OOTP Chapter Twenty-Seven: "The Centaur and the Sneak"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

* First of all, sorry this is so late, I'm afraid I've been a bit busy preparing to go back to university.

* This is the chapter in which Hermione officially crosses the line from “occasionally strident and self-righteous but on the whole likeable and sympathetic character” to “dangerous sociopath”.

* “‘A gorgeous centaur...’ sighed Parvati.” I must say that, given the, erm, associations of centaurs in classical mythology, this sort of thing rather creeps me out. Is JKR aware of the implications of what she’s writing? Or did she just throw it in without bothering to think it through?

* Hermione’s dropping dark hints about what Umbridge is going to do, revealing the plot like any good author avatar would.

* So Harry can remember the names of centaurs he met once four years ago, but in DH he won’t be able to remember a face from a picture from one chapter to the next. *coughplotconveniencecough*

* Wow, centaurs sure are arrogant and condescending people. No wonder Dumbledore felt enough of an affinity with Firenze to hire him as a teacher. He recognises a kindred spirit when he sees one.

* If I were JKR, I’d be hesitant to dignify the wizarding conflicts with the term “war”. They’re more like gang wars than what most people would think of as warfare. Which is why epic fantasy doesn’t really mix with a “secret magical people in this world” plot. Epic fantasy generally centres around mighty empires, big wars and bloody battles, but these things are generally quite noticeable, and any wizards fighting in large-scale conflicts would be found out pretty quickly. So the wizarding war pretty much has to be low-key to make it plausible that Muggles wouldn’t know about it, and the end result is that we get a lot of build-up and very little payoff.

* Firenze spends the whole lesson teaching them something which he doesn’t expect them to do anyway, and which is anyway a bit uncertain and useless. So he’s about as good as the average Hogwarts teacher, then.

* “Indeed, Harry sometimes wondered how Umbridge was going to react when all the members of the DA received ‘Outstanding’ in their Defence Against the Dark Arts OWLs.” Only kidding, Harry will be the only one to get an “Outstanding” mark, because he’s a Mary Sue just the most awesome DADA student ever.

* Although everybody always goes on about how smart Hermione is, and from what we see of her she doesn’t seem noticeably worse in DADA than she does in other subjects, so if she only got an “E” in her Defence OWL, that’s probably because Harry’s not a very good teacher... :p

* Seamus’ Patronus “was definitely something hairy”. *mind goes into the gutter*

* Hermione’s Patronus is an otter, even though she’s one of the least otter-like people in the series. On a Doylist level, this is probably because JKR’s favourite animal is the otter, so her author avatar will have one as her Patronus, obviously. On a Watsonian level, perhaps Patronuses don’t represent what your personality is like, but what you need to guard you and keep you out of trouble. So Hermione’s is an otter because she needs fun-loving people around her to stop her getting too serious about everything, Ron’s is a weasel because he needs smart people to compensate for his mental inadequacy, and Harry’s is a stag because he needs a proper father-figure to help him, not an abusive one like Uncle Vernon or a scheming and manipulative one like Dumbledore. Patronuses which change when somebody falls in love show that their caster needs to be loved by their intended in order to feel happy and secure again.

* Dobby appears, wearing “his usual eight woollen hats”. I quite like the suggestion that it was this sight that made Hermione drop her SPEW activities, as she saw that her hats were all going to this one elf, and that they were therefore pretty useless from a freeing people standpoint. (Can anybody remember if SPEW is brought up again in this book?)

* Umbridge is here! I bet it’s times like this that the DA wish they had a second, secret entrance from the ROR. That way they could slip away while Umbridge and her cronies sat uselessly in front of the main entrance.

* Draco’s concealed “beneath an ugly dragon-shaped vase”, to match his ugly and monstrous soul.

* Umbridge has “an indecent excitement in her voice”. I wonder if this is how Hermione would sound to those on the receiving end of her little schemes.

* When I first read this scene, I didn’t really mind the “Sneak” curse, because I just sort of assumed that Madam Pomfrey managed to find a way of removing them after a couple of weeks. Then we found out that she still had the scars years later and... yikes.

* Not only is that extremely vindictive, but it doesn’t actually help the DA in any way. It didn’t stop them being betrayed in the first place, and it didn’t alert them to the fact that Umbridge was coming to get them. If this had been a one-off incident and the curse hadn’t been permanent, I’d be inclined to put it down to youthful lack of thought, but when you compare it to some of Hermione’s other actions (her treatment of Rita Skeeter, or sending those canaries after Ron), it seems like a rather worrying pattern is starting to emerge...

* Minerva gets all self-righteous about Willy Widdershins being let off. I wonder whether she feels the same about Mundungus Fletcher, or whether petty crooks are OK just as long as they’re on her side.

