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

[600ants.livejournal.com]

But YOU were the only one who said anything about the woman. It would be nice if you waited until people actually are awful, and then called them on it. This way it backfired kinda like those "spot a racist" posters. (of course now I'm sure you meant well)

I know that it's a serious issue, extramarital sex used to be punishable by death (thanks, church), but in my part of the world this is very much behind us. Even religious people don't seem to care anymore if one is a single parent, much less ostracize the child. I guess that's why I was so shocked by your reaction. :)

You don't need to tell ME that religion is sick (disease of the mind and character, really).

[oryx_leucoryx]

Looks like you didn't look up the term 'mamzer' then. Can't post links, but this is from Jewish Virtual Library:

MAMZER (Heb. מַמְזֵר), usually translated as "bastard."
Definition

"If she cannot contract a legally valid marriage to this man, but can contract a legally valid marriage to others, her offspring [from the former] is a mamzer. Such is the case when a man has sexual relations with any of the ervot ["forbidden"; see *Incest] in the Torah" (Kid. 3:12; cf. Yev. 4:13). Thus, a mamzer is the issue of a couple whose sexual relationship is forbidden according to the Torah and punishable by *karet or death. Because of this a marriage between them is void (Sh. Ar., EH 4:13), and thus, for example, the issue of a union between brother and sister or between a man and a woman validly married to another at the time is a mamzer (see *Adultery; Yev. 45b; Maim., Yad, Issurei Bi'ah 15:1; Tur and Beit Yosef, EH 4; Sh. Ar., EH 4:13). On the other hand, in Jewish law – unlike in other systems of law – the mere fact that a child is born (or conceived) out of lawful wedlock does not make him a mamzer and he is not an illegitimate child, i.e., one whose status or rights are impaired. The parents of the mamzer are indeed unmarried – either in fact or since they are so considered in law because of an absolute legal bar to a marriage between them – but unlike a man and a woman who, from the legal point of view, can marry each other but do not want to, the parents of the mamzer, owing to the said legal bar, cannot marry each other even if they want to. If one parent is non-Jewish this fact alone does not make the child a mamzer (see *Marriage; Yev. 45b; Maim., Yad, Issurei Bi'ah 15:3; Tur, EH 4; Sh. Ar., EH 4:19).
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From 'The Mamzer Problem' by Rabbi Louis Jacobs

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Contemporary Concerns

In lands where there is civil marriage it is not uncommon for a married woman who has been divorced in civil law to remarry in civil law without obtaining a get, the Jewish bill of divorce, from her first husband. Any children born to her from the second marriage are technically mamzerim, rendering the problem in modern times far more acute than in the time when civil marriage and divorce were unknown.

Reform Judaism rejects the whole concept of mamzerut. Many Conservative and all Orthodox Rabbis do accept the traditional law in this matter but generally follow the Talmudic precedence of adopting various legal remedies in order to avoid the taint of mamzerut, and the ruling of Isserles is also followed that no investigation is to be made in order to expose mamzerut.

It is certainly contrary to the tradition to compile, as unfortunately some few Orthodox Rabbis do, a register of mamzerim.

-----------------------------

This is a contemporary problem among Orthodox Jews worldwide and among Israeli Jews of all levels of observance and all denominations (including secular Jews). Notice that it is the married woman's adultery that is considered the source of the problem. Adultery by a married man with an unmarried woman does not create mamzerim. While Rabbi Jacobs claims 'few' Orthodox Rabbis compile lists of mamzerim at least in Israel, the Chief Rabbinate has such lists.

Another link that pops up on the first Google page in my search is Mamzer Alert:

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THIS BLOG WAS CREATED TO ALERT THE JEWISH PUBLIC OF JEWISH WOMEN WHO MIGHT BE PROLIFERATING MAMZERIM OR MIGHT BE TRYING TO REMARRY WITHOUT A GET OR WITH ONE THAT WAS PROCURED THROUGH COERCIVE METHODS WHICH IS INVALID.SEE THE LETTER BELOW FROM 50 RABBIS STATING THAT NAMES OF RABBIS/MEN/WOMEN WHO VIOLATE THE HALOCHOT OF GITTIN SHOULD BE PUBLICIZED. ONE SHOULD DISCUSS WITH A COMPETENT RABBI AS TO THE STATUS OF THE LISTED WOMAN.BUT NOT FROM A TYPE OF RABBI LISTED IN THE EDITORIAL BELOW
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(Sorry for the all-caps, they are in the original.)

[600ants.livejournal.com]

But what on earth has this got to do with anything? Globally speaking, very few people these days care about Judaism's opinion on anything. And if some do, it's their own problem. They (thankfully) can't force their shallow "values" on anybody else anymore. If someone trusts some priest's opinion more than hir own common sense, I don't know how could I help such a person.

If some "orthodox" fool wants to wank over his list of Untermenschen, he can go right ahead. Me and the rest of the world don't give rat's ass if someone was born from this intercourse or other.

No problem, I like to learn about... well, everything. :)

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

These are still real people experiencing real harm. What on earth does it matter how many there are? If the larger society makes clear that 'bastardry' is an inappropriate standard and not tolerated as a basis of discrimination, that puts pressure on religious groups that want to continue using it to either conform to the broader societal mores or become increasingly marginalized, losing influence, prestige, and followers.

What can one person do? They can start by not perpetuating the idea that bastardry is something to be ashamed of by using the term to try and shame people. Does one person objecting make a noticeable difference? No. But neither does any single vote. It is only in aggregate, as a society, that we can effect change, but as individual members of society it is our duty as citizens to work for that change where we can. This applies no matter where one lives or what values one thinks should be championed.