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

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Sorry for jumping in, but I've got to say that I do disagree with your last two sentences. What are laws, if not words? And, if words can't do anything, are we doing nothing here?

Either words have power, or they don't. If they don't, what is the point of spending time and energy discussing a set of kids' books - or any books? What (I ask myself, as a writer) is the point of writing books?

But, if they do, that power should be taken seriously.

My two cents!

[600ants.livejournal.com]

No problem. :)

What were laws in Nazi Germany? Just words that can't do anything. :) It's sad but in the end, words can only change things when you have the physical force to back them up. If religion and state weren't one, would anyone care about what some priest says? If there weren't the state's courts, prisons, hangmen and army to MAKE you care?

To alleviate the pain? :) I agree that words can have the power to make you sad or make you laugh (as much as you let them), but they can't kill or cure you. Though (almost) necessary for communication, I think they should not be taken TOO seriously. :)

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

But - we think with words! They shape the way we come at the world, and the way we treat others (creatures and people). They *do* have power. Yes, the Nazi laws would have meant nothing had people not been conditioned to obey the law, and had the people with the guns not been all too willing to enforce them. But think a bit. Where did those laws come from? And that conditioning?

Words do have power. They can do great harm. I think they are more powerful than anything else in the world - any human thing, anyway.

Because words shape our thoughts. A sentence to consider, from one of my favorite books: "What's thought cannot be unthought." Think about it!

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

The basic, undisputed point here is that words do cause pain, whatever other power they have (and they do have power beyond that, however much you deny that fact). You're arguing that we can just choose to ignore that pain, but it's not that simple.

Think of privilege as being like shoes, and a slur as being equivalent to stepping on someone's toes. The more privilege you have in society, the better your footwear. So someone with a lot of privilege is wearing steel-toed work boots, while someone with none is walking around barefoot. If my bare foot steps on your toes while you're wearing industrial work boots, it's an annoyance at worst. If your work boots step on my bare foot, I'm in for a world of pain. It is very, very easy for someone with steel-toed boots to dismiss being stepped on as 'no big deal' and that everyone should just 'get over it' and 'not let it bother them.' For people with less foot armor, this just isn't so.

Continuing the metaphor, society generally agrees that stepping on other people's toes is something decent people try to avoid since it causes others pain, even if only slightly. How is it any more unreasonable to expect people to avoid certain words that are also known to cause pain?

I leave you with this poem, which is all about the power those mere words really have, from someone in a position to know.

Incident
By Countee Cullen

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, “Nigger.”

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That’s all that I remember.

[600ants.livejournal.com]

For crying out loud, I'm not "denying" anything. I just don't have the experience, and I don't think I know anyone who has, either. I'd hate to make light of whatever it is you're alluding to, but I guess we've simply been through worse things than "words", which maybe you weren't. Example: When the parents of my friend from college kicked him out of their house, he was far more concerned about literally not having anywhere to sleep, than about them calling him a big dissappointment (and worse). Is he still upset about it? Yes, but that's because his closest relatives treated him as dirt, not because of their (or even some random person's) choice of words.

Please don't keep telling yourself that, it's neither true nor healthy. In fact it's like this: some people are drama queens, some are reasonble. But this has nothing to do with race, sex, money or whatever, because it's all in the head. Sorry for repeating myself, but if you think someone has the right to feel more offended because of eg. hir race, you're being racist.

No matter how much I disagree with racism, if the worst moment of MY life was an 8 year old calling me one ugly word, I'd certainly count myself very lucky. Clearly the lady lived to tell us all about that one ruined afternoon, too.
Would you copy and paste if the poem said eg."fatso"? My point is, next to every person has been called something disparaging as a child, but not everyone is making a living wangsting writing about it. (In case you were going to say I can't compare the two, there've been suicides of kids bullied over their looks). I'm not making light of the incident, but I'm also not giving it ridiculously more credit than it deserves.

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

I have a BA in Linguistics. My academic career is predicated on the study of words and language. I have at no point said that words cause the worst harm a person can endure. What I, and others, have said over and over again is that words can cause harm, period.

Have you heard of the priming effect? Stimuli we're exposed to influence our subconscious processing of the world around us, even in ways we think are completely unrelated. It works by activating different knowledge constructs we use as shortcuts to process the world around us at a rate fast enough for us to function. If you're exposed to stimulus of a wolf - the word, a picture, a video, a howl, a smell - as long as you identify it as a wolf you'll process not just the stimulus itself, but all the knowledge associated with it. They're pack animals, carnivores, highly intelligent, etc... These are the obvious ones. However, secondary associations are also invoked, such as the fact that wolves are related to dogs. The stimulus of 'dogs' in turn activates their associated knowledge network - home, companionship, loyalty, whatever it is that the individual connects to the idea of 'dogs.' The associations grow weaker the further they are down the cascade from the original stimulus, but they're still there.