* Also, she’s not above a bit of petty corruption herself, since she lets Gryffindor Quidditch players off homework when a match is coming up.

* So Kingsley memory-wipes Marietta to stop her telling. You know, this is exactly the sort of mentality that leads DEs to Imperius people and get them to do their bidding: not caring about your victims’ autonomy, just violating their minds when it’s convenient to do so.

* Also, if they are going to mind-wipe Marietta, why not do it to Percy, Fudge and Umbridge too? That would get them out of trouble entirely.

* And really guys, Umbridge has a list of DA members and access to Veritaserum. Obliviating one witness shouldn’t be enough.

* I’m surprised Umbridge thought she could get away with manhandling students like that in front of Dumbledore. I mean, that man’s just so concerned about his students’ welfare.

* Hermione left the membership list pinned to the ROR wall. Well done, Hermione. Not that any DA members will point out this idiocy to her. Nor will they point out the fact that her defensive jinx was (a) vindictive and useless, and (b) not told about to them when they joined up. Maybe they’re all worried she’ll brand the word “COMPLAINER” across their forehead if they speak up.

* Dumbledore taking the rap is all very noble and everything, but I don’t see how it’s meant to help. Fudge can still charge the pupils with attending, even if they didn’t organise it, and now Dumbledore’s ensured that he’s going to be on the run and unable to give them any help.

* Face-scarring aside, I actually quite liked this chapter. It was quite well-paced, and I never really felt like I was wading through pages of filler. It will be interesting to see if the other chapters will be more like this now the book’s reaching its climax, or whether the quality will slip back down again.

Comments

Re: Marietta's real crime?

[sunnyskywalker]

I'm not sure the Patronus was ever on the curriculum, actually, although given the shakiness of the DADA teaching and the fact that we missed year 7, it's hard to say.

However, since apparently no one but the Order knows about p-mail, the only other use we know for a Patronus is driving off Dementors. At this point in the story, the Dementors are still acting like they're firmly under Ministry control, and had never joined Voldemort. They're also the legal, official prison guards. They came near the Quidditch pitch in PoA - and then went away and didn't hurt anyone, and for all anyone in the audience knew, they were actually just doing their job and had thought they sensed Sirius Black. The only thing you could hold against them was showing up in Little Whinging, and I'm not sure how much (if anything) Marietta knew about that. If she heard about the trial through the Ministry grapevine, it would be basically that Harry said it happened, and then Dumbledore showed up with a witness who might have been lying (since whether Squibs can see Dementors seems to be in question, and she sure sounded like she was just making it up) and most of the officials were swayed by Dumbledore's presence. That doesn't speak to Harry's guilt or innocence either way, just the biases of Ministry officials. So even if she heard all the trial details, it would be reasonable for her to doubt Harry's story.

So. What we have is a situation where up until this point, they have been practicing standard school spells, mainly defensive, and applicable in a variety of situations (including defending yourself from Fred and George, or Voldemort, or anyone you'd care to name). Marietta doesn't turn them in so long as they're sticking to those spells. The lesson she misses to turn in the DA is the one on Patronuses. The way the book puts it, at that lesson they were "finally" doing Patronuses, which makes it sound like something that had been planned for a while - that is, Harry probably at least mentioned, "I think you're all ready for Patronuses next time!" at the previous meeting. So, Marietta is uncomfortable, but leaves well enough alone as long as they're practicing legal and relatively harmless spells - but then as soon as they start practicing a spell which has no practical purpose she knows but resisting arrest (a Patronus won't drive off DEs, or Voldemort, or even Fred and George), she goes to Umbridge. I think it's an entirely plausible reading that she could just about tolerate keeping her promise and being in an illegal club so long as it didn't require anything more than supporting her friend and practicing perfectly legal spells (how much trouble could you get into for Expelliarmus, reasonably?), but drew the line when the "joke" about the club being an army started sounding less like a joke and she found out they were going to learn how to fight the officially-sanctioned and seemingly well-behaved members of the ww's law enforcement. They were supposed to learn to fight school bullies, exam questions, and/or DEs, not the government, and a rebellious secret paramilitary organization is a totally different proposition than a clandestine study group.

Re: Marietta's real crime?

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Oh, Sunny, you're really pushing on this one. I admire your industry, but it's a real long stretch that you've come up with.

Dementors are the foulest beasts imaginable. The Patronus spell is totally innocuous to all but them, and is a charm of goodness and light. To try and make it out that Marietta sees this spell as BAD and NAUGHTY is stretching things way too far.

At this point in the story, the Dementors are still acting like they're firmly under Ministry control

Not so. They'd run amuck several times in book 3, and had almost killed Harry just a few months before the DA's formation. Your whole chain of reasoning again depends on Marietta being a mushroom and not asking any questions, not picking up on anything that is known to everyone else, only aware of the things that help your case and ignorant of everything that weakens it. Shucks, Harry was brought before a full meeting of the Wizengamot and almost kicked out by the Ministry ... and Marietta is such a good girl, listening to her mum, she'd surely know all about that!

