Nagini's attack on Arthur in OotP

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

We know that Arthur was an Order member, guarding the door to the DoM (and asleep on the job under an invisibility cloak which didn't hide him from a creature that hunted by heat and scent), when Voldemort's snake attacked him.

What did the Ministry think, and the average Prophet reader?


If Fudge had realized Arthur was there on Dumbledore's orders, surely he'd have sacked him?

In fact, why wasn't Arthur sacked anyway? What business had he to be in the Ministry at all in the middle of the night? Much less loitering suspiciously outside the DoM with an invisibility cloak?

And just what kind of security does the Ministry have, that Order members, Voldemort's slaves and pets, and schoolkids, can come and go after hours as they please? I've never worked anywhere that didn't lock up when everyone left.

In fact, aren't the Aurors based in the building? Shouldn't they have a night shift (what, Dark wizards never operate at night, you tell me?), and therefore a night shift on reception to check people in who have business there?

Finally, if Fudge didn't think the snake was Tom's pet, whose did he think it was and how did he think it got in and escaped?

Thoughts?

Comments

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Arthur's near death is one of the most damning indictments of Rowling's writing, how she didn't know how to handle the prophecy.

In book 5 the prophecy is used as that tome's one-book wonder ... it's the reason for Voldemort taking the whole year to invade Harry's mind, it's the thing that props up the entire novel. But then in book 6 Rowling drops it on the floor ... she makes a farce of Harry's revelation of it to Hermione and Ron and then it's only mentioned once more, when Albus ("I speak for the author") Dumbledore tells us all that prophecies mean nothing.

And then in book 7 it's likewise forgotten until right at the end, when Rowling has Harry quote it in the final showdown to try and have it stick, to convince the readers it was relevant all along.

Anyway, why I say all this ... I just find Dumbldore's complete reversal with regard to the prophecy indefensible. Either via bad writing or horrible leadership two men died - the Order guard prior to Arthur and Sirius - and Arthur almost did, all protecting something that the following year Dumbledore was earnestly telling Harry didn't matter. "You are setting too much store by the prophecy!" screams Dumbledore ... probably because Harry was thinking "yeah, because two men died, Mr. Weasley was a near third, in protecting the damn thing".

Why didn't Dumbledore just hid the darn thing, anyway? Like he did the Stone in book 1?

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

Why didn't Dumbledore just hid the darn thing, anyway? Like he did the Stone in book 1?

This at least is explicable - it's Ministry policy to keep all prophecies in the DoM and at this point he can hardly requisition it (in any case, even if Voldemort takes it, he'll have to walk into the Ministry and alert them to his return - or at least that's Bella's explanation for why he didn't just turn up in person - and Albus "prophecies don't matter" Dumbledore will have arguably come out ahead).

What isn't explained at all is why the DoM catalogue all these prophecies - are they measuring the success rate (of every prophecy ever made? How can they possibly hope to do this, and what about the ambiguous ones along the lines of "a great empire will fall if you attack Persia"?)? Couldn't they get a better understanding of the mechanics of prophecy by experimenting on Seers?

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Yes, I guess I can see the difference; Dumbledore was handed the Stone by the owners, with the prophecy he'd be breaking the law if he just grabbed it. Still, that seems to be a small consideration given the lives lost - and, in Arthur's case, nearly lost - in protecting it. I suppose Fudge's anti-Dumbledore campaign would explain why Dumbledore couldn't protect it more openly too.

I do agree that the whole 'prophecy storage' thing seems like just one huge contrivance for Rowling's story. A small glass globe that only he or Riddle can touch, no-one can use a levitation charm or a pair of tongs or rubber gloves to remove it, yeah, right.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Especially as once it is removed anyone can touch it. And how do the Unspeakables key the prophecy records to people they never met? Magical identification appears to be arbitrary. Would Quirrellmort have been able to remove the prophecy? Diary!Tom? How about Nagini-while-possessed-by-Tom?

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

"Anyway, why I say all this ... I just find Dumbldore's complete reversal with regard to the prophecy indefensible. Either via bad writing or horrible leadership two men died - the Order guard prior to Arthur and Sirius - and Arthur almost did, all protecting something that the following year Dumbledore was earnestly telling Harry didn't matter."

To be fair to Dumbles, he might not have thought that the prophecy was important, but Voldemort clearly did. So by keeping the prophecy protected like that, Dumbledore was ensuring that his enemies' attention was focused on this comparitively useless device, rather than doing things which might help them more, such as recruiting extra followers or gaining control of the Ministry.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

So by keeping the prophecy protected like that, Dumbledore was ensuring that his enemies' attention was focused on this comparitively useless device, rather than doing things which might help them more, such as recruiting extra followers or gaining control of the Ministry.

