(no subject)

[elanor-x.livejournal.com]

I found many interesting things, about which I wanted to talk in this chapter, so decided to post my recap too:

Chapter 30: The White Tomb.

* Parents hurrying their children home are understandable, but I get the impression that JKR expects us to hold it against Zacharias Smith. (His father is negatively described as 'haughty-looking' too.) I can't help feeling warmer to Seamus, who decided to stay & pay last respect to D (who was the greatest wizard we have ever met in those books- btw, Snape looks to me quite a great wizard too, anyway, greater than Voldemort from what we have seen), than to 'escorted' home Zacharias, but we shouldn't forget that the war is going on, after DEs invaded Hogwarts parents are frightened & last but not the least: those students didn't have a personal relationship with D unlike Harry or us as readers. When I was at junior high school, I didn't even remember the headmaster's name, saw him very rarely & if my mother came to take me home in such situation, I am afraid that I would cowardly go home like Zacharias.

 

* "Wizards and witches were pouring into the village, preparing to pay their last respects to D."

Friends and enemies alike, as we will see later. Unlike many members of deathtocapslock, I genuinely felt sorry for D in the last 2 chapters. This sentence reminded me of poor Amelia Bones. V really kills one by one the best wizards & witches of the old (& not) generation. If this trend continues in the next book, my bet is on Snape's death.

 

* We get a short reminder of M. Maxime/Hagrid subplot, when she throws herself 'into the waiting Hagrid's arms'. Just to show JKR's investment into the romantic aspect of the books, I will start Romance Count in the chapter, where D is buried. RC: 1.

 

* Here Ginny is described as H's "best source of comfort" (RC: 2), yet in the end of this chapter/book H's heart "lift at the thought that there was still one last golden day of peace left to enjoy with R&Hr", who are going to accompany him on the last, most dangerous adventure. Despite JKR going to great lengths to show how Ginny is H's true love and equal (she takes him away from D's body in the previous chapter, nudges him when it's time to leave the Great  Hall, shows him the merpeople & Hagrid carrying D's body, Harry 'knew… they understood each other perfectly'), I don't see that.  R&Hr are his real best source of comfort here, not Ginny.

 

* Still can't understand the fandom's claims that Harry's decision to break up with Ginny was unwise, since his only weapon is love & he needs as much of it as he can get.

 

* It doesn't help that Ginny 'sighed' later talking about having to cope with that French bitch, who loves Bill despite the horrible injury and was ready to marry him before knowing the effect of werewolf's bites in the previous chapter.(RC: 3) Despite Fleur's nobility and true love Ginny won't stand even very mild defending of her [H says 'not that bad', when more accurate description would be 'very good'] and giggles when Harry 'hastily' proceeds to calling Fleur 'ugly', intimidated by his ''true love'' 's raised eyebrows [how cowardly of him]. Btw, is 'not that bad' the best you can defend true love, Harry, or are you frightened of your girlfriend even before her raising eyebrows?

May be, I take it too far, but if Harry needs the ability to sympathize & love in order to defeat V, he needs to back away slowly run  as quickly as possible from his 'true love and equal'.

 

* Once again JKR tries to convey the feeling of a terrible war going on with 'forced toughness' in Ron's voice, when he asks Hermione: "Anyone else we know died?". Are we supposed to imagine long lists of murdered people appearing in each new edition of 'The Daily Prophet'? Personally, despite DE's invasion, D's murder & the throwaway references to the war in this book, I still don't get we-are-in-the-middle-of-terrible-war feeling. Instead, it seems more like a more successful variation of V's plan, like in GoF the plan was to gain a body and kill TBHL and only the first part worked & here it was to kill D and Draco and again only the first part has been successful, yet.

 

* Harry tells that "they won't find Snape till they find V", but is it true? Snape & Draco possibly can hide from Aurors at the Spinner's End as long as they wish or, even  better, choose another "Muggle dunghill" (according to Bella) and hide from DEs too (not that I think Snape will do that).

