HBP Chapter Fourteen: "Felix Felicis"
Apr. 6th, 2013 01:56 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslock* First up, I’m not sure what the name “felix felicis” is about. It’s Latin for “happy of happy”, but that makes no sense whatsoever. If I were in a particularly cynical mood, I might suggest she looked up happy in a Latin dictionary, found felix felicis, and didn’t realise that the second word was just the genitive singular of the first.
* Ron correctly points out that Harry’s lessons with Dumbledore aren’t actually teaching him anything useful, although once again we’re probably expected to judge him for his lack of blind faith in whatever his superiors say ought to be done.
* Hermione’s defence, that the lessons help to find out Voldemort’s weaknesses, might be more convincing if Harry ever actually uses something from Voldemort’s childhood against him.
* I’m not sure why Harry’s so averse to attending Slug Club meetings. Yeah, Slughorn’s a bit obsequious, but not so bad as to justify Potter’s constant attempts to avoid him.
* This scene perfectly captures Ron and Hermione’s dynamic: Ron sneers at Hermione for being better than him, and Hermione puts Ron down and makes him feel jealous. If this is JKR’s idea of romance, I’d hate to be her husband.
* Still, at least Harry’s got his priorities right: how will he be affected if they start going out?
* “Under the influence of Butterbeer” makes it sound like an alcoholic drink, but I’m pretty sure we’ve seen no-one (or at least no-one human) get drunk off it before, and there’s never been any indication of an age limit for drinking it. Oh dear, continuity.
* Seamus slams his books and looks sour when Dean gets a place on the team instead of him. For all that fandom has Slytherins down as the Hogwarts drama queens, I think that Gryffindors are definitely the most stroppy.
* I can’t imagine where the rest of Gryffindor house gets the idea that Harry plays favourites from. Except perhaps from the fact that he chose his best friend Ron two years in a row, despite the fact that Ron always goes to pieces whenever there’s a game on. Perhaps that has something to do with it.
* Still, it’s a pity JKR had to resurrect nervouskeeper!Ron. Not only was it tedious enough in the last book, its inclusion here just makes the Quidditch scenes in Phoenix seem even more pointless, and Ron even more needlessly pathetic.
* Ginny, of course, looks even better than usual in this scene: not only does she score most of the goals against Ron (which is probably meant to increase his emasculation – even his little sister is better than him), but she also makes Harry laugh with her sassy put-downs. When she and Harry get married they can both bond over their mutual enjoyment of other people’s discomfort.
* And… here comes the chest monster! Honestly, Harry and his chest monster must be the second-worst romance I’ve ever read (the first, of course, is Ron and Hermione).
* We know Ginny’s going to be awesome in this scene when she begins by “tossing her long red hair and glaring at Ron”. Somebody kill me now.
* What’s with all this “let’s get this straight once and for all” business? Ginny’s choice of words seems to imply that Ron keeps prying into her love life, but we’ve never been given any indication that this is the case.
* I presume the thing Ron doesn’t want people calling Ginny is “slut”? I wish they would. Not because I think it’s true, but because Ginny’s just so irritating that anything which would annoy her is OK by me.
* Ginny has a go at Ron for not having enough experience. Because obviously, modern society isn’t nearly sexualised enough, we need a series of popular books telling children that anybody who hasn’t had enough sexual experience is pathetic.
* Man, Ginny’s just a total bitch in this scene. Yes, Ron was rude to her, but her response is really disproportionate and uncalled-for.
* It’s odd, but Ginny seems to get most worked up about the way Ron tries to get Fleur’s attention. She sounds rather like a spurned lover here. Hmm, maybe all that Weasleycest fic isn’t quite so out there as I’d assumed.
* No, Harry, don’t stop Ron from cursing her! Let Ginny get zapped for once!
* So Ginny flounces off, leaving Ron behind. I suppose he should count himself lucky she didn’t whip out her wand and perform a super-sassy Bat-Bogey Hex on him.
