OOTP Chapter Sixteen: "In the Hog's Head"
Jul. 1st, 2011 10:46 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslock
* So what exactly does Vanishing an animal do? Send
it to another dimension? Send it into oblivion? Because isn’t the latter
effectively killing it (more so, in fact, because it wouldn’t get to go to
whatever passes for an Afterlife in the Potterverse)? I wonder how many
students would be happy with their Vanishing lessons if they knew that they
were actually killing kittens?
* Ron totally refusing to back Hermione up over unofficial
DADA lessons. What a perfect match those two make.
* Oh no wait, Ron was just waiting to be sure Harry
would blow up. Odd, I’d have thought that the image of an angry young man whose
friends are feared of contradicting him would have seemed more likely to apply
to Tom Riddle that to anybody else.
* It’s actually rather easy to do stuff grown
wizards can’t in the HP universe. You just have to be on good terms with the
author, and you can do anything.
* The whole Viktor/Hermione thing is a bit squicky,
really. So an eighteen-year-old wants to go out with a fourteen-year-old, and
nobody seems to think that there’s anything wrong with that (except for Ron,
who is (a) jealous and (b) doesn’t object to it on grounds of age)?
* Also, what is it that first attracted Viktor to
Hermione? He didn’t know her well enough before asking her to the Yule Ball for
it to be her personality, and Hermione wasn’t yet pretty enough for it to be
her good looks.
* Once again, Hermione seems terrified of Harry.
Perhaps she’s just worried that Harry’s overwhelming love might prove too much
for an ordinary person such as her to handle.
* I’d have thought that after Azkaban, living in a
large, stately house would be quite nice. Apparently though Sirius is feeling
cooped-up and reckless. Because a reckless person could totally carry out the
first-ever escape from Azkaban. Totally.
* Hermione stutters when she says “Voldemort” again,
even though she has no reason to. About the only reason I can think of is that
JKR kept forgetting she was supposed to be Muggle-born, and so had her acting
like a Pureblood instead.
* Also, remember when we thought that there was some
proper reason for not saying Voldemort’s name, and Dumbledore seemed really
cool and badass for saying it anyway? *sigh* How I miss those days… :(
* Hermione says that Sirius won’t be free until “the
fools” “accept that Dumbledore’s been telling the truth all along”, as if
Dumbledore’s word ought to be enough for anybody. This doesn’t seem like a
particularly open-minded and enquiring position to take, although I suppose
that Hermione’s open-mindedness has always been something of an informed
attribute.
* Harry’s barely keeping up with his homework,
because he always has to have some problem to angst about. Ron’s doing even
worse, because no matter how bad Harry is, JKR can’t have Ron doing better than
the hero. Hermione’s doing fine, because she’s a total Mary Sue who does fine
at everything.
* Hermione dismisses Harry’s concerns about Umbridge
spying on them on the grounds that “Umbridge is shorter than that woman”.
Because it’s not like Umbridge could have any informants. Or like she could
have taken some sort of potion to make herself look like somebody else. Nope.
No chance of that at all.
* Hermione’s faith that they’ll all be safe because
they won’t be breaking any rules is rather touchingly naïve. Given what they
know of the wizarding attitude to justice, however, it’s also pretty stupid.
* So is the barman who “looked vaguely familiar to
Harry” supposed to be Aberforth, then? If so, this would be one of the few
examples of continuity between DH and the previous Harry Potter books. I suppose the smell of goats is also meant to
be a clue.
* Hermione “snarls” at Ron when he suggests ordering
a Firewhiskey. Not that her constant sneering, snarling and assorted put-downs
will stop Ron from fancying her. Treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen, I suppose.
* Harry doesn’t recognise half the people coming in,
even the ones he plays against in Quidditch matches. I suppose this is part of
JKR’s desire to make the reader learn everything as Harry does, even though by
this stage she could introduce everybody as if Harry already knew them (“Following
Ginny came John Smith, a nondescript Hufflepuff in fourth year”) without
anybody batting an eyelid.