Btw, where is V? Is there no way to find the location? I suspect D somehow found that out from Snape (even if Snape wouldn't be able to tell the location himself, like Snape not being the Secret Keeper of the Order's Headquarters was a reason not to tell the location to V). Sure the greatest wizard in the world would find a way? May be he did & not gave this information to Harry, since V has to be attacked after Horcruxes' destruction. This way D's portrait will assist Harry to find V's lair without Snape's help.

 

* Ha! JKR sends Ginny to bed Ginny becomes sleepy as soon as the relationship talk with Fleur abuse ends and the conversation switches to the war & Snape. Coincidence? You decide.

 * Interesting why Hermione raised the topic of Snape's mother owning once the HBP's book "the moment the door had closed behind" Ginny and not when she was still there. It's not a secret (unlike Horcruxes), so I am forced to conclude that either she is as intimated by Ginny as Harry (& more than she is by Harry) or that JKR just is against mentioning Ginny near anything of importance, since she has no place in Harry's final journey.

* "He did not feel… excited, curious, burning to get to the bottom of a mystery; he simply knew that the task… had to be completed before he could move a little further along the dark and winding path".

Interesting which Harry would most readers prefer: 'excited' or 'dark & purposeful' version? The idea of the whole book of not-curious-but-determined Harry (potentially even worse than OoTF-CAPSLOCK-Harry), while not unrealistic, just fills me with dread. JKR managed to write curious Harry before when the cost was high too, f.e. CoS (I know that he grew up, the cost is higher now, etc.).Hopefully, he will overcome D's death as quickly as Sirius's and be determined-and-curious in the next book (the wedding will surely raise his spirits).

 

* When and how will Harry get the idea that R.A.B can be Sirius's brother? Hermione not finding anything is understandable, after all, Sirius talked in length about his family with Harry, not her, and Regulus doesn't appear in any book. They will probably visit num.12, Grimmauld Place and the tapestry on the wall will clue them in. Hopefully Harry won't need Hermione to notice that and add 2+2 for him in this matter too.

 

* I got reminded of "D's inexcusable trust in Snape" so many times that this interesting in itself subject started to bore me immensely. It would better be worth of all those tiresome hints and for a change not connected to Harry's family at all. Sadly, I don't have much hope for that.

 

* If Snape is really as evil as Harry describes him in S-V comparison, I will be disappointed, not due to being a Snape fan (I am not), but since it will be so easy, simplistic answer for a book, which pretends to tackle the themes of good/evil, redemption, choices versus destiny/fate. Then the answers would be so shallow, easy and above all untrue: the main villain Voldemort was evil since childhood (resembling his relatives and ironically proving Aunt Marge's words- " it all comes down to blood… bad blood will out" ); the mean from the first lesson to Harry teacher, his father's enemy and DE is… (surprise!) evil; Peter was an obvious traitor material since childhood and our hero, Harry, is as heroic as his parents. Even Draco's redemption doesn't help matters here, imo.
 

* Despite Hermione being a known author's mouthpiece, I don't think her assumption that Snape didn't turn Harry in since D wouldn't 'like very much' to find out Snape's association with the book is right. D certainly wouldn't ' like very much' Snape destroying the image of Harry-the-potions-expert, since Harry had to be in favor with Slughorn to achieve the memory. As for Snape inventing curses at school, taking into account that he is a DE and a DA expert, I would be shocked to see D being surprised by this development.

* 'I should've shown the book to Dumbledore', said Harry.

'All that time he was showing me how Voldemort was evil even when he was at school, and I had proof Snape was, too-'

' "Evil" is a strong word,' said Hermione quietly.

 

As people say: out of mouths of the babes. Harry accidentally defined the real purpose of those 'lessons'.

As courtaud put it in "The Secret Riddle" discussion at deathtocapslock:

   From a literary point of view those are info dumps, but inside the narrative those are brainwashing sessions.
Every single one is hammering in Harry's skull that Tom is bad from the womb, that nothing could be done to change it, and that he can be killed without any trouble for the killer's conscience. He is 'no longer human', after all, but he was very little human from the beginning.
I'd like to strip from those scenes everything that's just Dumbledore's interpretation and look at what's left. Almost nothing, I suspect.
("My first thought was, he lied in every word, that hoary cripple...")

