Deathly Hallows, Chapter 12: Magic Is Might

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Mighty boring, at least in this book.

Whew. I survived that last chapter. It was touch-and-go there for a while.

This chapter opens with more than a page of description of “mysterious, strangely-dressed people” loitering in GP and watching where number 12 should be. Harry arrives with a stolen Daily Prophet and enters the house. He is confronted by Dustledore, which shows Kreacher is still falling down on the job. So much for his new devotion to Harry.

Hermione starts reading the lead article about Snape becoming Hogwarts Headmaster. It quotes Snape as saying, “I welcome the opportunity to uphold our finest Wizarding traditions and values--” She shrieks, “Like committing murder and cutting off people’s ears, I suppose!”  Yes, along with raping their minds and sending them to the other side of the world, keeping them ignorant and then ridiculing their ignorance, stealing their superior technology and then calling them stupid and inferior, permanently disfiguring people who piss you off, covering up sexual assaults, attempted murder, and other violent felonies...Hmmm. Seems to me Snape fits right in with his culture. No wonder people like to ship SS/HG! :D

Hermione charges off to grab the portrait of Phineas Nigellus Black and stuff it into her hold all, hide all bag. That way it can’t be used to spy on the Trio at GP, then report to Snape in the Headmaster’s office. Ron acts like this is really smart, but conveniently, nobody bothers to consider that Black’s been able to spy on them for the month they’ve already been in the house.

HRH discuss the spying they’ve been doing outside the Ministry for the last month, and Harry opines that they should make their foray into enemy territory the next day. Ron and Hermione object, but Harry says they’ll probably never be more ready than they are, and if they delay too long, Umbridge might get rid of the locket. She might have already, since it doesn’t open.

“Unless,” said Ron, “she’s found a way of opening it and she’s now possessed.”

“Wouldn’t make any difference to her, she was so evil in the first place,” Harry shrugged.

The characters don’t treat that as a funny line, but I found it one of the few genuinely amusing lines in this boring book.

They spend the next few pages discussing the security arrangements at the Ministry and arguing about who should go on the expedition. Suddenly Harry feels a pain in his scar and bolts for the bathroom. Apparently this large house has only one.

As he collapses on the floor, he has another Voldie-vision. This one involves “gliding” along a foreign street. He knocks on a door looking for Gregorovitch, and a woman answers in German, insisting he’s not there, and she doesn’t know where he is. Voldy decides to kill her, and two children conveniently run into the hall just before he does it, so he gets the group discount.

It’s at this point that Harry is pulled out of the vision by Hermione banging on the door and yelling his name. He lets her and Ron in and tries to deny anything is wrong. Hermione tells him not to insult their intelligence. Hey, why should you be treated any differently than we readers, girlie?

Harry expresses dismay that Voldy killed the woman and children gratuitously. See, this is what he gets for completely embracing the magical world and turning his back on the non-magical one. If he had bothered to go to a public library while studying the Dull Lord, he would have found out the man is a sadistic psychopath. They like torturing and killing others. It’s entertainment for them. Sure, it’s disgusting and appalling to normal people, but once you know what you’re dealing with, it’s not dismaying any more because you know what to expect. If Hermoninny were half as smart as she’s cracked up to be, she would have done this research even if Harry had not. Know your enemy is a wise injunction.

Instead, she berates Harry for allowing Voldemort inside his head, suggesting he likes it. I guess it’s not surprising that a girl who mind-raped her parents would think Harry must enjoy being mind-raped, too. At least she doesn’t tell him to relax and enjoy it.

That doesn’t mean I don’t agree with her. Even violent felons speak the truth occasionally. Harry gets defensive and hostile at Hermione’s suggestion, but I think it does make him feel special: “Ooh, look at me. I’ve been singled out for attention by the most evil wizard since Dumbledore for a hundred years. Nobody else can say that, not even his most devoted slave, Bellatrix. But don’t think I like it! No, no, no. Look how much I suffer in the battle against evil.” Remember, even bad attention is better than no attention at all, and with Dumbledore dead, Harry has to get special notice from some older, evil wizard.