* I think the red-haired girl is Marietta, yes? In
which case, her reluctance to come is clearly meant to be foreshadowing of her
betrayal. Because it’s not like anybody could change their minds about the idea,
and become less enthusiastic as time went on; any traitor would have to have to
be against it from the start.
* What has Lord Voldemort done to warrant such a
reaction to the mere mention of his name? Going around murdering people is bad,
but not enough to make people shriek every time somebody mentions you.
Especially since mainstream wizarding society seems fine with the idea of
sending people to rot in a castle full of depression-causing monsters without
even a trial, which is arguably worse.
* “‘Well, Dumbledore believes it—’ Hermione began.”
Again, Hermione, that isn’t a good enough reason. A supposedly
independent-minded girl should know that.
* Also: yay Zach Smith! Nice to see somebody
questioning DD’s version of events. A pity his author doesn’t appreciate him
for it.
* Didn’t Harry produce a Patronus at a Quidditch
match in his third year? So why is the fact that he can such a big surprise to
everybody?
* And Harry, just because two people you’re met use
the phrase “Corporeal Patronus”, that doesn’t mean they’re related.
* Harry shows a rare moment of humility and self-knowledge
when he says that he only succeeded because he was helped out by others.
* Hermione dismisses the possibility of Heliopaths
existing, even though at age eleven she found out that magic, goblins, giants
and all manner of other “impossible” things existed. A pity nobody ever points
this out to her, really.
* “But I also think… that we all ought to agree not
to shout about what we’re doing. So if you sign, you agree not to tell Umbridge
or anybody what we’re up to.” And to have your face disfigured for the rest of
your life if you do, but we won’t bother telling you that.
* Seriously, that “protection” is the worst ever. It
doesn’t warn you when you’ve been betrayed, it doesn’t stop anybody betraying
you in the first place, and none of the DA members know about it, so it’s not
going to have any sort of deterrent effect.
* Ginny and Michael first met at the Yule Ball. I
hope when Neville asked her to go with him he meant in a “just friends” sense,
rather than as a date, because otherwise that can’t have been a fun night for
him.
* Ron seems very worked-up about Ginny’s new
boyfriend. Ron/Ginny OTP?
* Of course, this Michael/Ginny/Ron love-triangle
won’t go anywhere, so Hermione quickly moves to more plot-relevant stuff, like
Harry/Cho.
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no subject
Date: 2011-07-01 10:03 pm (UTC)If Ron had acted towards Hermione like Hermione does towards Ron, people would be saying that he's a jealous, possessive, abusive, violent thug whom Hermione should avoid at all costs. They'd be right, too. I suppose this comes back to the old stereotype that there's no such thing as woman-on-man violence, or if there is, that's just because the man's too pussy-whipped to stand up for himself. It's also similar to the love potion thing: if, say, Draco had slipped some into Hermione's pumpkin juice, people would (rightly) be criticising it sooner than you can say "date rape", but because it's a girl using it, it's apparently a source of humour.
"It doesn't explain why nobody is afraid to say Grindelwald's name, though. Or is it because they've just forgotten about him?"
Who cares about Grindlewald? He was foreign, after all. Nothing to do with us. The only thing people remember about him is that he was beaten by Dumbledore.
"Earlier you said that Harry resembled Tom Riddle. Now, doesn't Hermione resemble Tom a bit?"
Oh, I think the whole Trio resembles Riddle in at least some respects. Even Ron is fine with the idea of betraying people once they're no longer needed.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-01 11:50 pm (UTC)Not people, goblins! They don't have our blood, you see, so it's okay!
Gods, this gets more and more right the more you look at it.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 06:12 am (UTC)The majority of anti-Ron/Hermione/anti-Ron people seem to believe that anyway.
I suppose this comes back to the old stereotype that there's no such thing as woman-on-man violence,
Yeah, and even most of the most ardent Ron/Hermione shippers love that she attacked him with a flock of birds and think it makes her a strong woman and that Ron had it coming. On the other hand, HBP was what turned me against Ron/Hermione and it had been my OTP. I still ship it fanon-wise but HBP destroyed the canon pairing for me.
or if there is, that's just because the man's too pussy-whipped to stand up for himself.
