Deathly Hallows, Chapter 9: A Place to Hide

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Harry and Hermione happen to be together when the attack comes, so when Ron finds them, Hermione Apparates them to London. As usual, the boys are unprepared, but Hermione has packed everything they need: changes of clothes, Harry’s invisibility cloak, reference books, luggage--and whatever else they might need as the story goes on that Rowling didn’t think of right now.

Harry experiences emotion as GERD again as he thinks about the danger Ginny is in, and “fear bubble[s] like acid in his stomach.” Um, Harry, I know your science education ended at age eleven, but surely you’ve picked up from TV commercials for antacids that the stomach does have acid bubbling in it. Maybe you just have indigestion from all that rich food and champagne you ate and drank at the wedding reception.

As they walk down the street, Hermione is sexually harassed by some drunk men. Ron is about to defend her honor when Hermione drags them into an all-night greasy spoon. They are preparing to leave when they are attacked by two DEs, who had followed them into the restaurant and been sitting there for a while. This is a contrived scene because as soon as the DEs are defeated, Ron recognizes one and Harry the other. Harry even admits he should have recognized the blond one, Thorfinn Rowle, from the night Dumbledore died. Clearly, the DEs are doing a better job of educating their recruits on whom to watch for than the Order is. Any commander who’s not a complete dimwit should make sure hir soldiers or police officers know who the major enemies/criminals are and what they look like. Honestly, both sides in this rumble are so incompetent that I can’t help thinking the non-magical government just needs to protect the public, then stand back and let the magicals have at each other until all the dumbest ones are dead. It would greatly enhance the gene pool of the ones who are left.

The Trio tries to decide what to do about their prisoners and settles on Obliviation. They all insist they’ve never done it, despite Hermione’s weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth regarding her parents just two days ago. Apparently her memory charm on them was a little too good: Its blowback damaged her memory, too.

Or maybe it was too bad. Maybe Hermione’s telling at least part of the truth when she says she’s never done a memory charm--at least, a successful one. That is, perhaps she tried to mind-rape her parents and change their identities, but she wasn’t successful. Maybe when this high school girl with a fifth-grade science education tried to perform magical brain surgery on her parents, she failed so disastrously they ended up vegetables, and she had to kill them because she couldn’t take care of them.

Think about it: We have only her word they really are in Australia. Remember all my objections to the logistics of changing their identities and shipping them off to a foreign country? All those problems disappear if the Grangers are dead. In chapter 6, it says Hermione’s eyes “were swimming with tears” as she talked about them. This is not a girl who cries easily. The only other time I can think of her crying in the whole series is in book 1 when nobody will be her friend--that is, when she feels all alone in the world.

Hermione has been building up to this for a long time. In first year, she set Snape on fire. In second year, she committed a series of felonies that would have gotten HRH expelled and criminally prosecuted in a sane society. In third year, she knocked Snape unconscious with her friends and cared only for the fact she might get in trouble for attacking a teacher. In fourth year, she kidnapped Rita Skeeter, held her hostage, and blackmailed her. In fifth year, she tricked Umbridge into becoming the prey of the centaurs. She also tricked other students into agreeing to the Dumbledore’s Army contract without knowing what the consequences were for breaking it--and permanently disfigured another girl in revenge when the girl dared to put the well-being of her own mother before that of her schoolmates. In sixth year, she attacked her own boyfriend with birds à la Alfred Hitchcock, and in seventh year, she “jokes” about doing it again (in chapter 19). She also at least attempted to perform forcible brain surgery on her own parents and ship them off to a foreign country.

Look at that series of violent felonies. Try to forget it’s the life story of Hermione Granger, a character you thought you knew, and instead imagine it’s the case history of some anonymous teenager in a news story. Then tell me that murder is not the logical next step in the criminal career of someone with that record.

Back to the story:

Ron complains he can’t get his wand out of his jeans because the pair Hermione packed is his old pair, which is too tight. God forbid he should do his own packing--or laundry--or cooking--or any of those “girl jobs.”

This is a very strange restaurant: Apparently the waitress also does the cooking, since there’s no reference to any other employee being present.

The Trio discusses where to run to, and Hermione suggests the DEs may have found them because Harry still has the underage Trace on him. Ron insists that cannot be the case because Wizarding law doesn’t allow it to be put on adults. Um, Ron, I hate to tell you this, but the Ministry is in the control of violent terrorists who want to kill large numbers of people and take over the world. I don’t think they’re going to shrink from breaking any law, particularly if it will help them find their number one quarry, Harry Potter.