 

Here Hermione claims that evil is a strong word, talking about Snape, who has just killed D ! I understand that JKR wants to give her readers this message (which btw supports 'good' Snape theory), but is it realistic for Hermione to talk like that? Sistermagpie noted that she likes power and revenge, she punishes Marietta and Rita Skeeter for relatively minor offences with joy, in OoTF in chapter 21 during Umbridge's inspection of Hagrid Hermione whispers: "You hag, you evil hag! I know what you're doing, you awful, twisted, vicious-" & somewhere else Hermione says something like: "If we can not trust D, then whom can we trust?". So, the term 'evil' suits just fine to describe a bureaucrat, who threatens to fire a not competent teacher,  but is too severe to apply to D's killer. Am I nitpicking here? It just seems so strange and contradictory. The only explanation is that it's a hint that Snape is D's man, after all.

Another thought: would Hermione say that evil is a strong word to describe Tom Riddle too? Does she say it here or is the message applied only to Snape?

* We get a short mention of Percy, so we won't forget about him completely until the next book and the conclusion of this subplot. Can't say things bode well for him. Something big has to happen to bring the whole Weasley family together and it clearly can't be something good. Won't he visit Bill's wedding then?

 

* "Snape's place had been unceremoniously filled by Rufus Scrimgeour."

Coincidence? Or a sign that they both are villains? JKR is heavily adverb depended, but here it works fine: even the simple act of sitting creates a negative feeling towards the minister.   

 

* Harry "despised Malfoy still for his infatuation with the Dark Arts, but now the tiniest drop of pity mingled with his dislike".

 

When has Draco ever been infatuated with the DA? Snape, yes. He was described in OoTF as writing "at least a foot more than his closest neighbors, yet his writing was minuscule and cramped" during his DADA exam & in HBP we saw that he invented   curses at school. But, Draco? Should we consider him 'infatuated' for asking his father to buy him this Hand of Glory aged 12 or even 11 yet? I suspect that if twins were taken to B&B's shop, they would want to buy a couple (or more) items too. Hell, Harry on his first visit to the bookshop immediately started searching for a book of curses. Or for using Dumbledore Army's last year's methods in his nefarious plot this year (on which DA got inspiration from DEs, as evidenced by Hermione herself)? Or for jinxing Neville once in one of the earlier books for fun? It was bad, cruel and mean, but it's not the same as being infatuated with the DA.

 

After this book Harry seems much more interested in the subject than Draco has ever been. Draco jinxed Neville once for fun alone, while Harry did so repeatedly to Grabbe & Goyle for laughing audience, which is much worse imo [+ jinxing Filch-the-squib]. In addition, we have never seen Malfoy being particularly interested in learning even jinxes, let alone DA, while in the beginning of chapter 12 f.e. we see Harry, who hardly can be called academically curious person, reading his Potions book until breakfast on the day of the first Hogsmeade trip (even that isn't enough to move his centre of attention from this book), eager to learn more and attempting non-verbally Levicorpus. Throughout this book we are incessantly showed in great detail Harry's fascination with the staff, until I started wondering whether Harry wouldn't be a much better wizard, if Snape privately taught him DA & other subjects instead of going to Hogwarts (even Potions Harry mastered fine with Snape's help). Cue: such fics. Unfortunately, I don't remember reading any good fic of this kind.

 

The only question is: doesn't JKR herself see the irony and the strangeness of that sentence? She wrote the books! What about her editors? She brings them so much money that they are afraid to say a critical word, imo. Like in that song:

when I realise

the crazy things we do

It makes me feel ashamed to be alive

It makes me wanna run away and hide

It's all 'bout the money

It's all 'bout the dum dum.......

      

Also – 'the tiniest drop of pity' when Harry wonders what V is making Draco do 'under threat of killing him and his parents' (after meeting the man)? I understand that Lucius almost caused Ginny's death & Draco's mother contributed to D's and Sirius's deaths. Furthermore, in Harry's place I probably would be even less compassionate. But, if our hero's strength is supposed to be his pure heart, may be 'the tiniest drop' would be better changed into 'some'. Or am I nitpicking again and want unrealistic level of compassion here? D was able to give it, so shouldn't Harry develop it towards the end of his coming of age story too? 

