HBP Chapter Two: "Spinner's End"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

* So it turns out Snape lives in a dilapidated northern ex-industrial town. Hmm. Somehow I just can’t get my head around GrittyWorkingClass!Snape. Still, at least I can amuse myself by imagining him saying all his lines in a Yorkshire accent.

* So Bellatrix AKs the fox and kills it. I thought you had to really feel the hatred in order to cast an Unforgiveable properly? Maybe fear is a good enough motivator as well. Or she thought it was an Auror, and her hatred for them meant she could do the curse. Although “I thought perhaps it was an Auror” makes it sound like she wasn’t really sure. Maybe Bella just hates everything.

* “We must be the first of our kind ever to set foot—” Interesting. So apparently Bellatrix doesn’t consider half-bloods like Snape to be “real” wizards, and apparently Eileen didn’t count either – anybody know what her blood status was? I’d thought that she was a Pureblood, though I’m not sure where I got this from – if she was, then maybe Bella considers her to have forfeited her magical status by running off with a Muggle.

* “The place had an air of neglect, as though it were not usually inhabited.” So, is this because Snape only lives here during the school holidays, or does he normally spend the holidays in Hogwarts, and the house seems neglected because he doesn’t live here at all? I suppose it would make sense for Snape to live in Hogwarts – his room there is probably nicer than Spinner’s End – but I’m not sure why he’d have suddenly started living out.

* Snape lives with Wormtail, apparently without killing or seriously harming him, even though Wormtail betrayed Lilly to her death. So, either Snape doesn’t know who betrayed the Potters, or he’s got a really impressive amount of self-control, or the whole Lilly thing was just an explanation to give to Harry.

* Wormtail’s storyline in the later books makes no sense. For one thing, why did he go back to Voldemort? JK Rowling wants us to believe that only Voldemort could keep him safe, but why not just find a Muggle family to live with? Or a family of foreign wizards? I doubt that, say, the Japanese would know the story of Peter Pettigrew, so he’d probably be safe there.

* And the way everybody treats him with total contempt is unrealistic too. Finding and resurrecting Voldemort was quite an achievement. He ought to be given (at least grudging) fear and respect, not scornful rejection.

* And the cowardice charge seems a bit off after GOF. Cutting off his own hand as part of a magical ceremony? Eek. I know I couldn’t do that.

* Also, WTF is up with everybody calling him “Wormtail”? Why use his childhood nickname, instead of his actual name?

* I don’t know why, but the elf-made wine just seems really jarring to me. Maybe because all the other mentions of elves make them out to be low-status menial servants, not high-quality vintners. It sort of reads like JKR has just ripped something out of another fantasy world and put it here without thinking about whether it was really consistent with what she’d written elsewhere – or, to put it another way, like mediocre fan fiction.

* Most of Bellatrix’s reasons for distrusting Snape actually have a really obvious answer. He was spying on Dumbledore, so he couldn’t do anything too suspicious else he’d blow his cover. Duh.

* “And – forgive me – speaking of dangers… you were facing six teenagers, were you not?” Ooh, burn. Although as fun as it is to see Snape verbally bitchslapping people like this, I can’t help but think it would be better if rather than having characters mock the villains for their incompetence, JK Rowling had just written less incompetent villains.

* The same applies with Snape’s screed against Harry’s ineptness and extraordinary good luck. Whilst it’s nice to have a character acknowledge this for once, it would be even nicer to have a more intelligent protagonist.

* So… apparently the half-blood Snape is “Draco’s favourite teacher”, “Lucius’ old friend”, “the Dark Lord’s favourite, his most trusted advisor” – even allowing for a bit of exaggeration here, can you imagine a Jew being told something like this in fascist Germany? No, neither can I. Surprisingly tolerant bad guys 1, pasted-on Nazi analogies 0.

* Sooo, with the Unbreakable Vows… who gets to decide whether Snape is really helping Draco “to the best of his ability”? Or whether it seems that Draco will fail at his task? Is that the Bonder’s job?

Comments

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/I thought you had to really feel the hatred in order to cast an Unforgiveable properly?/

JKR basically threw out everything that she had said about Unforgivables in DH. They apparently don’t take much effort to cast after all, they don’t actually require a sadistic intent (unless Harry really did have enough blind, seething rage towards the man whom he’d never met before who committed the unpardonable act of spitting on someone he liked), and it turns out that they’re not unforgivable, since McGonagall calls Harry “gallant” for casting one and then proceeds to cast an Unforgiveable herself right afterwards. I guess that Sirius was wrong in portraying Crouch Sr. as a zealot who went overboard when he authorized the use of Unforgivables. Apparently, Crouch Sr. was just acting that way because it was wartime. And now hundreds of fanfics will have the good guys casting Unforgivables without breaking a sweat as a result. Fantastic.

