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deathtocapslock* An unusually long spork, this -- I'm afraid I had rather a lot of bile to get out...
* So why did the headmaster’s office seal itself against Umbridge? Does it have some way of telling who the “true” head is? But then, Snape seems to have been able to use it without any difficulty, and none of the good guys seem to have thought that he was the true head. Besides, how would the room tell who’s the legitimate headmaster? Umbridge is the legal head of the school, but apparently that’s not good enough. Maybe it has some way of reading people’s characters, or something.
* More importantly, how come the DA members have apparently got off scot free? OK, attending an illegal organisation isn’t quite as bad as organising one, but it’s still pretty bad, and it’d still give Umbridge an excuse to expel them all.
* Hermione gets very angry at the thought of Umbridge lording it over everybody. Only Hermione’s allowed to do that, dammit!
* “‘It’s only teachers who can dock points from houses, Malfoy,’ said Ernie at once.” Except that we saw Percy taking points off Ron in COS. Continuity? What continuity?
* Also, we never had any real indication that Malfoy was being particularly unfair in carrying out his prefect duties before, so why the sudden “I don’t like you, so five points off Gryffindor”? Maybe prefects can (or would, if there were any continuity) only take a set number of points off for certain infractions (e.g., five for wearing your uniform incorrectly, ten for wandering around after lights out, etc.), whereas IS members can take off however many points they want for whatever behaviour they want, and Draco’s on a bit of a power trip here.
* Fred and George have thrown Montague into the Vanishing Cabinet for trying to take a few House Points. You’d have thought that two legal adults would act in a more mature way, but then JK Rowling always had funny ideas about behaviour.
* Also, they’re “coolly” discussing the prospect of him being missing for weeks, just like James and Sirius will later be “coolly” deciding how to humiliate Severus. Looks like the people who consider the Marauders to be the forerunners of the Weasley twins were right.
* OK, regarding Filch: first of all, if he likes Umbridge so much, she’s clearly not being overtly prejudiced towards him, despite apparently being the sort of nasty racist who’d hate Squibs like him. (Compare that to Harry, who thinks it’s fine to Hex him from behind in front of a laughing audience.) Secondly, from what we see of Hogwarts, maybe the pupils would benefit from a little extra discipline. (Or maybe it’s just Dumbledore’s favourites who are let off, we don’t really know.) Thirdly, expelling Peeves? Good. About time somebody did.
* Umbridge has got the confiscated brooms chained to her wall. I wonder if she keeps them there all the time to gloat at how she’s spoiling everybody’s fun. Or maybe she brought them up specially to help interrogate Harry. If for some reason the Veritaserum doesn’t work, she can shave bits of wood off until Harry cracks and tells her everything she wants to know.
* I’m not sure why the kittens are described as “foul”. Are they wallowing in the blood of dead mice, or something? Or maybe Harry doesn’t like cats. JKR doesn’t seem to be an animals sort of person, and nor do any of her characters.
* Umbridge isn’t exactly being subtle about her attempts to drug Harry. Looks like she learnt her evil planning skills at the same school as Voldemort and Lucius Malfoy.
* Of course, if Umbridge were at all subtle and intelligent, she wouldn’t go around telling people that their correspondence is being watched. That’s pretty much the surest way to make sure they don’t write anything incriminating.
* The fireworks are kind of cool, but they also highlight a problem with the way Umbridge’s régime is portrayed. JKR seems to want us to view her as this sinister Orwellian figure making everybody’s life a misery, but she constantly undercuts this when all her characters do these zany stunts to annoy her. It’s kinda like if Winston in Nineteen Eighty-Four were taken to the Ministry of Love to be tortured, and spent all his time blowing raspberries at the guards.
* Harry’s finding it very difficult to “empty his mind of all thoughts”. That’s quite surprising, given that there isn’t really much to empty.
* “A lovely person who made a mistake?” Yeah, Harry, that’s right, nice people never do the wrong things sometimes, so if anybody ever does make a mistake, they’re clearly evil and must never be forgiven. Actually, I think that sort of thinking might be a symptom of some personality disorders...
* Finally somebody criticises Hermione’s jinx idea! Well done, Cho, nice to see that at least one character in these books has got their head screwed on properly.
