' case, but hey, he's not harming anyone now!) and then Snape wouldn't be the Only Decent Slytherin Who Ever Lived, and the snottier Snape fans wouldn't feel smart. Plus he wouldn't be a friendless outcast underdog who's perfect for Harry. (...Post OOTP, some Snarry shippers got scary.)
Is there any other evidence that Ginny hangs out with Luna and talks to her, as opposed to occasionally defending her against teasing?
I can't really buy it, just because the whole point of writing Ginny in the last two books has been to assert how cool she is (ideal for Harry Stu!) and if she was actively friends with Luna, she'd be less discerning than Harry, Ron and Hermione, who seem to only tolerate her when she's useful to them. Ginny's got to have standards, yo! Otherwise it might cast into doubt her taste in men, for one thing...
I could see Ginny, as one of the biggest bullies on the playground, appointing herself Luna's bodyguard without actually ever spending time with her, and JKR thinking that's a good enough friendship for a weirdo loser like Luna.
Ginny/Luna = Harry/Neville.
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What is it with the fandom resistance to a S&D friendship, anyway?
It's an interesting thing. At first at least you had to admit it *could* be a cover if people thought well, Snape's working for DD so how could he really favor Malfoy the junior DE? Only to me it always read as the truth, absolutely. The weird thing is post-HBP where people are still trying to re-write it, but I think it's mostly just a certain type of extreme fans who either really hate Draco (and so everyone else must hate him too and none of his relationships are genuine) or love Snape in such a way that he must hate Draco too. If they read things that simply it's easy to mistake what is, imo, a perfectly well-written scene between two people who care about each other but are now often at odds, for "proof" that Snape really never liked Draco. If he liked him he'd always be pleased with him all the time! Because that's how relationships work! They are probably doing the same thing with everyone else, assuming Harry must really really be good friends with Neville and Luna because he should be, or that he always treats Ron and Hermione with great respect and compassion because that would be Good.
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Brilliant. That needs to be an icon.
but with someone he does like he's amazingly patient.
Yes, that`s what really stood out to me in that scene... Patient Snape? For me that was the final proof, if I needed one, that he truly cared about Draco.
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Ginny only defends Luna when she knows Harry will hear about it. Its all about getting "The Chosen One".
One day Hermione really must publish her Bizarro Ethics in a book. Slipping a drug into someone’s drink is just as bad as pretending to, really. And nothing like slipping a hex onto someone’s parchment. Or slipping a Potion into someone’s cupcake.
Yes. I'm waiting to read that one as well.
Cormac, the jerk, hasn’t asked Hermione anything about herself, just told her all about his great Quidditch saves. I suspect he’s just trying to make sure he doesn’t give her an opening to talk about SPEW.
He is under the impression that the girl who asked him to the biggest holiday party of the season, actually likes him. Silly Cormac, girls only show their love with physical abuse!
Snape returns to the party, which was about ten minutes away from a drunken orgy when he last left it, so he may need to restore some order. I suspect Blaise Zabini’s already put on a toga and a laurel wreath.
Nope, the orgy would require some form of plot not just a set-up.