HRH (Hey, JKR’s pretending Harry’s royalty, so why not go with it?) decide to go to Grimmauld Place, even though Snape knows where it is and can get in there. Harry displays textbook Gryffindor bravado by boasting that he’d love to fight Snape. I can just imagine Snape sneering and replying, “Yes, Potter, because that worked out so well for you last time.”

They leave the restaurant after waking everybody up, thus leaving the defenseless waitress to the mercies of the muggle-hating Death Eaters. Remind me again why these are the good guys?

They enter 12GP and we have a brief recap of the furnishings in the foyer. Surely I’m not the only one who finds those stuffed elf heads really creepy and grotesque. Proving their fitness for battle with ruthless terrorists, the Trio is traumatized by Moody’s ludicrous “protections” on the house: a Tongue-Tying Curse and an apparition of Dumbledore that appears to be a giant dust bunny disguised as a decomposing corpse.

OH! COME! ON! Anybody’s who ever been to a local charity’s “haunted house” has seen scarier stuff than that! I started reading horror comic books and watching horror movies and TV shows when I was five. I was never scared by those stories because I knew they weren’t real. In my expert opinion, if JKR is writing horror, as she’s sometimes been accused of, she’s doing a damned poor job of it.

Those “protections” are idiotic for other reasons: (1) As others have pointed out, Snape can do silent magic, so tying his tongue would have no effect on his ability to cast spells. (2) If he’s as ruthless and evil as the Order thinks he is, he’s not going to be put off by a dust bunny representation of the man he killed. If anything, he’s going to laugh at the absurdity of it. Hell, I’m not a ruthless murderer, and I laughed at it.

For somebody who was supposed to be so formidable, experienced, and hung up on “constant vigilance” (a euphemism for clinical paranoia), Moody was a complete incompetent when it came to actually protecting places that needed to be protected. No wonder he resorted to torture to get captured DEs to talk. He was too ineffective to get information any other way.

As if they weren’t traumatized enough, the Three Stooges (seriously, this scene seems to have been ripped off from an old Three Stooges or Abbott and Costello short) Golden Trio then has to put up with the painting of Walburga Black shrieking racist invective at them. Harry shuts her up, but I have more to say on that subject.

I know it’s commonly accepted that Walburga was mentally ill, maybe even insane, and that’s why she acted so abominably. I don’t buy it. There is no way of being certain of her mental state without observing her behavior when she wasn’t either at home or in another place she considered safe for spewing her filth. That is, if she could behave like a perfect lady when she wanted to--say, while shopping in Diagon Alley, or at Ministry social functions--then her behavior was under her conscious control. She was therefore not mentally ill, just a vicious racist who got off on terrorizing everybody with her violent tantrums. Only if she was unable to control her behavior and conform to appropriate social norms would she qualify as mentally ill and/or incompetent. That’s why, in the various editions of the DSM, the diagnostic criteria always specify that, to qualify for a diagnosis, the aberrant behavior has to be present for an extended period and in a variety of contexts.

Harry has another Voldie-vision, and Hermione starts shrieking à la Walburga, that he has to close the mental connection, or Voldemort can plant false images in his mind. Don’t worry, Hermione. Voldemort’s much too dumb to do anything that sensible.

Harry retreats to the bathroom and lets go with the vision, seeing Draco being forced to torture Rowle with Crucio. To his credit, Harry seems to feel sorry for Draco, although not for Rowle.

However, this “terrifying” vision is undermined by more logical contradictions. Voldy snarls that Rowle called Voldy back to report he’d let Harry get away--but Hermione Obliviated Rowle, so how is that possible? And would Rowle really be so stupid as to call his Master back just to report a failure to him, knowing what kind of punishment he’d receive for his failure? I’m so tired of this nonsense, I feel like Crucioing somebody at this point.

Comments

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Invested in seeing herself as good, compassionate, and smarter than everyone. And justified by her good intentions and superior understanding in telling others what to do. Like Albus. PS:

There was a knock on the door of their compartment and the round-faced boy... came in. He looked tearful.

"Sorry," he said, "but have you seen a toad at all?"
...

He [Ron] had just raised his wand when the compartment door slid open again. The toadless boy was back, but this time he had a girl with him. She was already wearing her new Hogwarts robes.

"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one," she said. She had a bossy sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth.