I'd accept that if Dumbledore had made good use of the time himself! But he *didn't*. He wasn't organising a publicity campaign to bring the Ministry over to his side, he wasn't actively recruiting Order members, he didn't do a darn thing while wasting people's lives keeping Riddle in a holding pattern.

Making Riddle wait one year or ten years has no practical benefit if the dark lord can proceed to carry on his original plans of taking over the world with absolutely no difference due to the pause.

[oryx_leucoryx]

What Albus did was review the information he had about the Horcruxes. After all, it was in June of GOF that Harry brought the information that caused Albus to realize there were more Horcruxes. In December he realizes Nagini is a Horcrux and in July he retrieves the ring. (Why didn't he find more of them? Well, if we believe him it took him all of the following year to find Tom's cave. Maybe he isn't much better of a detective than the trio. Or maybe he was following too many false leads.)

[oryx_leucoryx]

But he didn't hide the stone away in book 1, he only pretended to. After all, he involved Quirrell in protecting the stone.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

*blinks*

I should be used to your taking-canon-to-the-extreme thinking - incorporating all the Rowling errors and trying to work out the ultimate 'unified HP theory' - by now. I mean, we all *know* that Dumbledore wouldn't deliberately place kids in danger, right? Just like we all *know* that Harry's a hero and had a 'power of love', and ... oh dear. :-)

Seriously, where is it canon that Dumbledore knew about Quirrel's possession? It's not like he ever said "I knew about Quirrell' at any stage, right?

I've come across fan fiction stories which had Dumbledore deliberately putting Harry's life on the line, and that "we had to let him test his strength" stupidity at the end of DH is *consistent* with that idea, but hardly proof.

Harry could have so easily been killed by Quirrell at the end, that nature of Lily's protection wasn't known (as far as I know) ... I'm loathe that the whole thing was a pretence.

[oryx_leucoryx]

It isn't my theory (few are), and perhaps pretense isn't the most accurate term, but what Albus did with the stone is use it as bait to catch the potential thief.

Look whom he sent to transfer it - Hagrid, who is so proud to tell everyone he meets that he is doing some top secret very important service to the headmaster.

OK, he has one good reason to send Hagrid on this mission - he can't be impersonated with Polyjuice. But otherwise, not the best choice.

Then he involves 6 other staff members in the 'hiding', including that young fellow that just returned with a personality transplant. (Possibly also while those mysterious 'sources' reporting that Tom is no longer in Albania.) And he has the whole hiding mechanism accessible to anyone willing to try.

If he had been serious about hiding the stone, why not keep it in his private rooms? On his person? In a mokeskin pouch? Or use a variation on whatever it is the goblins use at the bank for those high-security vaults that only open when a goblin touches them? (The mokeskin pouch in DH can be seen as such a variation, but the principle was present from book 1).

In any case, we know for certain that Albus suspected Quirrell early in the year, probably before Halloween, because he warned Severus to watch out for Quirrell, and on Halloween Severus already suspects Quirrell and tries to beat him to the third floor when Quirrell lets the troll in as a diversion. Yet Albus leaves the stone there. We also know Hagrid received the dragon egg in Aberforth's pub so Albus should have figured out Quirrell was making progress then (someone gives Hagrid a dragon egg - surely not out of the goodness of his heart, shortly after that unicorns start dying in the forest) but he still doesn't move the stone. Even if the pub was not planned to belong to Albus' brother, we know Albus found Harry's invisibility cloak on the Astronomy Tower.

What it adds up to is that Albus used the stone to keep Tom or his agent (or as it turned out, both of them) busy chasing the stone. So he made sure they knew the stone was going to be at Hogwarts. He was confident enough that they wouldn't be able to breach the Mirror of Erised. Apparently he was planning to catch Quirrell by the mirror when he despaired of getting the stone. What we don't know is what he was going to do with Quirrell if he had found him alone there. Did he have any means to capture the disembodied Tom? Or was he counting on Tom remaining stuck to Quirrell when the latter was captured?

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

If he had a means of capturing Voldemort while disembodied, he should still have been able to use it in the events that actually took place.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Well, maybe Albus got distracted by Harry's collapsed form.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

If he had been serious about hiding the stone, why not keep it in his private rooms? ...