* Also, it should perhaps be noted that Harry cuts off Cho twice when she tries to defend Marietta. We don’t know what Cho would have said if she’d been allowed to speak, so I don’t think we can draw too many conclusions as to what her motives were.
* I don’t think Malfoy ever tells anyone about Harry’s “remedial Potions” lessons, does he? It’s almost as if his life isn’t quite to dedicated to annoying Harry as some people make out.
* Also, Harry’s wishing he could Curse Malfoy now. One of the things about the Gallant!Crucio scene is that it makes all these incidents look rather sinister in retrospect, when normally I’d probably just dismiss them as being idle daydreams of the “One of these days I’ll really give that person a piece of my mind…” variety.
* Harry’s looking into Snape’s private memories while Snape is off helping the victims of a couple of Harry’s friends’ pranks. Our hero, ladies and gentlemen.
* Snape’s written more in his exam than everybody, and his writing’s really tiny to boot. This is probably meant to show that he’s got an unhealthy knowledge of the dark arts, although he never gives the impression of being more into evil magic than Harry (who repeatedly fantasises about torturing and cursing people, actually tortures somebody in DH, and feels a strong attachment to Teenage!Voldemort in COS) or Hermione (who scars people’s faces, conjures up canaries to attack her best friend, and laughs at a PTSD sufferer lying in hospital).
* Apparently “a girl sitting behind [Sirius] was eyeing him hopefully, but he didn’t seem to have noticed.” Sorry girl, Sirius has eyes for Remus and Remus alone.
* It seems that Harry’s temporarily forgotten his own mother’s name, given that he can’t work out what the letters “L.E.” might stand for.
* James has drawn a Snitch as well. Perhaps we’re meant to infer that, as the stereotypical jerk-jock-type character, he’s interested in nothing but sport and women.
* Lupin casually chats about his own werewolfism, making me wonder how he could have kept it a secret for so long, given that he clearly doesn’t make much effort to stop anybody from knowing.
* Also, Pettigrew isn’t necessarily that thick: to know the differences between a werewolf and a real wolf, you’d have to know what both are like, so hanging around a werewolf every month wouldn’t be enough to answer the question.
* Does anybody know whether the differences Pettigrew lists are real differences in folklore, or did JK Rowling just make them up herself?
* I was only about ten when this book came out, but even then I remember being distinctly unimpressed with James’ “nicked it” line. Going around stealing stuff isn’t something you should be proud of, Potter.
* Really, Wormtail, what’s with all this gasping and applauding? I know that you’re probably just allowed to hang out with James and Sirius because your sycophancy stokes their egos, but still, try and behave with a little bit of dignity.
* If Snape is even aware of the Marauders’ presence, he doesn’t show it, and Sirius is described as “like a dog that has scented a rabbit”. IOW, this assault was entirely unprovoked; the Marauders aren’t in any way defending themselves, or even launching a pre-emptive strike to stop Snape from attacking them.
* “‘Well,’ said James, appearing to deliberate the point, ‘it’s more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean...’” Pardon me while I just go and vomit in disgust.
* Also, imagine if Draco Malfoy had said that about Harry or Hermione, he’d be condemned as a dirty bigoted pureblood supremacist, and quite rightly, too. But when James says it, it’s somehow OK. Bullying is OK if it’s a popular person bullying an unpopular person, clearly.
* Also note how, pace his fans’ selective memories, James doesn’t say “That Snape person is always attacking us whenever he gets the chance, we need to show him that we can defend ourselves.”
* Note the use of adverbs such as “coolly” and “coldly”. James and Sirius clearly aren’t acting on passion here; they’re doing it calmly, methodically, and with a total disregard for the feelings of their victim. Sort of like how you’d expect psychopaths to behave, in fact.
* Lily’s face “had twitched for an instant as though she were going to smile”. So her best friend is being publicly humiliated, and she’s using the opportunity to flirt with the person bullying him. I’m left wondering how it is that (a) everybody talks about her in such glowing terms, and (b) Snape ever saw anything in her in the first place.
* Snape’s just been publicly humiliated – hexed by James and Sirius, and then saved by a Gryffindor, and a Gryffindor girl at that. You know, Lily, maybe he’s not quite thinking straight at this moment. Even if you decide you don’t want to be friends with him (although if you abandon your friends based on a heat-of-the-moment insult like that, you’re probably not such a good friend after all), there’s no call to join in the humiliation.