And the few times Ron did stand up for himself, Hermione cried hysterically, other characters piled on him for been so mean to her, and Ron haters used it as proof that Ron = Charlie Sheen.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 01:39 pm (UTC)Unfortunately. :(
/Yeah, and even most of the most ardent Ron/Hermione shippers love that she attacked him with a flock of birds and think it makes her a strong woman and that Ron had it coming./
Oh, yes, because if Ron had done the same thing to Hermione during the Yule Ball or when she invited Cormac to Slughorn's party just to make Ron jealous, we'd all be calling him a "strong man" and saying that Hermione "had it coming." -_-
I ranted about that scene in my LJ: http://aikaterini.livejournal.com/48293.html. I *hated* that scene and I hated Hermione in HBP. Ron was an unlikable idiot in that book to be sure, but Hermione was downright unbearable.
/And the few times Ron did stand up for himself, Hermione cried hysterically, other characters piled on him for been so mean to her, and Ron haters used it as proof that Ron = Charlie Sheen./
Oh, yeah, like that time in PoA, when Hagrid called out Ron for caring more about his pet than his friend. Never mind that Hermione apparently cared more about *her* pet (Crookshanks) and being right than *her* friend's feelings. It was only near the end of the book that she apologized about Scabbers, but in the end, it didn't mean anything because we all learned who Scabbers really was.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 07:18 pm (UTC)Or if Dean Thomas had done that to Ginny.
Oh, yeah, like that time in PoA, when Hagrid called out Ron for caring more about his pet than his friend. Never mind that Hermione apparently cared more about *her* pet (Crookshanks) and being right than *her* friend's feelings.
And never mind that in the previous two books Ron was bitten by one of Hagrid's pets and ended up in the hospital wing and that he and Harry almost became dinner for another one. And not only did he not get any apology, Hagrid chewed him out for "making" his dragon bite him.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 08:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 08:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 09:39 pm (UTC)The 'sneak' curse really is a piece of viciousness suited to Umbridge, yeah. (I mean, seriously, compare that and the blood quill! Also: keeping a woman trapped in a jar, mindraping two adults without their consent, and laughing at a traumatized woman's reaction to being mock-threatened. Empathy, is no can haz.) I can see Dumbles not saying anything (my view of DD is not pretty), but I'm kind of shocked at Pomfrey. I tend to like Poppy and see her as no-nonsense, but I suppose that had to give way to authorial convenience. Sigh.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 01:47 pm (UTC)Or it's a case of a victimized woman searching for love, as in the case of Merope Gaunt and Tom Riddle Sr. You don't know how people have said that Tom Riddle Sr. was such a horrible man for leaving her after she stopped giving him the Love Potion (and originally, I used to think so, too).
Uh, guys? She gave him a mind-controlling drug and slept with him while he was under that drug. She effectively *raped* him. It doesn't matter how much of a snob he was, *anybody* would be running for their lives once they'd realized what had happened to them. He didn't leave her because she was ugly and poor (or at least not *just* because she was ugly and poor). He left her because she had married him and slept with him *against his will.* Just because Merope was a victim didn't give her the right to victimize someone else.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 07:54 pm (UTC)Veering OT: Yep. On the other hand, some have pointed out that the only proof we have of Merope raping Tom Sr. is an assumption by Dumbledore. Wasn't Merope a squib or close to it? And she didn't attend Hogwarts. How and where would she have learned to make a viable love potion? And she was dirt poor so it's unlikely she bought one from someone else. He also believes that Merope died because she was too (morally) weak to live for her child. So while I think sleeping with someone under a love potion is rape, I do think there reasonable doubt as to whether Merope raped Tom Sr. And it could go the other way too. What if, in HBP, Ron had tracked down Romilda Vane and tried to jump her bones? =:-O
no subject
Date: 2011-07-02 08:32 pm (UTC)(Sorry, RL rage-making things are getting to me atm, but seriously: Dumbledore's assumptions and reasons for making them about Merope make me so sick.)
no subject
Date: 2011-07-06 11:31 pm (UTC)That's gonna be a great exchange in my abridged series when I get to book 6:
Dumbledore: So, yeah, Merope drug-raped Tom Rid Sr.