Yeah, but I was wondering if there was an actual admission that Dumbledore set things up as a trap. Actual canon proof rather than our supposition.

Like this:

In any case, we know for certain that Albus suspected Quirrell early in the year, probably before Halloween, because he warned Severus to watch out for Quirrell

I dimly remember that, thanks.

Okay, so it was a deliberate trap for the wraith ... allowing a school full of innocent children to be exposed to the dark lord in the process, tch. But Harry's running the gauntlet was still unplanned, right, according to canon?

Still, I'm surprised to be reminded that it was a deliberate trap for Quirrell. Something that Rowling intended all along, given that warning for Snape ... but she never reminded us of it again. She never 'used' that fact, never had any character note it in trying to prop up the headmaster's reputation as an astute leader. Instead I'm left with the overall impression that Dumbledore was crossing his fingers for most of the series.

[oryx_leucoryx]

But Harry's running the gauntlet was still unplanned, right, according to canon?

Sorta. I don't think Albus *needed* Harry to 'save' the stone. But he seemed to have been dangling the stone in front of Harry to a degree, and encouraged recklessness in general. The dangling was in the form of having the stone removed from Gringotts very dramatically in front of Harry. The encouragement of recklessness was in the form of the gift of the invisibility cloak - and returning the cloak to Harry after he used it for the dragon adventure. Also, there was the matter of the forest detention - Minerva's name was on the letter, but I doubt Albus didn't know about it. Which means he either let or even encouraged a nightly encounter between Harry and -er - someone who was relying on unicorn blood to stay alive.

If Hagrid was reporting to Albus about his conversations with the trio then he also knew that the trio was after Flamel and had run across Fluffy, but we don't know any of this for certain, just that Hagrid tends to blab a lot so it's hard to see him keeping anything from Albus the entire year.

Some say Albus wanted to know what Harry saw in the Mirror of Erised as a personality test (how much is he influenced by the Horcrux?), but returning the cloak after it was used recklessly (rather than confiscating it as normal teachers would do) means Albus wanted more recklessness from Harry.

(And to some readers the fact that Harry ended up believing Albus wanted him to go after the stone and meet Voldemort is enough.)

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Madderbrad, I would add to what Oryx said below - I think, knowing what we know now, that Dumbledore was quite content to put Harry in mortal danger. If the horcrux managed to destroy itself, so much the better. Albus could keep his hands clean. Brrr! I really do despise that character.

But, though it's pretty clear that the maze was a trap for Quirrell, it's also true that she never referred to it again. And yes, the "prophecies don't matter" thing when Bode actually died protecting it is maddening!

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

And yes, the "prophecies don't matter" thing when Bode actually died protecting it is maddening!

Yup. Reading that made me an even more madder Brad.

(sorry, had to say it, I'll go away now ...)

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

No, you're right, it's canon:

"You see what you expect to see, Severus," said Dumbledore, without raising his eyes from a copy of Transfiguration Today. "Other teachers report that the boy is modest, likable, and reasonably talented. Personally, I find him an engaging child."

Dumbledore turned a page, and said, without looking up, "Keep an eye on Quirrell, won't you?"

So I'm surprised again. Oryx reminded me that Dumbledore was deliberately setting a trap for Quirrell, and I remarked that I was surprised by this - Rowling obviously meant it to be so, yet has the headmaster doing very little else in 'fighting the war' against Voldemort. The man who deliberately sets a trap for the wraith in book #1 ... can't find a creature the size of a sixty foot basilisk, can't stop Sirius Black from invading the castle, allows a death eater to masquerade as a teacher for a year, sets up an ineffectual protection which takes the lives of two, almost three men, for a prophecy which next book he says is meaningless, puts on a cursed ring which kills him in book 6 and sets up a 'plan' of Hallows and Horcruxes which is so farcical only brain-dead fan zombies could possibly take it seriously.

Yet she reminds us of the Quirrell trap again in DH, as per your quote.

It just seems to be a huge ... discontinuity. Was Dumbledore actually partially efficient in book #1? His proactively setting a trap in PS seems incongruous in comparison with his bumbling for the remaining six books. That's why I totally forgot what you and Oryx have pointed out, I think.

and lookit Dumbles! He really *was doing stuff*, he didn't just sit on his arse

Not for that one-half of one book, no, he set up an overly complicated (suitable for a childrens book, I guess) trap. But as for the other eleven-twelfths of the series ... he comes over as quite ineffectual.

... OR Barty Jr. Dumbles had everything under control. So why did he let an evilly posessed teacher, an evil disguised teacher and a monstreously dangerous werewolf teacher loose amongst hundreds of children *for which he was responsible*?