* To make this chapter less grim we get the hilarious Pince/Filch pairing. (RC:4)

 

* Tonks ('her hair miraculously returned to vividest pink') holding hands with Lupin. (RC: 5) Apparently D's death wasn't enough to keep her hair grey for a bit longer (and fandom created theories about Sirius's death, survivor's guilt, etc. Hahaha!), while her boyfriend troubles made her look like a consumptive for a year. Was D that unimportant? Or I just don't get right JKR's intention here?

 

* Harry feels 'a great rush of affection' for Luna and Neville for risking their lives again, when he accidentally sees them at the funeral. To make matters clear this rush of affection doesn't make Harry spend any time with them, express verbally his appreciation or think about them, when they aren't in front of him.

In general, Harry's feelings are described as consisting of 'rushes': a rush of affection here, rushes of anger and annoyance in OoTF, a rush of lust for Ginny. A realistic effect of his upbringing? Of course, not. Just kidding.

 

* Umbridge is afraid of Firenze. Since he wasn't one of the centaurs she met in the forest, it seems she is afraid of the species as a result of that encounter. What exactly they have done to her, we will never know. To think about it, may be JKR doesn't know herself. I read a short, wonderful fic dealing with this issue here.

 

* Grawp is described as 'docile, almost human'. I predict we will meet Hagrid with his younger brother more than once in the next book. I tingle with suspense: will he manage to learn more English words and be described as human without 'almost', for once?
 Now I imagine: '' Grawp was tragically murdered in the battle, while he was bravely defending his brother. When Harry and his friends were looking at his horribly savaged body, lying near the 15 killed by him DEs, Ginny said: "Look, Harry. He looks almost human now." "

 

* Just wanted to say that imo JKR describes the feelings of Harry's grief very realistically throughout this chapter. When he grins remembering 'nitwit' & 'tweak' and afterwards suddenly grasps that D is gone forever & starts weeping, it sounds so sad, true and genuine.

 

* "Dumbledore said to… keep fighting, for only then could evil be kept at bay, though never quite eradicated…" 

So, even when Harry kills Voldemort, we should understand that dark wizards and witches were, are and will always be present and a danger to society, and Harry will have a lot of work in his career as an Auror. Fine.

I once read a fic with an original ending: Harry & his friends won the war and destroyed the 7 Horcruxes. Everybody is celebrating. The last sentence was (as I remember):

"Somewhere Nagini was slithering away, something in the snake told it that the place was dangerous and it was high time to find a new home. So what, if 7 is a magical number? If you settle 8 at a 90 degree angle, you get the sign of infinity. "

A nice twist, isn't it? In this fic the open ending worked perfectly. I will like, if JKR ends her series this way (not that she will).

* A random thought (from this talk about numbers): I bet in the epilogue we will find out that Harry & Ginny got married and had the magical number of children (7, just as the number of V's Horcruxes). As cheesy as it sounds, it will be a nice bit of parallelism (is it the right term?): V failed to achieve immortality by taking lives of 7 other people, while Harry succeeded to do so in a certain sense by giving life to 7 people.

I found 2 nice quotations on this topic:

1) “Parents lend children their experience and a vicarious memory; children endow their parents with a vicarious immortality”

George Santayana quotes (Spanish born American Philosopher, Poet and Humanist who made important contributions to aesthetics, speculative philosophy and literary criticism. 1863-1952)

 2 ) “Children are the only form of immortality that we can be sure of.”

Peter Ustinov quotes (English actor and writer, b. 1921)

 (Harry's and Ginny's parting scene deserves a RC point in its own right. (RC: 6* 

"She met Harry's gaze with the same hard, blazing look that he had seen when she had hugged him after winning the Quidditch Cup in his absence…"

I honestly don't understand what emotion exactly this 'hard, blazing look' is supposed to convey. She looks the same both at the celebration party and at D's funeral. Strange, isn't it? The only explanation I can think of is that she looks like that whenever she decides to do something. Then she decided to kiss Harry, literally throwing herself at him, and here she decided to be strong and not weep.

