PS Chapter Five

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

*I can’t remember when I figured out the pun in that name, but it was probably long after I first read it.

*Harry is reluctant to open his eyes after his awesome dream where a giant came and bullied everyone he hated. Can’t blame him.

*Harry’s so happy he feels a balloon swelling inside him. Oh my god. Harry, that’s not a balloon! It’s a chest monster egg!

*You know, having Harry randomly go through Hagrid’s pockets could have been a dangerous idea. I don’t want to think about what he might carry around in there.

*The owl flies around with a money pouch that people put coins in. I feel like Monty Python would have a field day with the physics of that. It’s not a question of where he grips it, it’s a simple question a weight ratios.

*Oh and by the way, Harry, you’ve got bags of gold as well. Not that you’ve really been poor up until now, but still.

*Harry’s completely shocked to hear Wizards have banks. The fact that there are Wizards at all is no problem, but they have banks??

*Never mess with Goblins Hagrid tells Harry, both as a foreshadowing of GoF and as yet another lesson in race stereotypes. Goblins can take care of themselves, even if they can’t win the right to carry a wand like Wizards.

*Hagrid brags about Dumbledore giving him important things to do, sounding a lot like Bellatrix LeStrange.

*There’s been a lot of discussion of exactly what Hagrid flew to the island on. I guess maybe it’s a Thestral. However, he also says he’s not supposed to use magic, indicating he flew by magic, and flying on a Thestral doesn’t require use of such.

*I’d like to think Hagrid is really saying "floo" and Harry just doesn’t yet recognize the word, but I don’t think there are any fireplaces besides the one in the hut.

*Though I’m surprised he didn’t just floo into that one. Saves him the trouble of knocking since he’s going to come in anyway. Plus it would have been a surprise and maybe would have caused the Muggles to spill or break something.

*Hagrid continues showing how cool he is by breaking the rules and asking Harry to cover for him. "Let ole Hagrid warm his hands under yer coat there, Harry. It’ll be our little secret arrr…"

*Halfway across the water Hagrid becomes possessed by the Muggle narrator and explains Gringott’s is far under the Underground.

*Hagrid actually feels a little off throughout this chapter, I guess because he’s having to give actual information. I can’t imagine him in later books reading the paper as a normal, intelligent adult as he seems to be doing here. I wonder if he became more of an idiot stereotype over time.

*Harry has a hard time not asking questions. Of course, by the time he gets to Hogwarts and has a whole library of answers at his disposal, he’s over it.

*Btw, Ministry of Magic messing up things as usual. Read: They don’t work for Dumbledore.

*The Ministry’s main job is hiding Magic for Muggles, so it’s probably unfair to expect them to have any kind of coherent system of justice or support system for their own people.

*And they’re hiding from Muggles because everyone would be wanting Magical solutions to their problems if Muggles knew about Wizards. Oh, you don’t need to tell us, Hagrid. We just read that whole chapter where you showed up at the Muggles’ house and they were all over you asking for spells for everything.

*Once on shore, Hagrid assumes the air of rude, condescending tourist in a foreign country, describing technology far in advance in anything he’s ever seen as quaint but silly. You know, the kind of tourist that would be done as biting, scolding satire if he were a Muggle.

*Crikey, Hagrid would like a dragon. He’s wanted one ever since he was a kid. And since he never really advanced mentally passed the age of 7 or so, he still does.

*Well there it is, the plain pointed hat for day wear that Harry will be accidentally knocking off Padma in GoF.

*This uniform is far more dignified than Dudley’s. Sure it’s a dress and a pointy hat—but it’s black!

*Even your traveling cloak has to be black with silver fastenings? Jeez, it’s worse than working at Calvin Klein. At least there you have a choice of black, white or khaki.

*Hagrid doesn’t know how Muggles manage without Magic. I think a better question is how a person who can do Magic still manages to be as incompetent as Hagrid.

*Is the broken-down escalator supposed to underline the limits of Muggle society? Because last I checked Wizards spent a good portion of their lives climbing stairs.

*Harry just can’t help trusting Hagrid. That’s part of being one of the good guys. Only nasty kids don’t trust him just because he behaves in irresponsibly.

*Hagrid makes sure to stop at a pub to show everybody Dumbledore trusts him with the little freak…err, I mean Harry Potter, a new Hogwarts student.

*Yeah, that’s pretty much the only reason Hagrid goes into the first bar is to tell everybody Potter’s back and Hagrid’s got him. Was that one of DD’s orders?

*So before Quirrell took a year off, was he teaching DADA? Can the curse skip a year? Because if it can Dumbledore could have just had rotating teachers.

*Hagrid also has a note about the You-Know-What in vault 713. No wonder Harry comes up with such brilliant codes later in the series. He learns from the master.

