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]

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.