Let alone, if she was so uncomfortable about the spell ... all she had to do was *ask some questions*.

So, Marietta is uncomfortable, but leaves well enough alone as long as they're practicing legal and relatively harmless spells -

Okay, so the other excuses - the DA was technically illegal, her mum's instructions were to turn them in - are no longer applicable, right?

Dementors are *prison guards*, not Aurors. They're known by all to be 'the Dementors of Azkaban' (viz book 3). By the time citizens see a dementor they don't have their wands and can't cast a Patronus. The spell is therefore not the threat to the government that you portray.

Re: Marietta's real crime?

[oryx_leucoryx]

Nobody ever said Mrs Edgecombe instructed her daughter to turn anyone in, we said she forbade her daughter to oppose the legal government.

Re: Marietta's real crime?

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

"The Patronus spell is totally innocuous to all but them,"

So the Patronus spell is totally useless for fighting anybody *except the official prison guards*. And it doesn't seem to be on the syllabus, either, hence Harry being given extra credit for doing one, so they don't even have that excuse for learning it. Suspecting somebody who teaches you a spell which only works against law enforcement officers seems quite reasonable to me.

"Not so. They'd run amuck several times in book 3,"

I think it was twice, once at the Quidditch match, once at the end of the novel. (I may be misremembering; it's been a while since POA.) But anyway, the first time they hadn't hurt anybody, and we don't know how much Marietta knows about the second time. (Knowledge of Harry's exploits seems a bit sketchy among most of the student body.) Besides, both these times were during highly unusual circumstances. The Dementors usually stay around Azkaban, far from areas of human settlement, and there's no evidence to suggest that they pose much of a threat to anybody other than the prisoners.

"and had almost killed Harry just a few months before the DA's formation."

Well, says Harry. Given his behaviour in OOTP, I think Marietta might be justified in not considering him a reliable source.

"Shucks, Harry was brought before a full meeting of the Wizengamot and almost kicked out by the Ministry ... and Marietta is such a good girl, listening to her mum, she'd surely know all about that!"

Oh, come on, Harry's main witness looked very much like she way lying, and Harry only seems to have gotten off because the court was swayed by Dumbledore's personal influence and the incompetence of the prosecution. Why should Marietta trust the court's verdict? Especially since the wizarding justice system seems more based on nepotism than disinterested pursuit of the truth.

"Let alone, if she was so uncomfortable about the spell ... all she had to do was *ask some questions*."

Yeah, but look at what Fred and George threatened to do to Zach Smith when he started asking questions. And given what we see of their behaviour, they'd probably have been fully prepared to carry out their threats. Frankly I think I'd be a bit reluctant to ask questions in Marietta's place.

"Dementors are *prison guards*, not Aurors. They're known by all to be 'the Dementors of Azkaban' (viz book 3). By the time citizens see a dementor they don't have their wands and can't cast a Patronus. The spell is therefore not the threat to the government that you portray."

It could still potentially be used for some prison-break scenario if a conflict did break out between Dumbledore and the Ministry.

Re: Marietta's real crime?

[oryx_leucoryx]

As for the dementors: Forget about what Harry knows and thinks, consider what it looked like to outsider students or to someone at the Ministry. The dementors were at the school to catch Sirius Black, mass murderer, escaped prisoner. It was the insistence of the headmaster that kept them from searching the school and doing their job properly. Only about a week before the Quidditch game Sirius Black managed to enter the school and reach the portrait outside Gryffindor tower. (Surely if only dementors were given access to the school itself he would have been caught there and then.) That the dementors approached the Quidditch field meant they sensed Black's presence there (they'd be right to think so - Sirius was watching the game in his dog form). That a student nearly fell off a broom is unfortunate but part of the risk of playing Quidditch in a storm anyway. The dementors weren't after him - they were after Black. For some unclear reason one boy is a bit oversensitive to the presence of dementors, but then weird stuff is always happening to him.

The dementors were well behaved then and were still well behaved until one night in June when they attacked kids who for unclear reason were with Black and later made outrageous claims about Black's innocence (also something about poor, heroic Pettigrew being alive and villainous and what not). Black must have used some Dark Magic to get the dementors to attack the kids instead of him (while also planting odd ideas in their heads). So basically, the dementors are safe unless commanded by a Dark wizard.

Yes, Marietta heard about Harry's trial. Where he was cleared because of that Mrs Figg's perjury and Albus' personality. No real evidence that Harry actually faced dementors in Little Whinging.

By the time citizens see a dementor they don't have their wands and can't cast a Patronus.

Unless they are sneaking to free someone.