*In the middle of the Gringott’s Amazing Caves Ride™, Harry is suddenly blurts out he can never remember the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite, possibly the most un-Harry line in the entire series.

*The fact that raising a child is costly is mentioned, combined with the fact that Harry’s ability to pay his own way has been hidden from the Dursleys, and adding up to the Dursleys being greedy and sucking again.

*Hagrid asks the Goblin to go more slowly with the cart. Good thing nobody can hear that. That’s the kind of panty-waist request gets a giant re-sorted into Slytherin.

*Yes, Dumbledore really did send Hagrid to get the Philosopher’s Stone, the thing that needs to be kept safe and secret. Dumbledore really ought to learn the difference between trusting someone to do something requiring discretion and caution because they actually possess discretion and caution, and trusting someone to fanboy you personally until the end of time.

*Now that Hagrid’s done bragging to everyone, the kid can fuck off and get his own uniform by himself. Besides, the best thing to do when you’re carrying a treasure of immense importance and you’re not to bright is to go get drunk in a bar. Too bad there’s no card games going on at the time or Hagrid could have dropped the stone then and there.

*I’m surprised there’s no theories about Hagrid having some sort of history with Madam Malkin. Both times Harry has to go there Hagrid makes some excuse not to go inside so that Harry can see Malfoy alone.

*I’ve heard some theories about the first Wizarding Child Harry sees being marked as his true love for life. Don’t know where I heard it.

*Harry goes to the back of the shop, where another boy is standing quietly on a stool being fitted. Harry steps up on a stool beside him. "Hullo," says the boy, "Hogwarts too—" OMG! What a little bastard!

*Harry is strongly reminded of Dudley listening to the boy talk, but I don’t actually remember Dudley being this ironic. Isn’t "Then I’m going to drag them off to look at racing brooms…" kind of joking about his own brattiness?

*Nope, I guess it’s not a joke. As we’ll no doubt see when this kid shows up at school with a racing broom…or not.

*Uh oh, mysterious blond boy, you’ve made Harry feel stupid by asking everyday questions. And everyone knows feeling stupid is proof is a sign of evil in the person who makes you feel that way. And not just, you know, sometimes the unfortunate by-product of being wrong or clueless.

*He’s some sort of servant. He’s a gamekeeper. Yes, exactly. Who is this blond boy? I think I like him even more than Dudley!

*And he’s got gossip about the weirdo teacher! Uh-oh, we all know how kids hate that kind of thing. No wonder Harry dislikes him. Next he’ll be telling Harry how the shop teacher lost his fingers. Run, Harry, run!

*How dare the boy suggest Hagrid drinks to excess? Why it’s got to be all of ten o’clock in the morning by now and Hagrid’s only gone for a drink once!

*Harry doesn’t feel like going into the matter of his parents being dead to the stranger boy, except to note that the boy doesn’t sound sorry at all to hear that two people he doesn’t know ceased to live at some point in the last eleven years. Sure he says he’s sorry, but where’s the grief?

*Well, the boy’s back on the right track now, talking about "our kind" meaning wizards and how they’re superior to Muggles, right? Hagrid endeared himself through it, after all.

*Unfortunately, Harry’s already identified this kid as "their kind," so his assumption of connection are insulting and inappropriate.

*Seriously, though, this kid is obviously a terrible bigot. Too bad there would be no way to correct his wrong assumptions by talking to him or making any effort in that direction. This egg’s gone bad, sir, throw it out!

*He’s also pretty rotten about judging people by house. I’m glad our hero will never be like that!

*The boy asks Harry’s surname last in the conversation. But I’m sure he wanted to ask it first, so if anybody asks, he asked Harry’s surname right away and didn’t bother to try to find out about Harry at all.

*Okay, maybe he asked where he was going to school, whether he played Quidditch or had a broom, if he knew what house he’d be in, but those are terrible questions to ask. Imagine what would happen to a Muggle kid who asked a kid he’d just met whether he played soccer or if he had a Gameboy. He’d be rightly told off, that’s what!

*I’m sorry to keep going on about this, but it’s just especially rude of this kid after the great interest Harry took in him!

*And the other kid hops down from his stool and says, "Well, see you at Hogwarts, I suppose," blissfully unaware of his own dreadful nature. I hope that’s fixed in the future.

*Before he goes I find myself suddenly flashing forward five years to, "Watch where you’re sticking those pins, woman!"

*Harry tells Hagrid about the boy saying Muggle family kids didn’t belong, and Hagrid is quick to assure Harry he’s not from a Muggle family. His parents are Wizards! It’s not like those people who raised you count, they’re Muggles!

*Hagrid also assures Harry that if the boy had known who he was, he’d never have made him feel stupid. He’d have rightly fallen on the floor and kissed the hem of Harry’s garment had he known. The fact that he mistakenly made small talk Harry couldn’t follow reflected badly on him, not Harry.

