OOTP Chapter Thirty-Eight: "The Second War Begins"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

* And struggling manfully over the finishing line comes the final instalment of OOTP spork. Better late than never, as they say. :)

* Judging by the plot of the next couple of books, “war” in the wizarding world has the specialised meaning of “sitting in a tent doing nothing for several months”.

* Ginny and Neville have been totally cured, whilst Ron’s still bearing the scars of the brain attack. It would be nice to say that there’s some clever symbolic message behind this, but unfortunately this is a J. K. Rowling novel, so that would be a complete lie.

* Apparently “thoughts could leave deeper scarring than almost anything else” (ooh, profound!), but the effect is mitigated by rubbing “Dr. Ubbly’s Oblivious Unction” onto the scars. I suppose this foreshadows Ron’s complete lack of thoughts in the next one-and-a-half books: his mental capacity has been removed by the Oblivious Unction. His partial return to intelligence in the last half of Book Seven is because the effects are – finally – beginning to wear off.

* Why on earth does anybody take the Prophet seriously after this book? Surely Hermione can’t have been the only one to notice to total about-face they’ve done over Harry and the return of Voldemort. Not even wizards could be so stupid as to not notice that the paper spent all its time ridiculing Harry, but is now suddenly showering him with praise. Right?

* Hmm, so it appears that non-verbal spells are (all other things being equal) less powerful than verbal ones. Anybody with a better memory than me know if this idea is backed up in the rest of canon?

* Once again, I’m struck by Hermione’s arbitrary scepticism. So Crumple-Horned Snorkacks are stupid, but living in a magic castle learning to do spells with a magic wand and being taught by a centaur and a half-giant aren’t? You’d have thought that somebody who found out aged eleven that all this fairy-tale stuff was real would be a bit more hesitant to dismiss things, even if not many other people believed in them.

* Flitwick’s magicked away Fred and George’s swamp, but left a little bit as a sort of memorial to it. Because if you’re trying to run a school, obviously the best thing to do is to look like you admire flagrant pieces of rule-breaking. That couldn’t possibly have any negative effect on school discipline.

* Filch is unhappy that Umbridge is gone and Dumbledore has replaced her. Maybe I’m just missing JKR’s really subtle point about racism and bigotry here, but this seems to imply that the bigoted, pureblood-supremacist Umbridge actually treated Filch with more respect than the enlightened, tolerant Dumbledore. Consistency? Bah! Who needs it?

* Yay, let’s all laugh at the person who’s clearly suffering from PTSD! That’ll show everybody that we’re totally the heroes of this book!

* “‘How can you say that?’ Hermione demanded. ‘After we’ve just found out that there are real prophecies?’” Actually, that raises an interesting question: Dumbledore seems to consider the whole subject of Divination to be something of a joke, yet organises his entire military strategy around a prophecy. Yeah, I can totally see why he’s seen as this super-wise and intelligent person.

* Also, kudos to Hermione for actually changing her opinion on something when presented with new evidence. I know this is difficult for wizards to do, and I think she ought to get some credit for it. Anybody recall whether she expresses an attitude on Divination in the final two books?

* Swimming with a giant squid sounds quite dangerous. Do the pupils never suffer any mishaps in the lake? Or does Dumbledore just hush them up like he does most other injuries?

* Malfoy comes along and threatens Harry, enabling Our Hero to deliver a series of witty put-downs and remind us all how awesome he is.

* Then Snape arrives, and Harry feels “a great rush of hatred beyond anything he felt towards Malfoy”. You know, for a boy whose defining characteristic is his ability to love, Harry seems to feel a remarkable number of such rushes.

* McGonagall bustles forth imperiously, shoving her bag at Crabbe and Goyle and telling them to take it to her office. Somehow I get the feeling that if Severus had done this to Harry, we’d be treated to a whiny internal monologue about how unfair it is for Snape to treat pupils like his own personal servants.

* Harry’s actually getting a bit short-changed here. I think most people who’d just alerted the world to the resurrection of an evil un-dead sorcerer would want more than a few House Points in return.

* Not content with imprisoning one giant in the Forbidden Forest, Hagrid’s now decided to find “a lady friend” for Grawp. We don’t hear anything about this idea in later books, so it looks like something fortunately came up to dissuade him from it.

* So Professor McGonagall has let Peeves borrow her walking-stick so he can use it to attack Umbridge. Nice to see her setting a good example to the students there.

* Although knowing how violent Wizarding society can be, they probably would think that she’s setting a good example.

* Hey, isn’t there a spell that enables people to pack trunks instantly? Maybe Hogwarts should try teaching pupils how to do that, rather than pointless things like making pineapples tapdance or turning rabbits into fluffy slippers.

* What is the point of the mirror subplot? It just makes Harry look like an uncaring, forgetful jerk for not opening it sooner. I know it’s featured in DH, but it would have been quite easy to come up with another way for Harry to receive it (like, say, having Dumbledore give it to them shortly before he dies).

* Also, I like the way that Harry assumes the mirror isn’t working because Sirius didn’t have it on him when he went through the veil, rather than because he’s, y’know, dead.

* So can ghosts choose to die later, then, or is the decision to stay on after death irreversible?

* Luna is openly putting up signs pleading for the return of her stuff… and neither Flitwick nor any of the other members of staff seem to be doing anything about the theft which is clearly rife in Ravenclaw. Nice to see the school taking such good care of its pupils.

* Alright, I agree that Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle were wrong to try and ambush Harry like that, and the DA members were right to stop them, but… was it really necessary to turn them into giant slugs? And then just leave them on the luggage rack without calling for help? They could have been seriously injured! Talk about disproportionate retribution…

* Also, the Malfoys seem curiously blasé about their only child getting hexed into deformity. This is the second time in a row that Draco’s been attacked like this, but apparently neither Lucius nor Narcissa see fit to make a complaint.

