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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: 2011-10-17 03:31 pm (UTC)For me, the "Worst Memory" part was clearly about the bullying, and at that point, I thought JKR was being pretty brave, subverting James's sainted image. Only, as it turned out, she thought he was an all-right bloke O_O.
This chapter is actually what turned me into a staunch Snape fan.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 04:26 pm (UTC)I think the Rowling-bot response is that while here Harry is shocked with how his father behaved, in DH he learned that little Sev was a pervert who was stalking Lily, and then he scared Petunia about wizards and was the reason for her subsequent poor treatment of Harry so he deserved everything James did to him. Or something.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 06:50 pm (UTC)However, there is overwhelming, incontrovertible evidence that MWPP stalked Snape. IOIAGDI.
Stalking
Date: 2011-10-17 08:57 pm (UTC)Nausea 2.0 was never a Gryffindor incidentally ;)
no subject
Date: 2011-10-18 02:16 pm (UTC)That’s what I thought, too! When I saw all of the Severus/Lily theories floating around after OotP, I kept thinking, “Umm, guys, you do realize that Lily never gave any sign of knowing Snape, right?” She was only talking to James; her attention was all on him. I thought that that was the point of the scene: James and Lily’s contentious relationship. Nothing in that scene gave me any indication that Lily knew Snape personally. To me, Lily was just a prefect coming to help a random student that she barely knew. The main points were that James bullied Severus and that Lily and James didn’t like each other before getting married. So, when I read “The Prince’s Tale” in DH, I couldn’t believe that the shippers were right. It honestly felt like reading fanfiction.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-18 04:21 pm (UTC)Definitely agree that "The Prince's Tale" seemed like fanfic XD... And not of the kind I would have read!
no subject
Date: 2011-10-18 06:39 pm (UTC)The James, Lily, Severus triangle in Harry's eyes
Date: 2011-10-25 05:58 am (UTC)So this is the development of Harry's reflection on this scene:
His immediate reaction is shock at James' behavior, sympathy for Severus' humiliation and his impression that Lily was acting 'decently'.
He is so bothered by James' actions that in the next chapter he takes the risk of breaking into Umbridge's office in order to hear Sirius' explanation. Then several weeks later he accepts Sirius' explanation that James was a swell guy. Heck, he wasn't even that much of a show off - even someone as insecure as Ron uses the same mannerism.
So in the long run Harry's take-home message was that Severus called Lily a Mudblood in this scene (after she behaved 'decently' by Harry's understanding). Of course that's what he brought up in HBP after Severus killed Dumbles, but also in 'The Prince's Tale' when this scene comes up - Harry stays away in the early part, he was only interested in what Severus said about Lily. What James did was long forgotten and forgiven.
Deathly Hallows the fanfiction patchwork
Date: 2011-10-18 10:36 pm (UTC)Re: Deathly Hallows the fanfiction patchwork
Date: 2011-10-18 10:40 pm (UTC)Re: Deathly Hallows the fanfiction patchwork
Date: 2011-10-19 07:39 pm (UTC)I mean, I assume such people are professionals, even if hacks....
Re: Deathly Hallows the fanfiction patchwork
Date: 2011-10-19 11:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-20 03:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-24 03:24 am (UTC)Yeah, me, too. This chapter turned me into both a Snape fan and a rabid HP fan. It was nothing short of a revelation for me. Up to this chapter, I thought, eh, some funny moments, some clever devices, some enjoyable gotcha endings... and not much else. This chapter made me think Rowling was a serious writer who was exploring mature themes in an unexpected manner, that she really was subverting kids' fantasy and bringing in real-world problems that magic can't solve.
I feel so stupid! Now I think she was just throwing in details willy-nilly without even having a clue about what she was doing, to make the books "dark" and important. It's like her subconscious feelings were totally divorced from her consciously expressed beliefs. "Subconscious? What subconscious? My conscious mind is totally in control of everything." Meanwhile, her subconscious said, "I'll show you who's in control. Let's put this background detail and this contradiction in the story. Don't worry -- it's just filler. Mwah-ha-ha."
I wonder what she thought she was writing. So many problems she set up, the most intriguing to me being the unfair treatment of some creatures and people in a world where power seems to rule the day, and the results of that mistreatment: self-harming or uppity elves, hostile Centaurs and giants, self-hating or vengeful werewolves, grudgeful goblins, barely-clinging-to-sanity prisoners, bitter Potions Masters.
Dissonance extends to even the minor characters. We have the "cool" Weasley brothers, one a curse-breaker, one a dragon-tamer, and two ingenious inventors of magical tricks. When you look at them from a dispassionate, critical perspective,however, one is a cultural grave robber, one corrals fabled creatures who are then used only for wizards' amusement or to be abused as bank guards, and two, among other things, are exploiters of the young and purveyors of date-rape potions, willing to blackmail and threaten to get what they want. But, these Weasley brothers are sacrosanct in fandom.
It might have been OK if she had been clear and said with a wink, "In this world, witches and wizards are like the ones we read about as kids, ethically dodgy at best because they are so in love with magical power they use it against any and all to achieve their ends, almost without realizing what they are doing. They're used to treating everything as adjuncts to their magic, so much so that they even mistreat their pets, helper animals, and loved ones. Also, they are a little forgetful." Instead, she said elves were slaves and you know what we women are like and she'd like to have dinner with Dumbledore or the Trio and she hoped she'd be sorted into Gryffindor and the Death Eaters are Nazis. Hmm... maybe it was the fawning interviews and the self-proclaimed importance that made me reevaluate HP, not just the plot holes, the dei ex machina, the sucky romance, and the hackneyed writing in the last two books.
All in service of a triumphalist, determinist, nineteenth century colonial perspective that Rowling and apparently many of her fans have no problems with, a story where the prejudices that were brought into the story are actually confirmed, and the ones who tried to break free from their proscribed roles are pathetic misfits who are destroyed in the end, a story where the author believes her hero becomes the representative of the authority he was supposedly acting against.
Gah!