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: 2013-04-07 08:32 am (UTC)Including Neville, four boys in three years. More than one a year. That seems frequent to me.
But I guess this is a subjective term. If you decide it's not 'frequent', for you, then fine. This is one of those terms/topics where we won't be able to go to a dictionary and find an objective yardstick.
'Frequency' wasn't my strongest argument anyway. The 'serial and a shocking lack of down time' that you accept were more important. Ginny clearly felt a pressing need to have a boyfriend. She hopped very quickly into another boy's arms once she jettisoned his predecessor.
A lot of boys may like her, but all that means is that they've noticed her -
True. Pansy's quote is more debilitating when it's used to highlight Rowling's desperate and contrived bootstrapping of Ginny into the stratosphere of Hogwarts student society and onto Harry's radar.
Going to a restaurant with your boyfriend and being obviously affectionate is, again, not exactly noteworthy. Why would she "keep her dalliances private"?
Just going to show that Ginny was The Girl Who Dates, and that everyone could see it. The 'Girl Who Dates' tag wouldn't be as much fun to use if only we readers knew of her drive to have boyfriends. :-)
no subject
Date: 2013-04-07 12:21 pm (UTC)Personally, I wouldn't include Neville- they weren't dating, really, they just attended the Yule Ball together. She wasn't romantically interested in him, nor was he interested in her, given she was his second choice! They were just going together as friends and y'know, GoF!Ginny was a time when I actually liked her - because she agreed to accompany a friend as his date and then even when her crush was an option, the boy she's been head-over-heels for over the past couple books, she declined to embarrass Neville. That was pretty admirable to me (I admit, in that situation, I would've been less noble and gone to the person in question and begged them to release me from my agreement so I could go with my love interest!)
It's a shame that girl didn't show up in the later books.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-07 07:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-09 11:49 am (UTC)I speak as a hardened warrior of the HP shipping debates of old, where Ginny's four boyfriends would be routinely trotted out against Hermione's three. That way the pro-Ginny or anti-Ginny crowd got the closest they could with parity between the two girls.
Otherwise is was Ginny's three versus Hermione's one, which had Ginny look worse.
So, to be fair, I tend to start from the Yule ball. Which was, as you say, a *date*.
And Ginny's hopping straight over to Michael, at the very ball apparently - others have said that here, I'd forgotten that canon fact - is a beautiful example of the actions of The Girl Who Dates. So I'm glad I included the Ball. :-)
It's a shame that girl didn't show up in the later books.
Agreed!
no subject
Date: 2013-04-09 01:37 pm (UTC)----Otherwise is was Ginny's three versus Hermione's one, which had Ginny look worse.
I'm guessing that you're counting Viktor, Cormac, and Ron as Hermione's three?
I would count Viktor as one of Hermione's boyfriends. Hermione was selected as the person whom Viktor would miss most for the second task of the Triwizard Tournament; Viktor invited Hermione to visit him during her summer break, and the two were still exchanging letters during Hermione's fifth year. This suggests Hermione's relationship with Viktor lasted beyond their date to the Yule ball.
I believe that Cormac, on the other hand, was just Hermione's date to Slughorn's party, much like Neville was simply Ginny's date to the Yule ball.
So I would say that Hermione had two boyfriends and Ginny had three.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-07 07:10 pm (UTC)The difference is that Harry isn't paying attention to those other couples. Harry only pays attention when Ginny is involved in something date-related - or, eventually, Quidditch. This doesn't say anything good about Harry.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-07 07:30 pm (UTC)She's seen 'cozily closeted' with Dean at the very public Madam Puddifoot's.
Appears to be traced back to the following and nothing more, because this is the only time Madam Puddifoot's is mentioned in the entire book, outside of a location Ron tried to Apparate to:
Harry's thoughts strayed to Ginny as they trudged up the road to Hogwarts through the frozen slush. They had not met up with her, undoubtedly, thought Harry, because she and Dean were cozily closeted in Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop, that haunt of happy couples. Scowling, he bowed his head against the swirling sleet and trudged on.
So, you know, in addition to it being a totally reasonable and unremarkable thing for anyone to be doing, all we have is Harry grumpily thinking that the girl he wants to go out with is probably "cozily closeted" with another boy.
So if anyone wants to make anything of the *wording*, or something, keep in mind that that wording reflects on Harry and no one else.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-07 08:21 pm (UTC)If they'd had a private tea party, no doubt he would have been grousing about how that means they were doing something "inappropriate" and should have stayed in a public place where everyone could see they were staying within the bounds of gentlemanly respectability. Can't win.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-09 12:51 pm (UTC)The difference is that Harry isn't paying attention to those other couples. Harry only pays attention when Ginny is involved in something date-related - or, eventually, Quidditch. This doesn't say anything good about Harry.
And it doesn't say anything good about Ginny, either, in that Harry never tells us anything more about her other than that she dated and played quidditch.
The "Harry and his point of view didn't notice Ginny" excuse might work for the pre-monster days (and is supposed to be clever writing of Rowling's to 'hide' the eventual H/G pairing, although she left it too late and then was too desperate to bring it off all in one book for it to look anything but contrived).
But as soon as Harry's monster made an entrance the boy was locked into Ginny's image. He was paying attention to her from that point on.
And all we're told is that she played quidditch and dated.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-09 01:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-10 01:46 am (UTC)I guess Hermione appearing openly at the Yule Ball was a terrible, terrible thing, then. (Should have kept it top secret!) And writing letters to him in the common room, and telling people to whom she was writing - how brazen! How fortunate that we were spared the shame of watching her and Ron date openly between the end of the Battle of Hogwarts and their marriage.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-20 10:27 am (UTC)No.
no subject
Date: 2013-04-27 07:20 pm (UTC)