* James is upset, so takes it out on somebody who’s powerless to stop him, i.e., Snape. Classic bully behaviour there, although you ask the fans and they’ll come up with various ways of rationalising his behaviour. (“Oh, he was just angry that Snape had called Lily a ‘Mudblood’...” Yeah, right.)
* “Who wants to see me take off Snivelly’s pants?” Again, despite what the fans say, this isn’t normal schoolboy bully behaviour. This is fairly serious sexual abuse, of the sort which can scar somebody for life. Heck, I seem to recall a fairly major scandal when it turned out that British and American soldiers had been doing similar things to Iraqi prisoners...
* Note how Lupin the prefect has been sitting quietly on the side-lines, not doing anything to stop his friends’ bullying. Are we really sure that he belongs in the House of the Brave?
* This whole scene has been so one-sided that I have difficulty believing the story that Snape went around hexing James and making his life a misery (which conveniently all happens off-screen, leaving us to see only the scenes which make James look like the bully). Judging by his performance here, he doesn’t really look capable of taking the Marauders on. Although I suppose he might have improved his fighting skills after the incident, hence all his new spells being written in a NEWT-level book rather than an OWL-level one. James’ alleged “reformation” might also have been motivated in part by the knowledge that Snape was now capable of giving as good as he got in a fight.
* And James apparently managed to keep his fights with Snape a secret from Lily in seventh year, which would be quite hard to do unless they were all in places and times of James’ choosing – unless, in other words, they were started by James.
* It would be quite easy to do this, given that James had access to the Marauders’ Map, allowing him to get Snape when he was alone, and the Invisibility Cloak, allowing him to sneak up on Snape. James could have made Snape’s life hell if he chose to, and judging by his behaviour here, that’s exactly what he would have done.
* Also, note how Snape never, despite all the provocation, reveals that Lupin is a werewolf. Why is this? Did Dumbledore make him sign an Unbreakable Vow not to tell anyone? Is James acting like this because, having got away with the “Prank”, he now reckons he can get away with anything?
* Also, Lily implies in DH that she doesn’t want to be friends with Snape anymore because Snape’s friends are all into the Dark Arts, but how could what they were doing be worse than what we see of James’ and Sirius’ behaviour?
* And Lily goes out with James in seventh year, and gets married to him just after leaving school, yes? So James presumably “reforms” himself in sixth year or early in seventh year. I don’t know about everybody else, but if I saw someone treating my friends (or even just random strangers) like James treats Severus, I’d wait a lot longer than a year to go out with him, even if he did claim to be better-behaved now.
* And why the hell was James made Head Boy? Sure he might have reformed, but weren’t there kids who’d been good (or at least not borderline sociopaths) since coming to Hogwarts? Was it a bribe not to tell anybody that Dumbles was harbouring a werewolf in the school?
* I’ve literally no idea what JK Rowling was thinking when she was writing this chapter. On the one hand, Harry seems genuinely horrified at his father’s behaviour, so we clearly aren’t meant to see this as a childish prank or righteous punishment of a nasty pupil. On the other hand, it seems to have virtually no effects on the plot or Harry’s characterisation. He never thinks “All these people said my parents were awesome people, this is clearly wrong, so maybe I should be less trusting of the other things that they tell me,” or “Snape clearly had an unhappy childhood, maybe I shouldn’t blame him for being so bitter and abrasive,” or “Since Snape clearly didn’t have a happy time at Hogwarts, maybe he joined the DEs because they were the only group that offered him protection and belonging, rather than because he was evil.” Instead he breaks into Umbridge’s office to ask Sirius and... well, forgets about it, really. Maybe this was one of the plot threads that got dropped after JKR suffered burnout, or something.
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no subject
Date: 2011-10-16 11:03 pm (UTC)Maybe it needs the governors' approval? Umbridge was installed via Educational Decree, IIRC.
* Fred and George have thrown Montague into the Vanishing Cabinet for trying to take a few House Points. You’d have thought that two legal adults would act in a more mature way, but then JK Rowling always had funny ideas about behaviour.
* Also, they’re “coolly” discussing the prospect of him being missing for weeks, just like James and Sirius will later be “coolly” deciding how to humiliate Severus. Looks like the people who consider the Marauders to be the forerunners of the Weasley twins were right.