Harry: How do you know?
Dumbledore: Oh, I don't know, I just sort-of assumed.
Harry: Wait... you mean you're just asking me to infer this incredibly sensitive information without proof?!
no subject
Date: 2011-07-06 11:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-07 12:06 am (UTC)Violence, date rape.
Date: 2011-07-03 07:31 am (UTC)Never mind that, if the perpetrator in ANY such instance were a man, or even a teenaged boy then it would get the same condemnation, whichever the gender of the victim.
Re: Violence, date rape.
Date: 2011-07-06 11:34 pm (UTC)Re: Violence, date rape.
Date: 2011-07-21 07:05 pm (UTC)Re: Violence, date rape.
Date: 2011-07-11 05:04 am (UTC)But for some reason, if it's a girl, it's not a big deal? People only get squicked if guys abuse someone in this way, but it's a-okay with males? *headdesk*
The love potion thing came up on another comm and I got this reply:
I know that if I had access to a love potion and the biggest celebrity in the universe...Well, I could see using on too. (Rupert Grint, anyone? <3).
*headdesk* I know- at least, I hope- this person isn't serious and that it's just a throwaway comment like a fangirl without actually meaning they would use it if the chance came up. But it makes me despair that people actually make comments like that. I'm CERTAIN that if Draco had been the one employing the potion on Hermione, everyone would be calling for blood.
tl;dr, but this issue makes me really upset.
Double standard
Date: 2011-07-21 07:11 pm (UTC)Ever see that strange hoax story that crops up in the tabloids every couple of years? It reads like someones twisted fantasy about an inept stick up merchant who tries to rob a beauty salon, but is overpowered and then tortured and raped by the owner who was an attractive young woman. Awful as it seems, the real responses to the hoax often include people laughing about it or drooling over it. No one would cheer such a story (obvious hoax or not) if it were about a man treating any robber in that way. And no one would even want to read a realistic story about the would be robber getting gang raped by other men in prison.
There is some very strange fault in the perceptions of many people who just have ordinary mental faculties. JKR was cynically exploiting it by depicting the love potion, so called, as only being used by witches. Really, using one would be as bad as using the Imperius Curse to take sexual advantage of another person. It could actually have been interesting subject matter if handled by a less morally challenged author than JKR, but then, so could many of the themes in the series.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-08 10:29 am (UTC)I was creeped out by Molly, Ginny and Hermione giggling over the use of love potions. I think Molly was 'telling a funny story' or something about it? Yeah...really funny how someone's free will is taken away. (maybe this is why Hermione thinks it's okay to do that to her parents?)
Oh, I found the reference:
Mrs. Weasley was telling Hermione and Ginny about a love potion she'd made as a young girl. All three of them were rather giggly
O.o Judging them and the author so hard right now.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-10 02:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-10 04:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-10 02:48 am (UTC)Maybe they were really, REALLY tipsy and the story was one of those 'I know this is so *wrong* but its just too *funny* and I-can't-stop-laughing-but-I-really-really-should' type things? Ya know, like a good Joker plot in Batman? So we can still salvage the characters?
...
No?
*sigh...*
no subject
Date: 2011-07-10 04:13 am (UTC)On another, oft-repeated note: this where JKR irritates me- she makes up all these super awesome and powerful things, but nobody ever makes use of them. It's like the Felix Felicis- why wouldn't EVERYONE EVER be dosing themselves with it? So with the love potion, if a kid like Romilda Vane can make it or has access to it (not sure how she got hold of it), then why aren't tons of students dosing other people with it to make them their willing slaves?
no subject
Date: 2011-07-10 05:43 am (UTC)