Well, like I said above, he *didn't* have everything in control; Rowling couldn't let him be such, because that would then destroy her simplistic one-dimensional plots. Which is why I think Dumbledore was a farce for six and a half books and why I'm surprised at how she let him be partially effective in book 1 ... and actually reminding us of this in DH!

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

I guess the answer is simply that he was omniscient ... when Rowling needed him to be - like at the end of each book, when he'd explain everything that needed to be known to understand what had happened ... and oblivious for the rest of it.

Which is inconsistent/bad writing, but it allowed Rowling to float the plots she wanted to write, the way she wanted to write them.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

I've seen the term 'cognitive dissonance' used before, and have used it myself, in describing the behaviour of canon apologists or zealous OBHWF shippers, but 'doublethink' is a better diagnosis at that, given as how there is no actual *conflict* in the subjects' minds, they're happy supporting their antagonistic conclusions in parallel and often can't see - and certainly won't admit to - the incompatibility.

I loathe the Potter books. I loathe them with a passion. Part of this loathing is born from the fact that they only make sense if one is prepared to imply doublespeak.

I guess the trick to liking the books is to willingly or unconsciously accept *some* degree of 'doublethink', of conflicting standards. Otherwise known as 'suspension of disbelief' maybe.

I never thought the HP books were super-fantastic but enjoyed reading the first five. Well, books 1-2 were too much 'for kids' to take really seriously, but #3 - #5 were okay. I liked OotP the most - for a HP book - because it seemed that Harry was waking up, getting proactive (okay, Hermione on his behalf, driving him), and that things were going to really start cooking with the sequel.

I didn't worry too much about the huge Rowling errors in those books back then. Sure, I acknowledged that it was ludicrous that Crouch couldn't kill or shanghi Harry in the first week at Hogwarts, rather than setting up the ridiculously convoluted plan to kidnap him via cup portkey at the end of the tournament, but my 'suspension of disbelief' was enough to turn a blind eye to that one humoungous flaw. Or the fact that the existence of Time Turners meant anything could happen, from book #3 on. I gave Rowling a pass on those isolated incidents.

But book #6 was so bad, there was such a paucity of real plot, the filler was so obnoxious and contrived ... it was much harder to ignore the entire set of Rowling flaws. Or there wasn't the incentive to give the author such an allowance.

And then DH was published and blew the whole series out of the water.

Still, up to OotP, the books' errors hadn't breached my 'suspension of disbelief' limits. Or my willingness to cut the author some slack. Because the rest of the material, minus the flaws, still came up on the plus side? (Also the fan fiction sometimes helped to explain away Rowling's errors for her.)

It's funny, though, how I now have contempt for those fans who *still* toe the line and worship the books and/or Rowling. Because the last two books were just orders of magnitudes worse in the number of errors a reader had to avoid. Taking things to a point where only a child or an adult cursed with 'doublethink' - or deliberate ignorance - or stupidity :-) - could say that they are 'good books', or the series a quality work.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

It's funny, though, how I now have contempt for those fans who *still* toe the line and worship the books and/or Rowling. Because the last two books were just orders of magnitudes worse in the number of errors a reader had to avoid. Taking things to a point where only a child or an adult cursed with 'doublethink' - or deliberate ignorance - or stupidity :-) - could say that they are 'good books', or the series a quality work.

I've found that usually having discussions with hardcore fans is an essay in frustration, especially if they happen to be smart fans. (which many are) Any criticisms you point out, no matter how politely phrased, are instantly shot down, and occasionally other accusations will be leveled at you- you don't like fantasy, you don't understand the books, you're getting caught up with the religious fervor against them, etc. The last one was from my mother of all people, despite the fact that I write fantasy myself and have no real qualms about including magic in it. Clearly, the hatred of the religious right doesn't necessarily mean the book is good. ;-)

(not trying to go off into that territory, but I thought it was kind of a telling comment)

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

"Well, books 1-2 were too much 'for kids' to take really seriously, but #3 - #5 were okay."

Really? I always thought the first two books were the best. Maybe because it's easier to forgive JKR's "just throw anything in, as long as it looks cool" approach in a children's book than it is in a more grown-up work of fiction.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

Wow, when you put it like that you can really see JKR pulling the strings, can't you? She doesn't let the reader come up with their own interpretations of the characters- no, it must be her way and her way alone! And the worst part is that for years I followed her directions like the good little sheep I was. ;-)