Priming can also produce specific, predictable responses. For example, if I were to say the words 'moon,' 'ocean,' and 'waves,' and then asked you to name a laundry detergent, the vast majority of (American) people respond 'Tide' at a rate significantly above it's actual market share, so people aren't just replying with the detergent they actually use, which one would think would be the first to come to mind. Likewise, if you show someone a series of images that invoke fear - snakes, spiders, zombies, etc... - and then show them a picture of someone with an ambiguous expression that could be either fear or anger, the majority of respondents will interpret as fear. The converse is true if the experimental group were first primed with images related to anger, such as people yelling at each other or shows of physical violence. Physical behavior can also be primed. When primed with concepts associated with rudeness, study participants later behaved more rudely, and the reverse when primed with stimuli associated with politeness.

Exactly the same phenomena occurs when group stereotypes are invoked. American study participants primed with stimuli about African Americans (subliminally flashed black and white pictures of black man) behaved with greater hostility when informed that they would have to do an incredibly tedious task. Participants primed with the face of a Caucasian man showed significantly less hostility. There was absolutely no stimulus directly related to hostility in the priming material such as facial expression or body language. The difference between the two lay in stereotypes associated with each group. In particular, that African American men are violent and aggressive. Nor was there any correlation between conscious racism and the strength of the priming effect. Even the people most dedicated to full equality were influenced just as much by those negative stereotypes as anyone else.

This is why slurs and insults based on race, gender, etc... are so insidious. They reinforce our cultural stereotypes of those groups, particularly the negative ones, and as a direct result negatively impact the way we think of and interact with those groups. This process isn't conscious. No participant that I am aware of has ever stated that they definitely believed the priming had had any effect on the later tests which showed the result of the priming. They denied that the priming had any effect at all.

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

But wait! you say. I do know something about this priming stuff and the studies also show that the effect fades fairly quickly. True. But just being exposed to a member of the stereotyped group is enough to re-prime someone with those same stereotypes. Sapir-Whorf is another important factor to consider. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis essentially states that the language we use affects how process the world around us, creating 'grooves in our thoughts.' These grooves determine which knowledge constructs are most likely to be called to mind. Continually think of women you don't like as 'bitches' or 'sluts,' and the negative ideas associated with those terms become more easily primed when dealing with women in general. It can mean the difference between perceiving a woman being assertive or being aggressive and hostile. Our interpretation of how someone is treating us affects how we treat them in return.

As for the argument that words cause less harm, than, say, a physical beating... in some ways this true, but it ignores the fact that we should avoid causing harm in the first place. It reminds me of the Elizabethian law that a man could beat his wife with an object no thicker than his thumb. Is this better/less damaging than having the same beating occur with an iron skillet or a 2X4? Yes. But it ignores the fact the the wife shouldn't be beaten AT ALL.

Finally, the Countee Cullen poem. Where on earth did you get the idea that being called 'nigger' when he was 8 was the worst thing that ever happened to him? In the poem itself he says very specifically that he was referring the May-December he spent in Boston, and that that slur was painful enough to ruin an experience that he had initially been so excited for. Nor does racism exist in a vacuum. That second boy learned the word somewhere, and the fact is there are still quite a few people who use it and agree with the degrading stereotypes the word represents. This is a society in which, when a black man and a white man have identical qualifications for a job, the white man is twice as likely to be hired even in the present day. It all comes from the same pit, and language serves to dig it deeper.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I did not know the Saphir-Whorf hypothesis, but this is exactly what I have been trying to say. Anything that shapes our perception of the world is extremely powerful.

As to language harming people - obviously, it isn't comparable to crimes like battery or torture. But I think there was another study saying that sustained verbal abuse can be extremely damaging. Because the victim internalizes it. In the Potterverse, we can see this with both Neville and Snape. Snape, in particular, is abused all his life. Would anyone claim that he was either undamaged or undamaging in his reactions? I wouldn't!

[sunnyskywalker]

Okay. And I suppose that a person who has been treated horribly, and been called a gender- or race-specific slur in the process, never again associates those words with the experience? They never bring so much as a momentary flashback to that moment when they felt so terrible? They never, ever hear a stranger use those words and wonder, "Wait, does this person mean them the way that other person, who was so terrible, meant them? Can I trust this person?" No one ever has an instinctive reaction that "this person sounds like that person who hurt me" and feels a bit on edge? Because there is never even the slightest correlation between a person using specific slurs and their action?

You think the person in that poem just thought that words was aesthetically displeasing or an isolated act of meanness, and wasn't reacting to the larger implications it? The implications that the other kid had learned from adults that it was a good and acceptable thing to disparage people because of their race, in the rudest manner possible, and the word was a signal of that whole social situation? Or perhaps that it triggered memories of having been called that before, while being treated terribly? Both?

