OOTP Chapter Thirty-Three: "Fight and Flight"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

* A mercifully short chapter, this – only eleven pages long.

* Umbridge’s breathing is “ragged” now. Is this meant to be another example of Sadist!Umbridge? Like getting a thrill of pleasure at the prospect of using the weapon on the students?

* It “seemed incredible to Harry that twenty feet away there were people enjoying dinner, celebrating the end of exams, not a care in the world…” Meanwhile, it seems incredible to me that JKR has to keep resorting to this sort of contrast to emphasise Harry’s emotional state. Couldn’t she try something new once in a while?

* What’s with this emphasis on Umbridge struggling to keep up with Hermione? It’s been mentioned twice now on the first two pages (“Hermione marched purposefully across the grass – Umbridge jogging to keep up” and “She… plunged straight into the trees, moving at such a pace that Umbridge, with her shorter legs, had difficulty in keeping up”). Is it just meant to belittle Umbridge even more by making her seem physically weak and weedy, since constantly comparing her to a toad just isn’t enough?

* Umbridge isn’t doing a very good job controlling Harry and Hermione, is she? You’d have thought that as the person with the wand and no moral scruples about using it, she’d be able to force Hermione to slow down and tell her what exactly the weapon is.

* Also, how does the school make sure that no animals ever run out of the Forest and endanger pupils? There don’t seem to be any physical fences or other boundaries which could prove a hindrance, and we’re never told of any invisible magical field either. What if the Acromantulas (say) grow too numerous to support themselves off what they can catch in the Forest, and decide to spill over into the Hogwarts grounds?

* Maybe the plan is to just keep feeding them Hufflepuffs so that they’re too full to go after any of the more important students. That’s why the school authorities keep Hufflepuff as a sort of rag-bag House with no real distinguishing characteristics; it’s so that they know who can be sacrificed without real loss.

* In the finest tradition of HP villains, Umbridge suddenly has an attack of stupidity and angers the centaurs enough to make them all go after her.

* “Nooooo!” shouts Umbridge as the centaurs drag her off. Is it just me, or is that the sort of dialogue you’d expect in a comic book rather than a (supposedly grown-up) novel?

* Hermione’s worried lest Grawp kill the centaurs. Personally my money would be on the centaurs winning: they’re faster, more intelligent, more numerous, and their bows give them greater range.

* Now Harry’s started spitting at Hermione, who’s just saved Harry from being tortured and got rid of Umbridge for them. What a charming boy he is.

* Harry and Hermione’s friends appear, and say that Ginny was the best out of all of them at fighting off the Slytherins. As if we needed to be told.

* Ginny’s set her jaw “so that the resemblance to Fred and George was suddenly striking.” There is a striking resemblance, but probably not in the way JKR thinks.

* Ginny’s acting “coolly” again, a sure sign of danger.

* So Harry was all upset a few pages back because he and Hermione supposedly didn’t have enough time to go back to Hogwarts and retrieve their wands, but now they’ve got enough time to fly all the way to London? Seriously? Isn’t there a better plan they could think of? Like, I don’t know, going back and trying to convince Snape? Or using Umbridge’s fireplace to try and contact the Weasleys? Are they really stupid enough not to think of any alternatives? On second thoughts, don’t answer that last one.

Comments

[oryx_leucoryx]

You skipped the most interesting part of the chapter - Hermione's 'negotiation' with the centaurs. Where she basically tells them she doesn't appreciate them any more than Umbridge does - they were just useful tools to her (compared with Umbridge thinking of them as animals). If Grawp had arrived just a bit later Hermione would have shared Umbridge's fate, whatever it was.

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

Quite right - seriously what to make of that dialogue now the series is over? Or Hermione's observation about Firenze "I never liked horses?" If Pansy Parkinson said it was okay Lupin left and added "I never liked wolves" Hermione would have been outraged at the bigoty...

It can only be summed up by "It's Okay If A Gryffindor Does It."

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

IOIAGDI is so accurate. I remember when someone ranted to me about how prejudiced Snape was in referring to Lupin as 'the werewolf'- when I think it's understandable coming from someone who is confronted by enemies in the very place where he was set up by Sirius to be attacked by Lupin in werewolf form, that's hard to look past- and totally overlooked Ron shouting at Lupin, 'Get away from me, werewolf!'

You'd think that'd be worse, coming from a kid who'd liked and respected Lupin, who'd been treated well by him. But no, it's Snape being proven as the horrible person, as always. *eyeroll* Love how the prejudices in our main characters are overlooked time and time again. Or they're not counted as prejudice- anti-Muggle sentiment, for instance, because Muggles are inferior to wizards, so it's okay to use spells on them and exploit the situation as one sees fit.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

Ah, but Hermione's not being prejudiced here. Yes, she treats the centaurs like tools, but she does the same to everybody else as well. Probably she'd act the same if it were a group of students hiding out in the Forest, like the DA does in Deathly Hallows. So that's alright then.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