* “She’s Ron’s sister, Harry told himself firmly. Ron’s sister. She’s out of bounds.” Even though Ron practically threw her at him at the end of the last book. Plot-induced amnesia strikes again.
* Harry feels “dazed and confused” the next morning. So do I, after trying to make sense of this book.
* Hermione’s feeling “hurt and bewildered” by Ron’s “icy, sneering indifference”. If this was a semi-believable book, I’d say that Ron had finally had enough of Hermione’s constant passive aggressiveness and undermining, but as it is I think we’re supposed to assume he’s just upset at finding out Hermione had snogged Krum two years ago.
* Incidentally, why is this supposed to be such a big and shocking revelation? Surely when two teenagers go out, the natural assumption is that they’ll end up snogging?
* Luckily for Ron, he’s got no need to worry: Hermione’s just getting her necessary practice in to hone her technique for her true man.
* FOR GOD’S SAKE ROWLING SHUT UP ABOUT THAT SODDING BAT-BOGEY HEX GINNY IS COOL AND SASSY WE GET IT ALREADY STOP RAMMING IT DOWN OUR THROATS AAARGH… *takes deep breaths*
* Lavender’s trying to make Ron feel better. Keep away from him, you hussy! Ron doesn’t need a nice, friendly girlfriend, he needs a scornful and contemptuous one to keep him down in his rightful place.
* Well, at least the Slytherins are sensible enough to have substitute players.
* Harry gets his hand crushed by the Slytherin captain, and I seem to recall Flint used to do the same thing to Oliver Wood. Is hand-crushing a typical Slytherin trait then? Maybe all their parents told them about the importance of a good firm handshake, and they just take it a bit too far.
* Harry dislikes Zacharias heartily… presumably because he can just sense the latent evil in the boy, even though he hasn’t done anything yet which would merit such dislike. If anything, surely Harry ought to feel friendly towards a fellow DA member?
* Ginny scores four of Gryffindor’s six goals. Colour me shocked.
* The game goes pretty much unremarkably: Gryffindor score a few goals, and then Harry’s broom wins the game, rendering everything which came before totally pointless.
* “Oi, Harper! How much did Malfoy pay you to make you come on instead of him?” I’d say that distracting an opposing seeker like this was a very Slytherin thing to do, were it not for the fact that we hardly ever see Slytherins actually doing cunning and sneaky things like this.
* Not that playing on superior brooms and deliberately psyching out opponents makes the Gryffindors any less chivalrous, you understand.
* Ginny flies into Zach for his insufficiently fawning commentary, placing the crowning turd on the mountain of raw sewage that is this Quidditch game.
* “I never said you couldn’t [save goals]!” No, Hermione, you just implied it really, really strongly, such that nobody could miss that that was what you were thinking.
* Ron “looks like he’s eating [Lavender’s face],” unlike Ginny, who daintily glues herself to her boyfriend’s mouth.
* Unfortunately Ginny’s probably right: most first romances in these books seem to be for people to “refine their technique” before moving on to their true love.
* Hermione seems rather surprised that Ron got tired of her hectoring and decided to hook up with somebody who actually respects him instead. Maybe she’s been getting all her dating advice from The Game or whatever the wizarding equivalent is.
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no subject
Date: 2013-04-06 11:52 pm (UTC)Loud cheers for this observation. There was never any 'enjoyment', and the insults and slights were too close to home.
Because the HP series somehow turned into a sitcom without us noticing.
I've long and often stated that the R/Hr 'romance' was a product straight from the lazy TV sitom writer's rule book. Let's see, I've got to show that these two people are attracted to each other. How can I do that. Oh, okay, I'll have them fight each other. Wow, that was easy, is it time for lunch yet?
Properly done this trope has a core of attraction, of compatibility, running *underneath* the fights. We viewers are supposed to see this, to yearn for the silly billies to stop fighting so the attraction can then come into play and push the two together.
But with R/Hr there's no such undercurrent of compatibility. So when they stop fighting ... there's nothing there to support a R/Hr union.
