HBP Chapter Ten: "The House of Gaunt"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

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* Naturally Rowling has to make Slytherin’s descendants completely degenerate and inbred. Can’t have anything good coming from evil old Salazar, after all. No doubt if Gryffindor’s heirs were still kicking around they’d be wealthy noblemen or the like.

* Whatever else Morfin may be, he’s a rubbish poet.

* So Merope gets Tom using a love potion – naturally, because it’s not like one of those slimy Slytherin types could ever attract anybody using normal methods. Apparently this means that  Voldemort was doomed to evilness from the start due to being conceived without love, which seems like a rather weird thing for JKR to say, because she doesn’t suggest elsewhere that love potions are anything other than a big joke. IOIAGDI, perhaps?

* Although the Gaunts are meant to be the last scions of one of wizarding Britain’s most noble houses, their actual portrayal seems to owe more to American redneck stereotypes than to impoverished nobleman ones. I keep half expecting Morfin to randomly whip out a banjo in the middle of the conversation.

* Whilst watching selected highlights of Voldemort’s family history might help defeat him, I doubt it would be as useful as, say, learning about how to recognise and destroy Horcruxes. Maybe this is meant to be one of Dumbledore’s huge mistakes that were mentioned earlier. (Gasp, criticising Dumbledore?! Blasphemy!!!)

* Wow, Rowling’s really leading up to this whole hand thing, isn’t he? A pity we never really get a decent pay-off.