/Snape lives with Wormtail, apparently without killing or seriously harming him, even though Wormtail betrayed Lilly to her death. So, either Snape doesn’t know who betrayed the Potters, or he’s got a really impressive amount of self-control/

Many people have pointed to the latter, especially since Snape can’t risk his cover. Still, his behavior doesn’t match up with his reaction in PoA to Sirius and Remus.

/Wormtail’s storyline in the later books makes no sense. For one thing, why did he go back to Voldemort? JK Rowling wants us to believe that only Voldemort could keep him safe, but why not just find a Muggle family to live with?/

Maybe because Wormtail is evil, JKR couldn’t stand to let him get away? Or she needed him to stay in the story because he was important...even though he didn’t really end up doing much, other than assisting Voldemort in his rebirthing ceremony? Yeah, Peter’s decision makes no sense. We’re told that it’s because he was afraid of Sirius and Remus...who gave up looking for him not long after PoA. And yes, somehow Wormtail didn’t think to jump ship to another country other than Albania. Because the plot says so, I guess.

/And the way everybody treats him with total contempt is unrealistic too. Finding and resurrecting Voldemort was quite an achievement. He ought to be given (at least grudging) fear and respect, not scornful rejection./

Especially by Voldemort. Peter is someone who betrayed his friends, faked his death, has a useful Animagus form, and was responsible for Voldemort’s resurrection. Voldemort should *not* underestimate him or dismiss him as frequently as he does. At the very least, he should be wary of Peter and keep a close eye on him, in case Peter decides to stab him in the back as well.

/And the cowardice charge seems a bit off after GOF./

Actually, I think that Voldemort’s inexplicable treatment of Peter may be tied to the whole theme of “Bravery trumps all.” Even though Gryffindor and Slytherin are supposed to be deadly enemies and rivals and the polar opposites of each other, the Slytherins still have to value bravery. Snape is enraged when Harry calls him a coward, Voldemort tells Harry in PS/SS that he admires the bravery of his parents, and the source of Voldemort’s contempt for Peter seems to be Peter’s so-called cowardice. He tells Peter in GoF that he doesn’t count as a loyal servant because the only reason he went after Voldemort was because he was scared of his old friends. I think that we’re supposed to see Voldemort’s disgust towards Peter’s cringing subservience as disgust towards Peter’s cowardice.

/Also, WTF is up with everybody calling him “Wormtail”? Why use his childhood nickname, instead of his actual name?/

I’ve heard theories that “Wormtail” is supposed to signify Peter’s regression, to indicate that he’s little more than an animal now that he’s rejoined Voldemort’s forces. But yes, within the story itself, it makes no sense. Unless Snape went around telling Voldemort and all of the Death Eaters what Peter’s nickname was and that’s how everybody knew to call him Wormtail. But yes, why not just call him Pettigrew?

[oryx_leucoryx]

seething rage towards the man whom he’d never met before

Actually they did meet once before - Amycus was the one who was repeatedly failing to Cruciate Ginny.

[sunnyskywalker]

Maybe we could fanwank some of those occasions of Slytherins being obsessed with bravery as playing to their audiences? Or maybe the Gryffindor characters weren't picking up on the sarcasm? Voldemort might have seen Peter as a major threat, someone who had had him in his power and was obviously both competent and untrustworthy (since of course he'd betray Voldemort if he thought he'd survive better that way), so he wanted to keep him psychologically beaten down - and so kept telling Peter he was a coward, guessing that that would hurt a Gryffindor the most. Which it apparently did. (Maybe not all his brain cells were gone after all.) And... um... maybe Voldemort talking to little Gryffindor Harry was hoping that a Gryffindor-approved compliment would make Harry more likely to give up the Stone, or at least distract him enough with thoughts of his brave parents to do something stupid and make it easier for Voldemort to get it off him?

Snape, I guess, could have been influenced by Lily and Dumbledore. Years of hearing about Brave James Potter could make a person touchy on that subject even if he did start out not particularly caring if anyone thought he was brave. Especially when he knew he was and no one acknowledged it.