The HP series turned into a *bad* sitcom. :-( :-)
But that word…no. I’m sorry, but I can’t agree with you on this.
It's surprising how pervasive the Ginny-is-a-slut thing is in the fandom. I've had pro-Ginny fans put those words in my mouth without even realising that I've never made such a statement. There's no sleeping around silliness in HP's child-friendly books.
But Ginny *is* somewhat close to the G-rated equivalent. She is The Girl Who Dates in the HP series, as I've commented elsewhere here. That's just because she's written as a one-dimensional love interest for the hero, and thus that single dimension is focused with her dating activity. You've got to admit that canon!Ginny is preoccupied with dating, and that's all she's seen to do. Oh, asides from Quidditch.
And this looks even more contrived by the fact that after this book, Ginny does *nothing.*
Rowling spent *three* books fleshing out Harry's 'romance' with Cho but lost track of the time. She didn't want her hero dallying around with girls in the final novel - that had to be focused on the main story arc, vanquishing Voldemort - so suddenly she found that she only had the one tome, the penultimate book, to boost Ginny from a nobody to HERO'S LOVE INTEREST AND WORTHY OF IT status.
Hence the horrible artificial tenor of Ginny's pervasive presence in HBP, her contrived treatment, her 'Mary Sue' appearance and the like. Boosting her to Harry's side only to have her dropped in the final book.
I think Rowling really felt this after it was all over; several times she, of her own accord, without prompting, tried to tell everyone what Ginny *really* was like, attempting to attach attributes to the girl that she simply hadn't written.
Why are we supposed to dislike Lavender?
I guess I did in the book - mildly - but I felt quite sorry for the girl in the movie. She comes across much more strongly as the girl-who-is-used by Ron, who is dropped with no apology when Hermione, the one we all know is going to end up with Won Won (poor lass), wins the day.
(Mind you, the scriptwriters improved Rowling's canon a lot with Ron's portrayal in that movie, he was made to be oblivious of Hermione's having the hots for him, as I recall.)
no subject
Date: 2013-04-07 12:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-07 12:47 am (UTC)Rowling wasn't capable of doing anything so 'deep'. Nice idea though.
Maybe Rowling was capable of doing that sort of thing in the early days - do the first few books show this? - but the last 2-3 novels are orders of magnitude too simplistic and superficial for 'metaphorical foreshadowing'. :-(
No, the 'deepest' that Rowling got along Ginny's awesome Quidditch awesomeness was to use the Ginny/Seeker imagery to further push her one-dimensional role as the hero's potential love interest. I recall one H/G fan telling me that Ginny's snatching the Snitch from Cho's grasp at the end of OotP was signalling that she'd likewise snare Harry. Which turned out to be true. Rowling probably did intend that; there were 'notes' released in a post-HBP inteview which showed a couple of pages of 'planning' for book 5, I think an entire column was devoted to the Ginny/Cho thing.
Now Neville says she was part of the DA leadership until Easter, but we know nothing of what she did, except her involvement in the attempt to steal the sword.
The *failed* attempt to steal the sword. And that's it for the DA's accomplishments while Ginny shared command. (Oh, I think they put some graffiti up on the walls. Zzzz.)
It's telling that Ginny does absolutely *nothing* in a command capacity once she returns to Hogwarts for the final battle. Neville's the clear commander. (With the scars to prove it. Ginny, of course, is unscarred.)
no subject
Date: 2013-04-07 01:48 am (UTC)But, instead JKR left Harry blaming the DoM fight on Snape rather than growing up and realizing the part he played in allowing it to happen. There could have been a real connection between Harry and Ginny discussing how they were lured into what happened to each of them and what they each learned from their experiences and how to avoid making similar mistakes. Instead, we are left with JKR letting them both out of their responsibilities in the events and nothing is learned by either of them, leaving them both as rather shallow.
