HBP Chapter Ten: "The House of Gaunt"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

* Hermione refuses to follow the HBP’s instructions, instead sticking to the “official” version. This seems a bit odd, really – Hermione’s supposed to be this questioning, inquisitive girl, and I don’t see why such a person would rigidly stick to a set of instructions which are quite obviously not very good. Plus of course Hermione’s always had an obsession with being the best in her class, and the idea of just plodding on whilst Harry overtakes her seems rather OOC. It would be one thing if she were worried the Prince’s instructions might be unsafe, but as Rowling writes it, it just looks like pig-headedness and rules-worship.

* Nice to see Dumbledore making light of Harry’s bad behaviour. I wonder what the teachers all feel about their Headmaster undermining attempts to discipline children.

* Dumbledore admits that “I make mistakes like the next man. In fact, being – forgive me – rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger.” Although better not take him at his word and start questioning Dumbledore’s decisions, else the authorial voice will mark you down as irredeemably evil.

* Maybe I’m just being paranoid here, but Dumbledore’s talk of “persuading” people to give him their memories has a faintly sinister ring about it.

* I know I’ve commented on this before, but wizards’ total inability to blend in with muggles is ridiculous. It’s even more stupid when they’re Ministry employees: surely the wizarding government at least ought to ensure that its workers know how to look inconspicuous when doing their jobs.

* 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.

Comments

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree with you, both that Hermione's ruthless side came out quite early, and that she is apparently not supposed to be criticized for it in canon. That is a pity. The character had a lot of potential - as did Severus; as did Ron - and there was no attention paid to reasonable character development.

I guess I just find the last two books so egregiously bad that they wreck almost everything that went before them. But I, personally, still have a sneaking fondness for OOTP. That's when I began shipping Harry and Luna, and thinking Severus the hero of the entire piece.

Oh, well.