And next year they'll be selling date-rape potions (which inexplicably are legal and not counted as Dark Magic. Go figure).
* The fireworks are kind of cool, but they also highlight a problem with the way Umbridge’s régime is portrayed. JKR seems to want us to view her as this sinister Orwellian figure making everybody’s life a misery, but she constantly undercuts this when all her characters do these zany stunts to annoy her. It’s kinda like if Winston in Nineteen Eighty-Four were taken to the Ministry of Love to be tortured, and spent all his time blowing raspberries at the guards.
Hey, if protesting against oppressive systems actually took resolve and dedication, Gryffindors wouldn't bother!
* Also, note how Snape never, despite all the provocation, reveals that Lupin is a werewolf. Why is this? Did Dumbledore make him sign an Unbreakable Vow not to tell anyone? Is James acting like this because, having got away with the “Prank”, he now reckons he can get away with anything?
The great mystery of the ages. Clearly Snape was just the bigger man. (Although why James and Sirius would attack someone who could get them expelled at best and imprisoned at worst, and why Lupin would let them when his soul might conceivably be at Snape's mercy, is another great mystery.)
Everything you say about the Marauders' conduct is brilliant, but I do have to take issue with one thing.
* Snape’s just been publicly humiliated – hexed by James and Sirius, and then saved by a Gryffindor, and a Gryffindor girl at that. You know, Lily, maybe he’s not quite thinking straight at this moment. Even if you decide you don’t want to be friends with him (although if you abandon your friends based on a heat-of-the-moment insult like that, you’re probably not such a good friend after all), there’s no call to join in the humiliation.
Given that Snape's been hanging out with proto-DEs* for protection and that at this point they are public in their aims and ideology (I think), the strength of her reaction is understandable**. What she does next, of course - she's a prefect! What sort of responsibility was she bringing to her duties?
* Although on reflection, I don't think their politics at this point are ever identified - they're allegedly into Dark Magic (at least, Mulciber is - and as you said, how can it be any worse than this, especially since Snape can claim to Lily that it was funny), but it's unclear whether they were going around espousing pureblood supremacy.
** Or at least it is if you assume that anti-Muggleborn prejudice worked similarly to any real-world prejudice. Based on these books, Rowling seems to believe that racism consists solely of racial slurs and sending people to the camps***. Facing real oppression would have been too much hard work for our Hermione.
*** Or to beg on the streets, which weakens her Nazi Germany parallels somewhat.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-16 11:45 pm (UTC)I'm not sure how open they are about their ideology at this point, but I don't think the first incarnation of the Death Eaters was overtly racist. They let the half-blood Snape join, after all, and Hagrid expressed surprise that Voldemort had never tried to recruit Lilly or James to his cause. Possibly the blood purity angle only became important after Voldemort's return, when his old followers didn't flock to his banner as he'd expected and he consequently had to find supporters wherever he could.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 03:25 am (UTC)Anyway, that's my theory of how these two kids "defied Voldemort three times". And I am sticking with it unless it's conclusively proven wrong.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 01:21 am (UTC)Heh! Coincidentally, I posted the following today:
no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 04:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 08:26 pm (UTC)Retroactive re-writing of memory
Date: 2011-10-18 08:55 pm (UTC)A big problem with these books is figuring out who could reasonably have known what when, when the author herself seems prone to retroactive blame.
Re: Retroactive re-writing of memory
Date: 2011-10-19 02:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-19 06:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-19 06:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-19 06:35 pm (UTC)Male victims of female violence
Date: 2011-10-19 07:37 pm (UTC)Violence against men by women isn't bad.
A woman's raping a man--isn't.
Re: Male victims of female violence
Date: 2011-10-19 07:51 pm (UTC)Re: Male victims of female violence
Date: 2011-10-19 09:00 pm (UTC)[/sarcasm]
Re: Male victims of female violence
Date: 2011-10-19 11:52 pm (UTC)Re: Male victims of female violence
Date: 2011-10-20 12:39 am (UTC)Re: Male victims of female violence
Date: 2011-10-20 01:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-21 11:31 pm (UTC)It's been said before, but this is textual proof. These people are fucking sociopaths.