And now I find that I am mistaken - there's a second thing I find incredibly frustrating about HBP Ginny (and DH Ginny, too, I suppose). For me, I think JKR intended us to see her as Lily take 2. Quite a catch. Very popular with boys and 'spunky'. Which just leaves me even more disheartened about Lily.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-07 02:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-07 03:40 am (UTC)But she flubbed all of the opportunities, preferring to write a Ginny who is suddenly AWESOME overnight; so suddenly it's unbelievable.
For me, I think JKR intended us to see her as Lily take 2.
I don't think there's much in the canon to support that; and nothing in Rowling's interviews that I can recall either. And certainly Rowling has preached a lot of pro-Ginny propaganda after DH (she must have realised she hadn't written the character she'd wanted to write).
They both had red hair and that's about it, isn't it? Ginny certainly isn't the brains that Lily was; that's Hermione. Ginny isn't the muggleborn witch that Lily was; that's Hermione. Hmmm .... :-)
no subject
Date: 2013-04-07 01:19 pm (UTC)But it isn't just the red hair in Ginny. It's the popularity (especially with boys) and the 'spunkiness' - the 'cheek' - that Ginny has in common with Lily. Hermione has neither of these 'qualities'. JKR didn't want to show us much of the Lily (until the Prince's Tale), so I think she laid her clues (when she was still doing that sort of thing) in Ginny and Hermione.
Personally, before the last books, I was convinced that Hermione was our clue to Lily - especially with her friendship with Victor, whom I saw as a stand-in for youngSnape. But once Horace Slughorn stepped into the picture, singing Lily's praises and admiring Ginny based purely on 'talent' - she may not be muggleborn, but her family is obviously not enough reason to want to collect her - I think JKR combined Ginny & Hermione to show us more Lily.
The real difference I see is that Ginny is more hex-happy. Or perhaps we are supposed to think that Lily really was as well, just not in the one time we saw her (SWM). I suppose that is possible if we are supposed to see it as showing how she and James are perfect for each other (the flirting), or as how she had already pretty much dropped Sev before he ever called her that name.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-09 12:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-09 03:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-20 10:26 am (UTC)"... You shouldn't have favorites as a teacher, of course, but she was one of mine. Your mother," Slughorn added, in answer to Harrys questioning look. "Lily Evans. One of the brightest I ever taught."
And this:
"Your mother was Muggle-born, of course. Couldn't believe it when I found out. Thought she must have been pure-blood, she was so good."
Slughorn taught Snape too, right? :-)
And when Harry cheats/copies off the Prince's textbook:
"Excellent, excellent, Harry! Good lord, it's clear you've inherited your mother's talent. She was a dab hand at Potions, Lily was!"
Okay. Harry has just shown Snape-level brains and Slughorn has equated that with inheriting *Lily's* abilities.
Oh, and later on:
"Just like his mother, she had the same intuitive grasp of potion-making, it's undoubtedly from Lily he gets it ..."
I'm not sure, I think there might be more evidence. Or maybe I'm getting mixed up with fanon's Lily actually doing something *active* to protect her baby boy rather than crossing her fingers and throwing herself in the path of a Killing Curse.
Your HP memory is an order of magnitude better than mine, Oryx, so maybe I'm missing something. But these examples seem to show that Lily is a whiz at Potions. Aren't we told somewhere that she's also excellent at ... Transfiguration? In the first book?
no subject
Date: 2013-04-20 03:45 pm (UTC)Exactly. Which makes Horace completely unreliable regarding Lily. Horace can't tell that Harry is using the very improvements Severus wrote into his own book, how do we know Lily wasn't using Severus' inventions too (with or without permission)?
no subject
Date: 2013-04-20 10:52 pm (UTC)Heh. Nice logic.
But I think you're stretching things too far.
First of all, how could Lily Evans duplicate Snape's genius, read off his notes, when the boy is writing those notes at the very same instant? Class, today we are making love potions. Snape makes his potion, scrawls out his notes in the margins *at that same time*. Meanwhile Lily Evans is ... waiting for him to finish writing? But she'll never get her potion brewed if she does that!
