PS Chapter Five

[hafl.livejournal.com]

First, sorry that I've stopped doing these, I just have been very busy for the last several months.



- Harry thinking that Hagrid telling him he's a wizard is a nice touch. However, it is immediately spoiled by the fact he mistakes, an owl knocking with its claw on a presumably glass window for aunt Petunia knocking on wooden door with her fist.

- Hagrid apparently still doesn't get that Harry doesn't know anything about the wizarding world. However, he finds time to brag that Dumbledore sends to do important tasks, including picking up Harry. Got to keep feeding Harry's ego.

- Harry, being surprised that wizards have banking system is one thing, but being surprised that they have the means to fly?

- Anyway, how did Hagrid fly to the island? He has no broom or flying motorcycle, the thestrals haven't been invented yet, so what means did he use? And if it is possible to fly without any tools, why is it such a big deal when Voldemort does it in book seven.

- Hagrid mentions that there are dragons at Gringotts. I wonder, if Rowling remembered that, when writing book seven.

- Daily Prophet mentions the Ministry of Magic messing up. Does it side with the Ministry in book five, because the journalists also don't want to believe that Voldemort has returned. And by the way, why there wasn't more newspaper coverage of the Triwizard tournament, when it was supposed to be a big and important event?

- I think that Fudge is fairly competent at running the Ministry and Hagrid exagerrates the amount of help he wants from Dumbledore. Though Dumbledore certainly doesn't seem too busy running the school.

- Oh, it would be horrible, if Muggles asked wizards for solutions to problems. It doesn't matter that technology can do almost anything the wizards can do and do it better. People, who ask for help by magical means are clearly unworthy of receiving any help.

- The list of things necessary for Hogwarts is actually quite weird. For example, there is no textbook for Astronomy, which is something that would be probably very useful. It also shows that there really aren't any actual cultural subjects at Hogwarts, further cementing that the Wizarding world is a cultural void. Except for one band, one comic book and one book of fairy tales.

- Oh, and apparently, underwear is voluntary at Hogwarts. Not to mention that having only one hat and one winter cloak for the entire year is extremely stupid, what if it gets torn or destroyed in other way? Not to mention that potions apparently have a habit of exploding. The house elves must be really good at mending clothes. (God forbid that the students mend their clothes by themselves, like in any proper school story.)

- Hagrid can't see how Muggles can live without magic while climbing a broken-down escalator. I don't know, a broken escalator is just like the stairs at Hogwarts, except it stays in one place and is therefore better. A functioning escalator is also better than the stairs at Hogwarts.

- Oh yes, Harry. It is perfectly okay to trust a strange, large, hairy man who wants you to take into a pub.

- Why does everyone recognise Harry, when the last time he was in the Wizarding world was when he was a baby? Is there a special section in the Daily Prophet entitled "The Growth of Harry Potter, Day By Day" with a reporter dedicated only to stalking Harry as he grows up? If there is, that guy must be really disappointed on losing that job now that Harry's going to Hogwarts.

- Quirell got possesed by Voldemort after he decided to leave Britain. That's where all the evil lies, outside Britain.

- Why must there be a magical entrance from magical pub to magical street? It isn't needed, apparently only wizards can see the Leaking Cauldron.

- How does a Self-Stirring cauldron work? Do you just input the number of stirring and the direction?

- The description of goblins seems like a vaguely racist caricature to me, but that might be just my imagination.

- No wonder that wizards value bravery so high, when a bad poem engraved on bank door scares Hagrid.

- Having a key is the only identification needed to access a vault at Gringotts. You'd be mad to try and rob the place, when you can just steal the key from its owner and then walk into the bank and take what you want. Great security system, right there.

- ...a pile of rubies as big as glowing coals. Just how are glowing coals a unit for measuring size. Brightness, sure, but I don't think that glowing coals have any specific standard size.

- Harry has a lot of money, yet he still counts as working class by the end of the series, when he has to work for a living.

- The wizarding monetary system makes no sense. Seventeen and twenty-nine are both prime numbers, that does not make them a good number to set an exchange rate of coins. What's wrong with decimal exchange rate? Or, if Rowling wanted the exchange rates to be still a bit unfamiliar to kids, it could have been based on twelves.

- There's no mention of an uniform in the school supply list, but Hagrid tells Harry to et one at Madam Malkin's. Plain black work robes are a sensible clothing choice, but it does not really set Hogwarts students apart as a separate group, which is one of the purposes of a uniform. The movies did much better in that respect.

- I'm not really surprised by Harry disliking Draco at their first encounter. Draco does resemeble Dudley in this scene a bit: Parents do his shopping for him and he plans to make them buy him a broom. Of course, knowing Lucius, he won't let Draco "bully" him into doing anything, if Draco doesn't deserve it, but Harry has no way of knowing that.