* Ernie’s looking forward to the expression of Mrs. Malfoy’s face when she sees her son because… he’s still annoyed at Draco for docking House Points. *sigh* And there was me thinking that Hufflepuff was the saner of the Hogwarts houses…

* Marietta Edgecombe’s still wearing a balaclava to cover her scars. Harry doesn’t feel any pity towards her, but on the other hand he doesn’t feel a thrill of vindictive triumph either, which is quite good going for him.

* Ginny’s split up with Michael Corner after he got upset that Gryffindor beat Ravenclaw at Quidditch. I think at this point I’m starting to get idiocy fatigue: earlier in the chapter I’d have felt compelled to make a remark about how annoyingly childish this is, but now my reaction is more along the lines of “Meh. I suppose that’s the sort of thing they would do in these books.”

* Ron suggests that Ginny goes out with “someone – better – next time”, giving Harry “an oddly furtive look” as he says it. This will be forgotten next book – presumably it’s too subtle for Harry to pick up on – and we’ll be treated to endless angsting about how Ron would react if Harry and Ginny started to go out together.

* Harry tells Mrs. Weasley he’s fine, but the narrative voice makes sure to tell us he’s lying. Harry’s not fine at all, because his life is full of angst and suffering, and he experiences pain that we non-chosen ones cannot begin to imagine.

* The Order members who greet Harry clearly reckon that the Dursleys will mistreat him given half the chance, but don’t think to find him somewhere else to live over the summer. It’s surprising how often Harry’s wizarding friends send him to live with a family of known abusers over the holidays, then get all shocked and self-righteous when they find out that Harry’s been abused.

* “It could not have been plainer that she was thinking of what the neighbours would say if they caught sight of these people marching up the garden path.” Really? I thought she was worrying about what they might do to her and her family, seeing as how they’re armed with magic and the Dursleys would be practically defenceless against them. Or is that not enough of a negative middle-class stereotype for JKR?

* This last scene makes me very uncomfortable. Maybe I’d feel different if the Dursleys’ abuse actually seemed to have some realistic consequences, rather than being all cartoony and impossible to take seriously, but the image of seven wizards threatening a family of defenceless Muggles isn’t one that I can enjoy.

Comments

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Judging by the plot of the next couple of books, “war” in the wizarding world has the specialised meaning of “sitting in a tent doing nothing for several months”.

Yeah. I enjoyed OotP most of all, largely on how it set things up for a fair dinkum 'war'. But it was with the last two books that Rowling showed that she really had no idea what to do, other than a couple of images (Dumbledore dies, Harry wins). So - no 'war'. Just a few images stolen from World War II and the nazis.

Ginny and Neville have been totally cured, whilst Ron’s still bearing the scars of the brain attack.

I've always appreciated those fan fiction stories which left Hermione with a permanent wound, too. Which reminds Hary of how she almost died, or of her dedication to him. Or even stories where Ron comforts her over the scarring.

But yes, I think the wound is completely healed with a regime of potions at the end of this book. Only Ron ends up with the scars - which are never ever ever mentioned again. This is, after all, one-book-at-a-time, I-don't-read-my-own-books Rowling.

Once again, I’m struck by Hermione’s arbitrary scepticism. So Crumple-Horned Snorkacks are stupid, but living in a magic castle learning to do spells with a magic wand and being taught by a centaur and a half-giant aren’t?

Hermione just needs evidence or proof to back up theories; she's using the scientific method in the magical world. There's nothing wrong about that. She would have leartn all about the magical castle the day after she visited Diagon Alley and started reading 'Hogwarts, a History'. But snorkacks? If there's absolutely no evidence as to their existence then it's perfectly reasonable to deny their existence.

As you point out:

Also, kudos to Hermione for actually changing her opinion on something when presented with new evidence. I know this is difficult for wizards to do, and I think she ought to get some credit for it.

Yup. So there's nothing at all inconsistent with Hermione's treatment of Luna's unsupported whacky beliefs.

Then Snape arrives, and Harry feels “a great rush of hatred beyond anything he felt towards Malfoy”. You know, for a boy whose defining characteristic is his ability to love, Harry seems to feel a remarkable number of such rushes.

Bah. I'm pretty sure you're being sarcastic about the 'power of love' thing, but yeah ... it didn't exist. Rowling set up the 'power the dark lord knows not' here but it just fizzled out. Harry showed no greater 'power of love' than any other good guy.

I always had contempt for Harry's automatic hatred of Snape from this point on. He never once tried to *think* ... to ponder the details of Snape's slaying of Dumbledore. Or why Snape let Harry go - when he was so obviously outmatched - at the end of HBP.

But no, Rowling wanted her little mystery of Snape's true allegiance to be intact through to the end, so - as was so often the case in her work - the characters suffered convenient lapses of characterisation or intelligence to suit authorial convenience.

Ginny’s split up with Michael Corner after he got upset that Gryffindor beat Ravenclaw at Quidditch.

And she moves immediately to lucky contestant #3, one Dean Thomas. Which is why I can't think of Ginny as anything more than 'The Girl Who Dates'. Well, fair enough maybe, that's all she was supposed to be - a simple love interest object for The Boy Who Lived.

Ron suggests that Ginny goes out with “someone – better – next time”, giving Harry “an oddly furtive look” as he says it. This will be forgotten next book – presumably it’s too subtle for Harry to pick up on – and we’ll be treated to endless angsting about how Ron would react if Harry and Ginny started to go out together.

Wonderful point, thank you! Wow, it's been 5 years since DH and yet I'm still surprised by little bits of insight which further show Rowling's flaws. In this case it's yet another symptom of her writing her books as largely stand-alone efforts (and never re-reading her own work).