Sorry. Harry cribbing off Snape's notes is one thing. Lily cribbing off notes that were either (a) not written yet, or (b) being written in real time just doesn't work.
Also, one would reason that Slughorn would, over SEVEN YEARS, be more reliable in his character/intelligence assessments.
But you've caused me to go, once again, to the Harry Potter wikipedia. Here's another quote:
"Your mother was there for me at a time when no one else was. Not only was she a singularly gifted witch, she was also an uncommonly kind woman."
Remus Lupin, PoA.
She was also Head Girl, which supports her being intelligent beyond the norm.
I guess I could also throw in Snape's friendship and unrequited (pseudo) 'love' for Lily. Would Snape have such feelings for a girl who was his mental inferior? Not proof, just a pointer.
So, all of these facts support Lily having lots of brains. Just like another amazingly smart muggle-born witch that we all know and love! :-)
no subject
Date: 2013-04-20 11:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-20 11:05 pm (UTC)Really? Damn.
Well, that's not canon evidence then!
Thanks!
(I appreciate your dredging up such a tidbit, even if it's so ... boring ... for you to do so. :-))
no subject
Date: 2013-04-20 11:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-21 12:06 am (UTC)As for Severus' notes - at least some of the notes may have been written in the book in 5th year - at the very least Levicorpus and Sectumsempra. So we don't know when and how the potions corrections were entered into the book, whether when they were making the potions in class or well before that. Severus likes his students to come prepared to class. Presumably he was prepared himself. He could read the book ahead of time and decide, based on experience or other reading, that a certain combination of ingredients was suboptimal and could be improved by other ingredients. Nor do we know if Lily even took Potions in 6th year.
So it is possible that in years 1-5 Severus came up with several experimental alternatives for potions, suggested to Lily to try out some of them, while trying out others himself. And you know he would give Lily the better version, at first because he admired her so much and later because he feared she would leave him for James if he stopped. Then in 6th year he was working alone in Potions, writing just one experimental version in his book. And Lily didn't take the subject because she knew she couldn't manage NEWT level on her own, and anyway, she didn't want to spend any time with a future DE if she didn't have to, and none of her friends was taking that class. Thus Horace never got to see Lily's true ability in Potions.
What I trust Horace on is his impression of his one-on-one interactions with Lily - that she was somewhat witty and cheeky.
Yes, Severus would have strong feelings for his mental inferior, why not? He was very emotionally dependent on her, stemming from their shared background and her being the first child that was willing to listen to him and not make fun of him, and the first magical child he knew. Her intellect had nothing to do with it.
As for being Head Girl, all this means is that the Headmaster chose her from among the candidates, probably the 4 female prefects of her year, and the choice was made based on politics more than talent (this is the Headmaster who only considered Harry and Ron as male Gryffindor prefect). Whether because he wanted to make an example of a Muggle-born (especially one that dumped a Slytherin friend) as Head Girl or because he wanted James' support and was using Lily as bait/reward or because he wanted to reward.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-21 02:06 am (UTC)Yeah, Lynn pointed that out too. So, not canon, I'll have to retract that one.
I don'y trust wikis.
I think I can see why! :-)
I don't have the page up any more so I'm not sure if I goofed in skipping past a 'movie' attribution. I just remember the 'PoA' designation.
As always I'm amazed by your marshalling of HP facts. How do you know that Lily didn't take NEWT potions?
Lily was a prefect as well, so that adds a little to the 'she was clever' argument.
I also found - referenced by wikipedia :-) - some Hagrid quotes about Lily's (and James's) brilliance:
"A wizard, o' course," said Hagrid, sitting back down on the sofa, which groaned and sank even lower, "an' a thumpin' good'un, I'd say, once yeh've been trained up a bit. With a mum an' dad like yours, what else would yeh be?
and
"Now, yer mum an' dad were as good a witch an' wizard as I ever knew. Head boy an' girl at Hogwarts in their day! Suppose the myst'ry is why You-Know-Who never tried to get 'em on his side before...