You make a good point. Hermione seems to make a habit of treating everyone like tools rather than people. She knows best, after all.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Hermione/Dumbledore OTP! Seriously, treating others like tools is a salient characteristic of psychopaths. More evidence Hermione is one.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

Oh, how could I have left that bit out? I suppose I was just being charitable, and assuming that Hermione wasn't thinking straight because she was frightened, and that she didn't really mean what she seemed to mean about using the centaurs as tools. Looking back on it, though, this sort of thinking isn't exactly uncommon for Hermione ("Ginny, the best thing for you to do would be to use a series of boys to make Harry jealous!" -- or was it to get a bit of practice, I can't remember?), so I think you must be right.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

It “seemed incredible to Harry that twenty feet away there were people enjoying dinner, celebrating the end of exams, not a care in the world…”

Yes, all those students who would come to Harry and Hermione's aid if they attracted their attention...guys, seriously, SCREAM. It'd take Umbridge a few moments to Silencio you both, surely enough time to get help?

Umbridge isn’t doing a very good job controlling Harry and Hermione, is she?

IKR? Why not use Cruciatus on her now to get the info instead of being blindly led around? Oh, wait, it's HP, we can't have rational villains.

Flying to London makes no sense at all. It would take HOURS to get there. But there's a perfectly good Floo that's now available and no Umbridge to be wary of. Why not contact someone? IDK if there was some protection on it that kept them from actually transporting themselves out through it, but hell, call Molly Weasley, get her to round up the Order! Adults who can Apparate are far more useful than children taking the thestral express!

(let's ignore that these are supposed to be wild creatures and not wonder why they so docilely took the children on board and came in-built with GPS to find the exact spot they were looking for. All the times I've been on planes, even in areas I was familiar with, I couldn't really identify the places beneath me. Unless they were flying low enough to be visible to Muggles, which is a whole other deal)

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/Adults who can Apparate are far more useful than children taking the thestral express!/

True, but that wouldn't be as exciting and the kids wouldn’t get to do anything. It would look far more boring in the OotP movie for the kids to be waiting around to hear news from the adults instead of taking an exciting ride on cool winged horses! Also, if Harry and Co. had actually done the useful thing, then they wouldn’t have blundered into Voldemort’s obvious trap, Sirius wouldn’t have died one of the most nonsensical deaths ever, Harry wouldn’t have gotten to angst about him for the rest of the book and then conveniently remember the mirror that Sirius had given him that he could have used to contact him instead of gallivanting into Voldemort’s trap, and Harry wouldn’t have gotten to smash the prophecy which would later prove to be mostly irrelevant anyway. See? It all makes sense!

/let's ignore that these are supposed to be wild creatures and not wonder why they so docilely took the children on board/

Because they recognized that Harry and Co. are good and noble, of course! That’s why Buckbeak was so mild-mannered when Harry and Hermione were dragging him around by the end of PoA, why he didn’t attack Sirius when Sirius kicked him to get going, and why he attacked Draco for the heinous crime of calling him an “ugly brute” while patting his beak.

[sunnyskywalker]

The sad thing is, if they had just run back in and used Umbridge's fireplace to Floo to the Ministry, being too Gryffindor discombobulated to think of calling Molly or Tonks or anyone, they still could have blundered into the trap and gotten the same ending. Probably the DEs had an incredibly boring few hours standing around waiting for the kids to show up. ("So, Lucius... got any gum?")

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

"Probably the DEs had an incredibly boring few hours standing around waiting for the kids to show up. ("So, Lucius... got any gum?")"

Nah, gum's a bit lower-class for the Malfoys. More likely they'd spend the time playing parlour games, like charades or twenty questions.

[sunnyskywalker]

I'm sure he sneered melodramatically at the yob who asked. And drawled some cutting answer. That's part of his literary role!

You know, Draco probably learned his dramatic skills somewhere - maybe the Malfoys do have charades nights.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

True, but that wouldn't be as exciting and the kids wouldn’t get to do anything. It would look far more boring in the OotP movie for the kids to be waiting around to hear news from the adults instead of taking an exciting ride on cool winged horses! Also, if Harry and Co. had actually done the useful thing, then they wouldn’t have blundered into Voldemort’s obvious trap, Sirius wouldn’t have died one of the most nonsensical deaths ever, Harry wouldn’t have gotten to angst about him for the rest of the book and then conveniently remember the mirror that Sirius had given him that he could have used to contact him instead of gallivanting into Voldemort’s trap, and Harry wouldn’t have gotten to smash the prophecy which would later prove to be mostly irrelevant anyway. See? It all makes sense!

I LOL'd when I read this. Thank you for the laugh. Don't forget Harry also wouldn't have been able to blame Snape for Black's death, instead of say, himself (for not communicating with Sirius) and/or the twins (for baiting Sirius by calling him a coward. See, it doesn't matter if a cowardly Slytherin like Snape calls him a coward, but if a fellow Gryffindor does it, that's the grossest of insults.)

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

Ugh, don't remind me about that. I love how Harry blames Snape for sniping at Sirius over staying in the house and not doing anything, when it's not like anything Snape says even MATTERS to Sirius. I'd imagine hearing something like that from people you like and are used to having a good opinion from would have far more impact. Doesn't he turn white or visibly react in some way when one or both of the twins says he's a coward? Harry may as well blame THEM.

