HBP Chapter Fourteen: "Felix Felicis"

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

* 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.

Comments

[oryx_leucoryx]

Lily had 'sheer brains'? How would we know? Lily is an empty set of dress-robes. Most of what people think of her is what they fill in from expectations.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Yes, 'sheer brains'. I quote Slughorn from HBP:

"... 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?

[oryx_leucoryx]

Okay. Harry has just shown Snape-level brains and Slughorn has equated that with inheriting *Lily's* abilities.

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)?

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

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)?

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! :-)

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

Remus Lupin, PoA, movie.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

*gak*

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. :-))

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

No dredging required, so it was only boring for a very brief moment. :-P

[oryx_leucoryx]

That Remus quote is not from POA, it's from the movie. IOW it wasn't even composed by Rowling. I don'y trust wikis. The Lexicon is slightly better, because they at least

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.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

That Remus quote is not from POA, it's from the movie.

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.