- Draco talking to Harry about Quidditch, when Harry is obviously dressed in Muggle clothes, may seem a bit strange, but for all Draco knows, Harry might have put on the clothes just because Harry's presumed parents did not want to stand out in Muggle London.

- Given how much pressure is put on the wizarding kids to be in the "right" house, I totally understand Draco's distaste for being in Hufflepuff.

- Sorry Harry, a gamekeeper is sort of a servant. Also everything else Draco says about Hagrid is true, except maybe for setting fire to his bed, but that's believable.

- Draco doesn't sound sorry, when he says he's sorry, that parents of an unfriendly boy he had just met are dead. He's clearly evil incarnate!

- That reminds me, the last time I saw an irredeemably evil kid in a book for children, the kid was savagely beaten by her classmates with teacher's knowledge and the author later during the war went to write a book about brave German soldiers fighting brutal British partisans.

- Oh, the irony! Harry didn't know about Hogwarts until he got the letter, even though his parents were a witch and wizard. Though Draco is worried about completely inconsequential problems, after all, every single Muggleborn that goes to Hogwarts winds up either dead or thoroughly assimilated.

- See, even Hagrid thinks Hufflepuff is worthless, but at least it's not evil like Slytherin.

- As a side note, the Czech translation for Slytherin "Zmijozel" is the most unsubtle thing evere. It pretty much means "viper's evil".

- Hagrid must have known that Sirius was a bad wizard, who didn't go to Slytherin, but he probably thought that Sirius was "Sorted too soon".

- ...few books with nothing in them at all. Even Dudley, who never read anything, would have been wild to get his hands on some of these. Nice juxtaposition there, JKR.

- Oh great, the only thing that stops wizards from cursing Muggles, who deserve it, is that wizards are not supposed to use magic in the Muggle world.

- And the chapter contradicts itself. Hagrid and Harry are buying potion supplies, even though the school list doesn't mention them at all. Would Hagrid have enough foresight to buy them for Harry, knowing that Snape would probably punish Harry for not having the supplies, he doesn't need to have according to the list.

- Of course Harry gets an owl, the best pet to have. Harry must always have the best, even if it's mostly so that he can ignore it and therefore look modest.

- Ollivander saying that it's the wand that chooses the wizard is the only foreshadowing we get for that entire Elder Wand business.

- From what Ollivander says, willow wands are good for charms and mahogany wands are good for transfigurations.

- Lily's wand was ten and a quarter inches long. James' wand was eleven inches and had a little more power. Voldemort's wand was thirteen-and-a-half inches and it was very powerful. Who says that size doesn't matter?

- However, Hagrid must have been a super wizard with his sixteen inches.

- Harry's wand is eleven inches, just like his father's.

- Harry actually sounds worried of not living up to the expectations his fame has created and admits that he doesn't deserve that fame. Don't worry, we'll get that out of him soon enough.

Comments

[hafl.livejournal.com]

I'd cut JK some slack here. IIRC astronomy is taught once a month and is not considered exactlly the most important subject. Maybe the kids just borrow astronomy books, maps etc. from the library when they need them, and study from the notes they make in class?

You're probably right. Anyway, the Astronomy class probably exists to have a reason for Hogwarts to have an exceptionally tall tower for plot purposes.

If having his parents help him with shopping school supplies, bragging, and longing for fancy toys is what it takes for a kid to resemble Dudley, then every single child of Draco's age I know resembles Dudley. :)

I think that when he says he's going to "bully" them into doing something, he crosses the line between normal kid and spoiled brat.

The tell-tale scar? Most wizarding folks knew about it, right?

Petunia made Harry hide his scar under his hair, though. But since he didn't comb his hair that morning, that might explain it. Draco didn't recognise him, though.

Actually, I think this was a parody of non-decimal systems - there were 13 shillings to a pound at one point, after all.

You're right, I didn't think of that.

While Slytherin is subtlety incarnate.

Slytherin, while sounding unpleasant, does not scream evil into your face.

But yeah, the translation sucks where puns are concerned.

To be fair, most translations do.

Lost in translation

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of puns in HP so the translators have to be creative to make substitutes. How did the dutch translator construe Voldemort's real name?

'Dooddoener'? It conveys what pathetic, non-threatening villains they were. A better alternative in English for 'Death doers' would be something like 'corpse makers.'

Re: Lost in translation

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

Very sneaky move on the Dutch translator's part! XD That's neat.

In German, Tom Riddle is Tom Riddle and Lord Voldemort is Lord Voldemort. I don't have the second or sixth books, so I don't know if his middle name is also the same.

In French, Tom Riddle is Tom Jedusor and his middle name, funnily enough, is Elvis. I remember cracking up when I first read it. But I guess that the French translator also had to find a way to make his name an anagram of "Je suis Voldemort" (I am Voldemort).