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

You are forgetting - It's Okay If A Gryffindor Does It.

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

And what kind adult stays home where it is safe while a child they love is in danger?

Do they really think Sirius could just stay where it was safe while Harry is in danger? Everything we know about Sirius is that he is not the kind of guy to play it safe.

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

Ugh. That's exactly the case. Characterization sacrificed for plot again and again.

(this is why I like the Young Wizards series. Those kids have authority figures they trust and rely on and seek advice from, they always do the responsible thing and go to them for help, and yet they always manage to have adventures and get caught up in situations beyond their control for the requisite excitement and tension)

*eyeroll* I wasn't going to bring Buckbeak in, 'coz I've flogged that dead horse for ages now, but DAMN, that gets to me as well.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

I wasn't going to bring Buckbeak in, 'coz I've flogged that dead horse for ages now, but DAMN, that gets to me as well.

Buckbeak's not a horse, he's a hippogriff. And he's still alive, as far as we know. ;-)

[borg-princess.livejournal.com]

Um. I'm not sure if that's meant to be a joke, with the smiley face and all, but I'll just clarify that to flog a dead horse (http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/flog+a+dead+horse) is just an expression that means one is talking about something way too much. I do know Buckbeak's not really a horse...

[sunnyskywalker]

You're right, Umbridge didn't cast any kind of silencing charms on the room, did she? So someone might hear if they all screamed at once. It's worth a shot.

I really wish Umbridge had been halfway competent in this scene. It could have been truly chilling.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

To be fair, is anyone in the HP series really competent? I would think that having magic would help, but very few examples come to mind.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

I don't know; I think if you're incompetent to begin with, having magic would just give you more--and possibly more dangerous--ways to screw up.

As for whether anybody is competent in general, that would depend on how you define the word. Is it being good at your job? Getting others to do what you want? Accomplishing other goals? Winning at quidditch? ;-)

Snape is competent to the extent he's allowed to be, despite the obstacles thrown in his way, and unlike Harry, who has to be spoon-fed his victories by the author. Maybe that's one reason Snape is so popular: Most people know what it's like to struggle to achieve things despite overwhelming odds, so he's easy to identify with, unlike the designated heroes.

[sunnyskywalker]

Interesting question.

Grubbly-Plank at least knows her subject, so there's another possibly competent person. Not that she's around much to assess her other abilities. Sprout and Pomfrey also seem to know what they're doing most of the time, but we don't know whether they're especially competent outside their particular fields because we rarely if ever see them outside that context. (Okay, Sprout can launch attack plants and not die, at least.) Flitwick is great at Charms and dueling and terrible at class management or acting in loco parentis for the Ravenclaws. McGonagall has a similar profile (great at her subject, but look at the bullies who flourish under her watch). Who knows about Sinistra... maybe she's too competent to appear in the books.

Slughorn can brew complex potions successfully, and appears to have some ability to innovate, or at least to recognize when someone else's innovation will work. He also networks pretty successfully and has a lot of former students who still like him, and appears to have succeeded at helping a fair number of them get jobs. He can also apparently get celebrities to attend his parties, at least undead ones. He's a total failure at recognizing when someone is a charming psycho until thwacked over the head with evidence, but to be fair, hardly anyone else caught on to Tom either.

Lockhart, of course, succeeded brilliantly at memory charms and convincing everyone he was all that and a bag of chips. And he would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids!

Fred and George are successful innovators who can also read the market and give consumers what they want, very profitably, including scoring government defense contracts as well as dominating their niche of the popular consumer market. They also seem to have managed to avoid getting a public reputation as bullies, whatever some people might think of them in private, which is success of a sort.

Ludo Bagman succeeded at Quidditch and popularity, well enough to keep himself out of prison.

I think overall there's a lot more characters who are competent in a particular skill than in long-term, macro-level concerns like planning their careers, orchestrating social change, or opposing Voldemort. The ones who are better at those sorts of things tend to be Slytherins when we know their houses - Slughorn, Lucius Malfoy (who is at least a mover and shaker for a few years), Snape for the never-ending spying gig, young Tom for snowing everyone and getting away with murder for years.

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

I mostly meant that magic makes it much easier to accomplish a lot of things, especially in that universe. If I could just wave a magic wand and have all of my work done then I would probably be more competent, but I would probably also become incredibly lazy in a short period of time. But I would still get more stuff done by virtue of the fact that I had to do less to accomplish it.

It would also be really easy to mess up, though, so I can see your point.

[granatapfelrot.livejournal.com]

Maybe that's one reason Snape is so popular: Most people know what it's like to struggle to achieve things despite overwhelming odds, so he's easy to identify with, unlike the designated heroes.

That is so true. And it's incredible frustrating, that the rare competent person always get the short stick and gets maligned and/or ridiculed by all the 'heroic' morons.
Huh, that makes HP much more 'real' than I ever thought. Just not in a good way.