"We've already told him we haven't seen it," said Ron, but the girl wasn't listening, she was looking at the wand in his hand.


First, note that Neville knocks and apologizes for the intrustion; Hermione just barges in. She doesn't listen to Ron's answer; she hadn't listened to Neville when he tried to tell her he'd just checked there. (Neville had barely left the duo's compartment [a few lines of dialogue and a rummage for Ron's wand] when Hermione dragged him back in.) The message to Neville is that he's too stupid and incompetent to search for his toad himself, SHE can do it better.

Showing good intentions? Absolutely. Showing good, or even basic, social skills and empathy? Umm....


...the wand in his hand.

"Oh, are you doing magic? Let's see it then."

She sat down. Ron looked taken aback.

"Er--all right."

[His spell fails.]

"Are you sure that's a real spell?" said the girl. "Well, it's not very good, is it? I've tried a few simple spells just for practice and it's all worked for me. Nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter.... I've learned all our course books by heart, of course. I just hope it will be enough--I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?"

She said all this very fast


I think, madderbrad, that you asked for a canon example of Miss Granger drawing her peer's attention to her superior intelligence and abilities? And note that, again, she did what she pleased without attention to either the boys' probable wishes or common courtesy, plumping herself down in THEIR compartment without an invitation and ordering Ron to show her his spell.

... very fast.

Harry looked at Ron, and was relieved to see by his stunned face that he hadn't learned all the course books by heart either.

"I'm Ron Weasley," Ron muttered.

"Harry Potter," said Harry.

"Are you really?" said Hermione. "I know all about you, of course--I got a few extra books for background reading, and your're in... [list]"

"Am I?" said Harry, feeling dazed.

"Goodness, didn't you know, I'd have found out everything I could if it was me," said Hermione. "Do either of you know what house you'll be in? I've been asking around, and I hope I'm in Gryffindor, it's sounds by far the best... Anyway, we'd better go and look for Neville's toad. You two had better change, you know, I expect we'll be there soon."

And she left, taking the toadless boy with her.

So she insults Ron, telling him that she, with no previous exposure to magic, can already do much better, and she's so smart she's got the books memorized. Anyone with a grain of empathy would register that this revelation has NOT won friends and influenced people--even our dim HARRY can see that Ron, like he, is "stunned" rather than (favorably) impressed. Hermione is oblivious however: having started by pointing out how much more skilled and intelligent she is than Ron, she then establishes that she's more knowledgable than Harry..

For her exit, she orders them about and one-ups them yet again, this time incorrectly. (I know when we're arriving, and you don't!) And then goes and asks the conductor to get the correct ETA, and makes a curtain call, intruding AGAIN, to repeat her previous information and instructtions!

She likes to tell people what to do. She likes to inform them that she knows better than they, and so they should just do what she says. And at eleven, she was clueless that openly displaying this attitude would make her strongly disliked.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

Yes. Also I would add that being emotionally invested in a certain image of oneself doesn't always translate directly into invested in being publicly seen that way. It's possible to be deeply invested in an image of oneself as XYZ whether or not people 'acknowledge' one 'really is' XYZ, or even to be invested in an image of oneself as nobly doing good despite the ignorance of others - or even having to hide one's 'true' goodness from others for the sake of the cause, etc. Emotional investment in an image of oneself doesn't necessarily mean being Lockhart about it, just that it matters a great deal to the person hirself, in a way that can block true mature appraisal of oneself.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

I think, madderbrad, that you asked for a canon example of Miss Granger drawing her peer's attention to her superior intelligence and abilities?

Hee. :-) I think you found me one.

(Curse you. :-))

Still, as you say -

And at eleven, ...

Looking at the examples I gave, at some time in the series other than the *very beginning* Terrri!!!, I think we can all see that Hermione made lots of progress into maturing into a much less egotistical girl.

[malic-ba.livejournal.com]

This is true. In this scene, at 11, she doesn't notice at all how others react to her behaviour, and doesn't consider how they feel.

I don't think that necessarily means that she likes bossing people around, just that she thinks about the problem, or whatever issue's on her mind, without thinking about the actual people at all. I'm sure it doesn't cross her mind that she's insulted Ron.

But, to be fair, later that year she finds out that acting that way makes other kids dislike her, and she moderates her behaviour. She'll never be empathic, but she does try to be more thoughtful. (Not with Ron, though.)

Sadly, Dumbledore is the worst possible role model.