Wow. Just realised ... the Wiki pointed to Rowling interview-canon that Lily was so brilliant Voldemort tried to recruit her - of course I didn't bother mentioning that here - and now I see this canon statement of Hagrid's.
Maybe Rowling really *did* have a cohesive plan of her world, or trite bits of it. For the first 3-4 books of it anyway. A pity she wasn't up to the challenge of actually making sense of it all in the closing stages. The actual hard work in writing.
I still think you're stretching too far in denying Lily evidence of 'sheer brains' (is that how we got here?). But I sincerely appreciate the cleverness of your stretching, your trying to discount Slughorn as a credible witness. A pity he's the main witness for my defence. :-)
At this point I see both our positions as roughly equally valid, although Occam's Razor is on my side I feel.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-07 12:43 pm (UTC)the scriptwriters improved Rowling's canon a lot with Ron's portrayal in that movie, he was made to be oblivious of Hermione's having the hots for him, as I recall
Lavender comes across as so much more endearing in the movie, without being tainted by Harry's pov. She's cheerful, supportive, proud to be with Ron and a total sweetheart. Compared to Hermione, well... (I will never get the R/Hr shippers, shouldn't there be some level of respect and caring between your ship? How hard would it have been for JKR to have Ron showing some appreciation for Hermione's bookishness instead of putting her interests down and using her to cheat off when doing last minute essays? Would it have been such a chore to have Hermione value Ron instead of feeding his insecurity at every step?)
I think the movie did improve canon a whole ton in the sense that the movie has Lavender realize from the hospital scened that Ron has feelings for Hermione and then distance herself from him, so that Ron is actually confused by what's gone wrong (when she's glaring daggers over the breakfast table and he asks what her deal is, genuinely baffled). The book version of Lavender is more ill-used by Ron as he continues to date her after that hospital scene, when he pretends to be asleep whenever she comes to visit and is constantly exhibiting jealous behavior over Hermione (the part where he's kissing Lavender but obviously paying attention to what Hermione's saying is just despicable).
no subject
Date: 2013-04-07 03:54 pm (UTC)In fact, JKR could have even used their different backgrounds as one of the reasons for their attraction. Hermione is a Muggle-born, so she’s curious about how the wizarding world works, and Ron is a pureblood and his father is fascinated with Muggle gadgets, so he could be curious about how the Muggle world works. And if Hermione gets to the point where she stops associating herself with the Muggle world because of prejudice from anti-Muggle bigots, Ron could be there to remind her that she shouldn’t give her Muggle heritage up just to fit in (“after all, look at all of the cool things that you’ve got!”). And since Ron is supposed to be a chess whiz (although his talent is never mentioned again after PS/SS), why not bring that up more as a common interest that he and the brainy Hermione share?
But no. Ron shows no interest in Hermione’s world and Hermione constantly lectures him about his. And instead of valuing each other, they put each other down to make themselves feel better.
/The book version of Lavender is more ill-used by Ron as he continues to date her after that hospital scene, when he pretends to be asleep whenever she comes to visit and is constantly exhibiting jealous behavior over Hermione (the part where he's kissing Lavender but obviously paying attention to what Hermione's saying is just despicable)./
That’s why I hate when this behavior happens in stories, because it’s so deceitful and disrespectful of the other person’s feelings. I don’t care if it’s “realistic” or not, it’s just insulting and demeaning to everyone involved.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-07 06:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-09 11:52 am (UTC)I think the movie did improve canon a whole ton in the sense that the movie has Lavender realize from the hospital scened that Ron has feelings for Hermione and then distance herself from him, so that Ron is actually confused by what's gone wrong (when she's glaring daggers over the breakfast table and he asks what her deal is, genuinely baffled).
Thank you for reminding me of that detail!
Yes, the script writers *really* improved Ron in the sixth film; none of his deliberately playing Lavender for jealousy, none of his cowardice in trying to avoid her.
But I did feel sorry for Lavender, and thought the 'glaring daggers' scene - she bends a spoon, right? I remember laughing at that - was pretty good.