*Oh, Hagrid then goes on to defend Muggleborns in general. To review, Muggles suck, but Muggleborns should not be blamed for the inferior families into which they were born. Prejudice should be based on physical abilities that are accidents of birth, not relatives that are an accident of birth, see?

*Hagrid is again possessed by the narrator, explaining Quidditch as being like football in that everyone follows it etc. Because Hagrid knows all about football and the Muggles who follow it.

*One way it is not like football is that it’s hard to explain the rules, because unlike football, the rules make no sense except in the context of plot.

*Hagrid explains everyone thinks Hufflepuff is a load of duffers, which is nothing like what the bad kid just said at all.

*Harry manipulates a little sympathy by whining that he might be a Hufflepuff, and Hagrid quickly informs him that the worst house is Slytherin. Oh, and also that no single Wizard who ever went bad wasn’t in Slytherin—except for that Sirius Black guy and the alleged hundreds of Wizards who submitted to Voldemort.

*Wow, a page after their introduction Hufflepuffs are already the losers of the school. And you know…it works. Because there’s nothing about any Hufflepuff that’s particularly uncool compared to other houses ever, yet this cloud of Loser continues to hang over them throughout the series.

*Rowling’s often praised for none of her heroes being perfect and for her people being hypocrites. She’ll openly explain that Sirius doesn’t always live his own good advice. But with Hagrid, it’s kind of disturbing the way his bigotry is always dressed up in cuddly. He’s quick to put down Muggles, makes sweeping, wrong generalizations about which groups of people are inherently inferior and casually insults people via slurs…while being held up as the purest soul of the good side. Seems to me he’s there constantly showing how racism and bigotry is a good thing—a salt-of-the-earth, common sense thing.

*Hagrid knows Voldemort was at Hogwarts. Does he know he was Tom Riddle? Isn’t it kind of silly for Hagrid to not call him Tom since they were schoolmates?

*Harry looks up curses for Dudley. Hagrid tells Harry that yes, it would be a very good idea to curse Dudley but he doesn’t want to get caught doing magic outside of school. So don’t do it except in special circumstances. Like if Dudley deserves it.

*Hagrid also tells Harry he can’t do curses at his level—curses being actual Dark Magic, remember. So much for that "Oh Harry, it’s so amazing you’ve never been tempted by Dark Magic at all!" theory. It’s the only magic he’s tempted to do ever, even before he’s got a wand.

*Apparently toads are out of fashion and get you laughed at. Okay, I’ll give Hagrid that one. If there’s one trend he might follow it would judging people based on their pets. Normally one wouldn’t take fashion advice from someone who chose to hide his wand in a pink umbrella.

*Toads are obviously the worst of the three—they’ve got no claws. Toads are for pussies.

*Ollivander remembers Lily buying her first wand. So do Wizards get more than one wand in their life or not?

*Lily’s and James’ wands were comfortingly gender appropriate. Lily’s was swishy and James was stiffer with more power—but pliable.

*Ollivander tells Harry you never get such good results with another Wizard’s wand. And so a million Sixth Year fantasies of Neville turning out to be the best Wizard ever were born.

*Harry turns out to be chosen by the Holly and Phoenix feather, and unusual combination. Very unusual. Iow, he gets the Gary Stu Protagonist Deluxe!

*Hagrid kindly explains Harry’s been singled out and that’s always hard. Really hard. Dreadful suffering. YOU HEAR ME??






Box Picture
I think I spotted Noel Coward and Buster Keaton in that Leaky Cauldron scene.

Designated Hero
In this case his opposite—that kid who was mildly snotty in the robe shop and just as bigoted as the big guy but in a different way? Deserves to die in a fire.

James Bond Exposition Rule.2
An addition to the usual rule: sometimes the narrator needs to possess certain characters to make sure they explain things well when they wouldn’t otherwise.

Misdirected Answering
Years later, readers are still confused as to exactly how Hagrid got to the island given there’s no sign of any magical transportation and Wizards have no spells that just lets them fly without that. However, he will spend a long paragraph explaining exactly what would happen to you if you tried to rob Gringott’s, something that so far has never come up again.

Final score: 4

Signs of things to come: Hagrid pays lip service to tolerance while teaching Harry the Wizarding caste system (Hufflepuffs are bad, but Slytherins are the real untouchables), Harry has his mother’s eyes, apparently, Hagrid explains Muggle-baiting is bad not because it’s wrong to use Magic not because it’s an unfair use of power, but because you might get caught using Magic in Muggle places, when faced with a someone you didn’t like on sight Harry’s not encouraged to be patient, but to see the kid as even more evil than he originally seemed.