That's what we're trying to explain. People who have had those kinds of slurs used on them, the kinds with long histories of use by oppressors behind them, aren't just sitting around intellectually going, "Oh, I do say! That's not on the list of approved terms these days! I shall become upset to break up this dull afternoon!" No. It's flashbacks to prior bad experiences, and not knowing whether this stranger in front of you also holds those same beliefs that make them more likely to hurt you. And hearing it frequently, just popping up when you're going about your day, means you get these little flashbacks and uncertainty all the time - constant, mild, tension. And being mild doesn't make up for being constant. It's wearing.

But your comment that "everyone has been called something disparaging as a child" and your comment elsewhere that you had no idea anyone anywhere took bastardy seriously because they don't where you live suggest that you don't think people are still being treated radically unequally anywhere. That there is still widespread harm. No, those words don't hurt you - you have no visceral, flashback reaction to them - so anyone they do hurt must be just a drama queen, not reacting to actual things they have experienced. Or even seen someone else experience.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Um - okay. I see language as far, far, more powerful than you do, because it shapes the way we see the world. We think in words. The lovely Countee Cullen poem is an example of this. Here's another. It's Helen Keller, describing her first experiences of language and how it changed her thinking:

One day, while I was playing with my new doll, Miss Sullivan put my big rag doll into my lap also, spelled "d-o-l-l" and tried to make me understand that "d-o-l-l" applied to both. Earlier in the day we had had a tussle over the words "m-u-g" and "w-a-t-e-r." Miss Sullivan had tried to impress it upon me that "m-u-g" is mug and that "w-a-t-e-r" is water, but I persisted in confounding the two. In despair she had dropped the subject for the time, only to renew it at the first opportunity. I became impatient at her repeated attempts and, seizing the new doll, I dashed it upon the floor. I was keenly delighted when I felt the fragments of the broken doll at my feet. Neither sorrow nor regret followed my passionate outburst. I had not loved the doll. In the still, dark world in which I lived there was no strong sentiment of tenderness. I felt my teacher sweep the fragments to one side of the hearth, and I had a sense of satisfaction that the cause of my discomfort was removed. She brought me my hat, and I knew I was going out into the warm sunshine. This thought, if a wordless sensation may be called a thought, made me hop and skip with pleasure.

We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Some one was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten–a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that "w-a-t-e-r" meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away. *

I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house every object which I touched seemed to quiver with life. That was because I saw everything with the strange, new sight that had come to me. On entering the door I remembered the doll I had broken. I felt my way to the hearth and picked up the pieces. I tried vainly to put them together. Then my eyes filled with tears; for I realized what I had done, and for the first time I felt repentance and sorrow.

FOR THE FIRST TIME! Sorry I'm shouting, but do you see how powerful words are? They shape our thoughts and our view of the world, and this, in turn, shapes our actions. They are primary, not secondary.

So I do think it wrong to sling debasing, sexist terms at characters we may not happen to like. For one thing, they aren't merited; for another, it's a bad mental habit to get into. The words you use affect they way you think. They arguably are the way you think.

Oh - one more thing. Sorry for the length. You said, . If religion and state weren't one, would anyone care about what some priest says?

I would. I am American, and Catholic, and a librarian. I rejoice in the separation of Church and State, and consider myself a defender of the first amendment on a professional level. And, when my priest tells me that God loves all his creation, without exception, and that we should consider how we respond to that love, I find those words worth hearing and considering - yes, and acting on. When his colleague points out that we cannot live in the past, but must act in the present, I find that worth thinking about.

But the main point is that words are not just words. They are the way we perceive reality.

Sorry for the length. The other Helen Keller quote - which is her response to a baby after having learned the word "baby" - is a bit shorter, but I couldn't find it!

[600ants.livejournal.com]

No, I don't. Frankly, I have no idea in what way you think the excerpt proves your point. Ms. Keller is talking about something completely different than the power of words to hurt someone. Sorry for stating the obvious, but she cries because she can finally communicate with the rest of the world, not because she's been told a doll's called a doll. The object didn't get a meaning because it got a name, but because the girl was given a way to SHARE how she feels about it, and learn how other people do. Just like wolves or gorillas, humans are social creatures, that's all. If she were taught to describe things by "unemotional" numbers, she'd feel exactly the same.

And here I thought - supposing we're still talking about Lupin - that it's the people who actually can't have children (or lost their testicles) who could feel offended, seeing how their health problem is being used as an insult and directly linked to weakness of character. How silly of me.

You wouldn't even be a christian if there weren't millions of other christians to influence you, which there wouldn't if state and church had not been one for centuries. Sorry to dissappoint, but it's all about tradition and what you see around you, and these days the United States are one of the most religious countries in the world. Or do you think it's a coincidence and a matter of individual choice, that eg. Turkey is full of muslims, or India of hinduists?
How about when his other colleague says that homosexuality is a sin and gay people should act against their nature, because sodding Bible says so? Or that NOBODY should use contraception because "God" doesn't like it? Or that a son in the family is a blessing, while a daughter is not? Your "Good Book" is full of sick.

I'm still very much convinced of the opposite, I'm affraid.

No problem. :)