In Greek, Voldemort's name is the same, but is spelled Βόλντεμορτ. Tom Riddle's name is changed to Άντον Μόρβολ Χερτ (Anton Morvol Khert) for the sake of the anagram, even though he's sometimes called Toμ (Tom). But here's where things get weird.

Whenever Voldemort is referred to as "Lord Voldemort" in the text, he's called "ο λόρδος Βόλντεμορτ" (o lorthos Voldemort), "lorthos" being a modern Greek term for "lord."

But while Tom Riddle's full name in Greek (Anton Morvol Khert) does turn into "Lord Voldemort," it uses a variation of the Ancient Greek word for "lord." Άντον Μόρβολ Χερτ (Anton Morvol Khert) becomes Άρχον Βόλντεμορτ (Arkhon Voldemort). Technically, the word άρχων ("arkhon" with a long 'o') is the Ancient Greek word for "ruler, noble, magistrate, lord," but I guess that the translator had to fit the words in somehow.

Re: Lost in translation

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

In German he was Tom Vorlost Riddle. "Ist Lord Voldemort"

[oryx_leucoryx]

what the heck does it have to do with Hermione Granger?

It relates to her otter Patronus.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Rowling does use names to describe character (Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle = grab and coil, Severus, Minerva, Alastor etc), so it is legitimate to use the same means for other characters.

Hermione's name is a Shakespearean allusion - and its supposed to show she comes from a cultured background. The specific allusion is also related to Hermione's petrification in 2nd year. It is legitimate to have her name imply she is scholarly in other ways if the translator is already translating names.

[sunnyskywalker]

Catching the mood and social status of a name rather than translating it literally makes sense to me - I'm not fluent in any other languages, but have had enough instruction in a few to get the part where translating properly doesn't always mean translating literally. (Did you know Plato's Meno is full of really bad puns? (Probably the others too, but that's the one we translated in class.) That does not come through in any translation I've read, which is a shame.)

"Griffel" also has the advantage of looking a bit like "griffin." I don't know how they translated "Gryffindor," but it at least makes a nice allusion to her House when you send it back to the English speakers. So bilingual readers can enjoy it.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

That's very interesting. I've always found translation to be fascinating because you never know how faithful the translation is going to be and whether or not the translator will have to go about it creatively, as the Dutch translator did, in order to preserve the spirit of the original language or to make the text more comprehensible to foreign readers.

[hafl.livejournal.com]

I have read cheap fantasy published in early nineties and early localised video games, so I've seen a lot of translations worse than these. It's just that names are the easiest point of comparison and very hard to translate well.

[oryx_leucoryx]

As far as I know the Hebrew translation left personal names and place names unchanged (except possibly Tom Marvolo Riddle) though did come up with some punny terminology. So the House names are probably as the original as they are named after people. However some 3 generations ago there was a trend of translating character names (so Othello became 'Ithiel Hakushi' - Ithiel the Kushite' and Romeo and Juliet might be 'Ram and Yael'). So if one tried that the natural translation of Slytherin would be the name 'Nahshon', a real name that means 'little snake'. However Nahshon in the exodus story was the prince of the tribe of Judah and in tradition was the first to jump into the Red Sea as Moses was parting it. So the name is considered a symbol of bravery and leadership.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Actually, I think this was a parody of non-decimal systems - there were 13 shillings to a pound at one point, after all.


Isn't Rowling a member in some movement that wants to preserve the non-metric units in the name of tradition? I have a recollection of reading a tidbit about it once.

[mmmarcusz.livejournal.com]

No, she's pro-JK. She likes Labour because they wanted to more benefits to single mothers.

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

I read about her supporting the movement about old metric systems as well. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me because her whole WW nostalgia screams "ye old English way" like any Agatha Christie does. Being Labour is being chic and progressive, I suppose. Somewhat like the Wealeays, in fact. Lip service towards the liberal side, real beliefs to the contrary.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

>Why does everyone recognise Harry, when the last time he was in the Wizarding world was when he was a baby?
The tell-tale scar? Most wizarding folks knew about it, right? <

And why would they know about the scar? No one in the WW ever saw it but Hagrid, Minerva, and Albus. Did Hagrid get drunk at the Hog's Head one evening and spout the information to all and sundry? Did Albus give a press conference to make sure that his potential pawn would be recognized and pushed into his appointed role? Somehow I can't see Minerva as the leak.

13 shillings to a guinea. One shilling more than a pound. Tradesmen were paid in pounds. Artists were paid in guineas.

[lissa2.livejournal.com]

So that's another thing JKR didn't think through...btw the cat lady neighbor (I forgot her name) probably knew about the scar too.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Yes, Arabella Figg would have certainly known about the scar, but she doesn't seem to really have been all that connected to what was going on in the ww, even if she did have a nice sideline business breeding cat/kneezle crosses (and why didn't Harry ever notice that some of her cats looked decidedly *odd*?)