 

* Ginny 'fiercely' tells that she won't care, if V finds out about their relationship and tries to get to Harry through her. Really? Even if he kills all her relatives (f.e. her mother) along the way? Or are they already in such danger due to Ron being Harry's best friend and her whole family being in OoTF, that her dating Harry doesn't change anything? If she is that 'fierce', what about helping Harry in 'hunting V', as she puts later? <dreads next book filled with Ginny!Sue>

 

* In stark contrast to most of the fandom, Ginny's I-never-really-gave-up-on-you speech in particular & the whole parting scene in general went in one my ear and out the other (to make myself clear-with all other romances). I always read HP as an adventure story (like LoTR) and had never been interested in shipping (JKR isn't Jane Austen to say the least & imo 6 book's relationship were horribly written, except Bill&Fleur's scene in the hospital wing).  

 

* Harry(trying to smile): "We could've had ages… months… years maybe…"

   Ginny(half-laughing): "But you've been too busy lusting after Cho Chang not paying attention to me saving the wizarding world…"

 

Only now I have noticed the extreme cheesiness of this scene.

Btw, why do people say that those words are hysterically funny? Because Harry didn't pay her any attention before and had been infatuated with Cho for 2 years?

 

This reminded me of the handsome Riddle. After reading the jokes about this topic at deathtocapslock I went and looked through CoS. 16-year-old Tom appears there too, but he (strangely) isn't described as 'handsome' even once. It works well if you assume that Harry is gay & then was just too young to notice the handsomeness, but since JKR didn't intend to write that, isn't it a strangely funny coincidence?

A question to sistermagpie: When you joke about Harry being gay, you really laugh at JKR's inability to convey well his attraction to girls & at her describing men (Riddle & Draco in one place in GoF, as you noticed) as attractive, forgetting about Harry's point of view and the way it sounds, right? Would you say that based on the books alone Harry gives this impression (not thinking about the author's intention)?

 

* Hermione sobs into Ron's shoulder, while he is holding her and stroking her hair. (RC: 7)

* The dialogue between Harry & the minister sounds ridiculous outside the fairy-tale (and I thought JKR didn't intend to write a classical fairy-tale here). Harry heroically refuses to tell Scrimgeour the truth & the angry-but-defeated minister is forced to walk away empty-handed. In real life (even in magical world, nay, specially there) the minister would force Harry to tell everything by fair means or foul, which would be extremely easy with magic (as Snape noted Harry still can't keep his mind closed and there is Veritaserum too).  

 

* " 'No-' said Harry quickly; he had not counted on this, he had meant them to understand that he was undertaking this most dangerous journey alone."

Can it sound more fake? Whose help did Harry intend to receive on his lonely journey? Hagrid's? D's brother's? And I am not even sarcastic here. I invite you to write a realistic fic, in which Harry undertakes his last journey completely alone. The challenge: make him stay alive for more than 2 weeks.

I found excellent comics here. My favorites: Ron realizing that he loves Hermione, Remus/Tonks ,something about Harry/Snape's EndOfHBP fight, Draco/Myrtle.

   

Comments

[sunnyskywalker]

Ha, cute comics.

Interesting about Hermione and her comment about evil beinga strong word. I'll have to think abou that one.

I feel slow for not seeing this earlier, but it struck me while reading this that DA can be an acronym for Defense Association (Cho's idea), Dumbledore's Army (Ginny's) - and Dark Arts. I think JKR actually wrote "DADA" at some point in this book, and DA = Dark Arts is contained in that, so... coincidence, or warning? The DA did practice an awful lot of hexes, and how would they know whether any of them were dark or not?

[baeraad.livejournal.com]

Actually, I've always wondered what, exactly, makes a spell Dark. It can't be that it's painful and destructive, there's plenty of those around anyway that aren't especially Dark at all. Mostly, it just seems like Rowling uses "person X is interested in the Dark Arts" as synonymous with "person X is morally reprehensible," without bothering to define it the actual actions involved.

