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

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you're offended, but I don't agree with you. Speaking as someone who was virtually ignored by her father mother's sperm donor her entire life, and whose life has been nearly destroyed by her family's misogyny, I think I've paid in blood for the right to insult "men" who abandon their families and/or people who treat their female family members as worth less than their male family members.

And for the record, I don't have different standards of conduct for men and women. I regard the "manly" virtues of courage, loyalty, and taking care of and protecting your family, especially your children, as virtues that parents of both sexes should live by. Women who act like Remus are every bit as contemptible as men are. Biologically, it's just not possible to make that kind of deservedly vicious joke about women. Believe me, I'd be happy to do it if it were.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

There's a difference, though, between insulting and criticizing individual men for their actions, and insulting them using gendered stereotypes that play into the same set of restrictive gender roles that hurt women. Which I think is what sunny was getting at - i.e. the insinuation that Remus wasn't a 'manly man' is different than calling Remus morally weak.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Yes, I understand that. But the point I'm making is that, while I realize that I used what is technically a gendered stereotype as an insult, that's not how I was using it. If it were biologically possible to say of a woman who acted like that, "She doesn't have the equipment to bear children," I'd be happy to do so. Since I'm an equal opportunity insulter, I don't consider it "Gryffindorish macho-culture bullshit" to use that insult.

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

1) What does 'biologically possible' have to do with it? Nobody's arguing that Remus literally doesn't have the physical, um, equipment. (genuinely confused here, not trying to be attacking) Unless you're getting at how having balls equates culturally to strength in a way that having a womb/vagina doesn't? (Though realistically it ought to be the other way around - balls are rather easily hurt, whereas anything that has to birth a baby has to be quite tough! XD But I digress.)

2) I still have to disagree I'm afraid. I don't see how it can be logically or otherwise argued that using certain gendered stereotypes (those applicable to women) to insult is not ok regardless of individual intent because they support an oppressive framework, but using other gendered stereotypes rooted in the same framework to insult is ok as long as the individual doesn't mean it 'that way.' It's true that the direct impact on men may not be the same as the direct impact on women, because women are the oppressed class. But both sets of insults prop up exactly the same set of oppressive stereotypes, which harm both men and women. It's insulting to the man because it's ultimately, in the existing framework, asserting he's not a man - i.e., he's weak and dickless like a woman. The whole notion of masculinity in our sort of patriarchal culture is centered around proving oneself not a woman via displays of overt strength and aggression. I'm not exactly comfortable supporting that for obvious reasons. I'm also not convinced that, just because the object of derision is a man, suddenly individual intent can erase how the inherent nature of the insult as insult plays into an overall sexist framework - its power to insult is inherently rooted in sexist notions.

(For a parallel example not using gender, consider the word 'crazy' used as an insult. I, as someone who deals with diagnosed anxiety and depression issues, regularly refer to myself as 'crazy' with both positive and negative connotations. I've also in the past had a habit of using it generally in the culturally accepted manner as an insult towards others, especially those I disagree with politically. Having read and thought a bit about the stigma against mental illness, I make an effort to no longer use it that way, and I even question my use of it towards myself, though it could be argued that there I'm reclaiming it. Because whether or not I ever consciously intended to argue that the person I was insulting was literally mentally ill, or consciously intended to stigmatize all people with any sort of mental illness as bad or Other, the very fact that I found the word insulting implied to any listener that I thought being mentally ill made one inferior, or at the absolute least that I assumed the insultee would find it so and I was happy to support that belief in them if it enabled me to insult them. Otherwise it wouldn't be an insult, merely a factually dis/provable assertion about the other person with questionable relevance to the conversation. And I couldn't very well expect random Jane/Joe listener to read my mind and realize I didn't mean it 'like that,' I just meant...well I meant.... See what I mean? It's not about individual intent - the insults only work as part of a structure of assumptions independent of any one person's intent.)

(more in a sec)

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

3) I'm also not wild about the potential equivalent for women either, frankly - I'd say I'm deeply suspicious of any gendered insult used within a broadly sexist culture like the West's. Though childbearing doesn't have the same associations of strength for women the way the given example does for men, it's still an aspect of (what is considered to be, cis) womanhood that's always been used to objectify and control those read as female. By which I mean, not that having is inherently part of What It Means to Be a Woman, but that it's traditionally been viewed that way, and therefore women who couldn't for whatever reason have children have historically been marginalized for that 'failing.' So I'm uncomfortable with any insult that mimics that thinking structurally, regardless of the individual intent behind it. If something culturally associated with a specific gender is essential to the insult as insult, there's going to be sexist ickiness at the root of it somewhere, in my experience. (I simply go with truly equal-opportunity insults like asshat. Everyone's got an ass and everyone's is equally dirty.)

I hope I'm not coming off as attacking, here. I agree with you on many, many things and I love your take on the books overall. I just am uneasy letting anything that reads to me as rooted in sexist notions go unchallenged, because it's something I'm actively working on in myself.

[sunnyskywalker]

I still have to disagree I'm afraid. I don't see how it can be logically or otherwise argued that using certain gendered stereotypes (those applicable to women) to insult is not ok regardless of individual intent because they support an oppressive framework, but using other gendered stereotypes rooted in the same framework to insult is ok as long as the individual doesn't mean it 'that way.'

That's what I was trying to say, yes. Actually I could probably stop with "what she said." Including the reasons for me trying to stop using "crazy" to mean "bad person" or "just wild, man."

I am all in favor of calling out people for specific morally weak behavior, but tying it to their reputation of whether they meet "proper" gendered expectations? First, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the point you're trying to make, really (unless you are arguing that moral weakness affects sperm count or erections, which is not the impression I got). And second, again, it reinforces a lot of the same toxic crap that so many boys are so carefully taught that encourages them to grow up and be jackasses, and who does that help?

I will make a distinction between a handful of friends talking in a closed group and someone speaking in a public forum, though. A few friends might well know each other well enough to know when one "doesn't mean it that way," and it doesn't necessarily impact anyone else, because no one else hears. It's different in a public forum - which I count this as - when you have no idea who will just magically know which "way" you intended it.

Also, I'm not deeply, personally offended (though someone else in my place might be - I have no idea how others might react). I just personally don't like it, try not to do it myself (not always successfully), and don't think it's a good idea in general. Plus I tend to prefer insulting people for exactly what they have actually done rather than what tangential baggage societal expectations might try to drag into it.