Kind of like how "Dark wizards" just seem to mean "bad people. What do you mean, bad how? They're just bad, okay?" =]

Re: sunnyskywalker + baeraad

[elanor-x.livejournal.com]

DA=Dumbledore's Army =Dark Arts so... coincidence, or warning?
I would be willing to bet money that this is pure coincidence. Hermione-the-voice-of-reason from JKR's point of view tells Harry not to blame himself due to nearly killing Draco, even if he doesn't really blame himself to begin with. According to D-the-epitome-of-goodness Harry has pure heart, so I find it very hard to believe that JKR thinks otherwise or thinks of Dumbledore's Army less than of heroes.

Actually, I've always wondered what, exactly, makes a spell Dark.
Yes, I was genuinely curious too, thinking about the ability to murder with the simple, seemingly harmless levitating charm (throw somebody from a great height), before realizing that:
Rowling uses "person X is interested in the Dark Arts" as synonymous with "person X is morally reprehensible".

Btw, in a good fantasy book this doesn't have to be this way. F.e. creating a Horcrux destroys soul. The problem is that other supposedly Dark spells don't differ much from the spells "the good guys" use. The best moment is at the ministry in OoTF when quoting sistermagpie: Harry & Bellatrix use the same spells, only Harry seems to use the counter-hex version.

[courtaud.livejournal.com]

Another thought: would Hermione say that evil is a strong word to describe Tom Riddle too? Does she say it here or is the message applied only to Snape?
As it is worded, Hermione's answer seems to refer to both.
And since, as you point out, Hermione is judgmental and likes her world neatly divided in black and white, I wonder if she doesn't know something about her teacher she is not sharing with Harry and Ron - and she does not even begin to talk about the matter in front of Ginny. Hermione has already kept from her friends important, potentially dangerous secrets about a teacher: in POA, with Lupin.

As people say: out of mouths of the babes. Harry accidentally defined the real purpose of those 'lessons'.
Was not Harry sharing the information from Dumbledore's lessons with his friends? Maybe Hermione was smelling something fishy in all those carefully picked scenes from Voldemort's past.
It's amazing how little people can read the difference between what we see in the pensieve and what we are told by Dumbledore. And if his explanations did not kill his fame of 'being prone to think too well of people' I cannot imagine what will.

We get a short mention of Percy. Won't he visit Bill's wedding then?
In order to get pelted with the wedding cake?

Draco jinxed Neville once for fun alone, while Harry did so repeatedly to Grabbe & Goyle for laughing audience, which is much worse imo
No, no, he was just like his daddy. Strolling around the school as he owned the place, and hexing people just because he could. And at the back, of course. And like is daddy, in his sixth year he almost managed to kill a fellow student (who richly deserved it) and got away with a ridiculous punishment.
Why yes, blood will out, and there is not a drop of Dark Magic in the Potters' blood! Even if they were in part Black.

Also – 'the tiniest drop of pity' when Harry wonders what V is making Draco do...
The tiniest drop of pity is already much from Harry. He is the boy who felt not even a tiny drop of it for 'hosepipe' Cho, or disfigured Marietta, or lost-in-a-cabinet Montague.

Tonks ('her hair miraculously returned to vividest pink') holding hands with Lupin. Was D that unimportant?
Maybe it's old fashioned to say, but one should not wear anything vividly pink at a funeral, let alone hold hands with your True Love, no matter how you loathed the dearly deceased. Tonks is inconsiderate and common here, and Lupin must be dying of embarrassment.

Umbridge is afraid of Firenze. Since he wasn't one of the centaurs she met in the forest, it seems she is afraid of the species as a result of that encounter.
In classical mythology Centaurs were famed for gang rapes. Personally I've never met an adult fan of HP who gives a different interpretation of Umbridge's behavior at the end of OOTP, but maybe we're a dirty-minded bunch.

Re:courtaud

[elanor-x.livejournal.com]

*As it is worded, Hermione's answer seems to refer to both.
Can't believe she refers to Voldemort too.

* I wonder if she doesn't know something about her teacher she is not sharing with Harry and Ron
I will be very surprised, if this is true.I suppose JKR wants to give her readers this message & as usually uses Hermione for this purpose.

* Maybe Hermione was smelling something fishy in all those carefully picked scenes from Voldemort's past.
This is the same Hermione, who told previously: "I think it's fascinating... to know as much about V as possible. How else will you find out his weaknesses?". If she were present during those lessons, no doubt she would support D's every conclusion just as Harry did.

* In order to get pelted with the wedding cake?
LOL. But if he gets pelted with the cake, what will the guests eat? Some stones should be enough.

*And like is daddy, in his sixth year he almost managed to kill a fellow student...
Interesting, haven't noticed this before.

*Even if they were in part Black.
Do you mean related to Sirius's family? They don't seem to be.

*He is the boy who felt not even a tiny drop of it for 'hosepipe' Cho, or disfigured Marietta, or lost-in-a-cabinet Montague.
He didn't see them bleeding to death on the stone floor because of him, so this isn't that much even from Harry.

*In classical mythology Centaurs were famed for gang rapes.
I didn't know that, but Rowling surely did (after all she uses mythological references plenty of times in her books & studied it at uni), this makes this accident even more badly looking.
I prefer the interpretation in the recommended fic. It is just imo (unlike gang rape) & didactic.

Re: courtaud

[courtaud.livejournal.com]

Can't believe she refers to Voldemort too.
Just look at the words you have set in bold ^_^. Harry is talking about Vodemort and Snape, both evil even when in school, and Hermione echoes: 'Evil is a strong word'. Not 'Harry, I'm sure there is some difference'. Of course it may be just sloppy writing.

If she were present during those lessons, no doubt she would support D's every conclusion just as Harry did.
I beg to differ. Hermione is a bookworm, her knowledge comes from words. When she tries to discover who the Prince is, she goes straight to the library and the newspapers archived in it. So I think she is better equipped than Harry when it comes to extract information from a text, or from a talk (look how fast she understood where Umbridge's speech was aiming to). So she would have spotted that what Dumbledore told Harry was much more of what was showed in the pensieve, and too much of it was just hypothetical.

LOL. But if he gets pelted with the cake, what will the guests eat?
Knowing Molly, there will be so much cake to build Bill an house. And besides, the guests can eat their cakes, the family will take care of Percy. That's what families are for. They throw a fatted calf at you when you come back home!

Do you mean related to Sirius's family? They don't seem to be.
In the Black Family Tree JGR draw for a fundraising, a Black girl - a second cousin of Sirius, I believe - married a Charlus Potter and had a son. The dates strongly suggest this son was James. Note that this girl married a Potter and was not erased from the family tree, unlike Andromeda who married a muggleborn and another girl who married a Weasley.

He didn't see them bleeding to death on the stone floor because of him,
That's not the reason Harry pities Malfoy, I think. Here he pities Malfoy because he is in Voldemort's power, forced to do whatever the Dark Lord orders him to do, and Draco was not in this situation because of Harry. I think that, as a Marked Man to another, Harry allows himself to sympathize.

As for Umbridge: the fic was much more educative, you are right, but since when JKR wants her baddies to get educative punishment? They deserve utter humiliation, you know -_-
Did the fic's author remember that was Hermione who called the Centaurs 'horses'? Of course not at their faces...

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought about that Hermione line at all but now that you bring it up, it really is an odd line for her. It seems like the author coming in and speaking through her. I mean, on one hand Hermione does tend to play devil's advocate when she doesn't feel strongly about something, so if she thought Harry was going overboard on Snape she might try to bring him down. But "evil is a strong word" sounds not at all like Hermione. I would think she would use the word evil to describe things and take action on it too!

When you joke about Harry being gay, you really laugh at JKR's inability to convey well his attraction to girls & at her describing men (Riddle & Draco in one place in GoF, as you noticed) as attractive, forgetting about Harry's point of view and the way it sounds, right? Would you say that based on the books alone Harry gives this impression (not thinking about the author's intention)?

I do tend to think that what makes me laugh is the author giving us her own pov and so being unable to convincingly write about girls as attractive instead of boys. Whether Harry gives the impression or not is sort of a grey area. I think you actually could make a convincing argument that Harry really is gay, since frankly it's mostly the author's intention that makes me see him as straight. I actually love black_dog for really standing up for this idea and reading Harry as actually conflicted or ambiguous in canon.