Furthermore, he’s never really suffered because of the Voldy mind-meld. Unlike Ginny, who was possessed by Voldemort, forced to do things against her will, and almost killed, Harry’s connection is more of a pain-in-the-head annoyance than a serious problem. It’s kind of like pop-up ads on the Internet, or those commercials you have to sit through before you’re allowed to see certain YouTube videos or Yahoo news videos: You don’t like them, but they’re just an inconvenience. And unlike those ads, Harry gets useful information from his unwanted head-movies. In fact, it wouldn’t be possible for him to even find the Horcruces, let alone destroy them, without the Voldie-visions. So he’s really just being a drama king (no doubt another side effect of his Voldie-soul piece--you know how those Slytherins are!) when he complains about them.

The bathroom is described as having a “cracked, dusty mirror.” Why hasn’t anybody done a Reparo charm on it? And why hasn’t Kreacher, or one of the Trio, cleaned it? I mean, how hard is it to dust a mirror? Besides, these are teenagers. They’re always looking at themselves in the mirror. Or maybe--Eeeewwwwww. Maybe they never take baths, brush their teeth, or wash their hands after using the toilet. Yuck! Harry’s slovenliness is catching.

HRH do some more arguing, about who Gregorovitch is and what really happened with Harry’s self-spurting wand, then go down to eat the fine dinner Kreacher has cooked (apparently he bought food some time between the last chapter and this one) and to plan the next day’s invasion.

When they leave the next morning, Hermione Disapparates with Ron and then Harry. They use the invisibility cloak, which is supposed to hide them from the DEs watching across the street, but surely the sound of Apparating would defeat that purpose.

When they arrive outside the Ministry, the Trio take turns attacking passing employees until they get enough hairs for all three to Polyjuice themselves. The first one is Stunned and has her body hidden. The next has Puking Pastilles forced on him, and the third is fed Nosebleed Nougats. Then Rowling indulges her bathroom humor fetish again by having them use what appear to be public toilets to “flush themselves” into the building. Yes, you read that correctly: They step into toilets and flush to enter the Ministry.

When HRH get inside, they see the smarmy gold statue that used to deface the lobby has been replaced by one far cooler more discomfiting. It’s black stone and shows a witch and wizard sitting on thrones and looking down at the arriving Ministry employees. The thrones are carved as grotesque, naked caricatures of stupid-looking “muggles,” and engraved at the statue’s base are the words Magic Is Might. I had three thoughts on reading this description: (1) Yeah, I’ll pit my modern weapons against your magic any day. (2) Whoa! Seriously cool! The thrones sound a lot like the Catacombs of Paris and Rome that are decorated with thousands of human bones. (3) I know I’ve read a description of some statue or sculpture similar to that somewhere, but I can’t remember where. Darn! That’s really annoying.

As they head for the elevators, Ron is stopped by Yaxley the DE, who is complaining about it raining in his office. It seems the man Ron is impersonating is (1) supposed to fix this problem and (2) married to a woman suspected of being a Dreaded Muggleborn. Yaxley tells Ron his wife will be in even bigger trouble than she is already if Ron can’t stop the rain. Poor Ron has to be dumbed down again, so Hermione can look smart by giving him detailed instructions on what to do.

If HP were rewritten as Gone with the Wind, Ron would be Scarlett because of the way he’s been diminished throughout this series. As she said, “‘...I’m tired of saying, “How wonderful you are!” to fool men who haven’t got one-half the sense I’ve got, and I’m tired of pretending I don’t know anything, so men can tell me things and feel important while they’re doing it....’” (Chapter 5)

Hermione and Harry continue riding in the elevator, and when it opens, they are confronted with Dolores Umbridge.

Dum dum yawn...Yeah, I don’t care, either.

Comments

[dracasadiablo.livejournal.com]

Ron and Hermione object, but Harry says they’ll probably never be more ready than they are, and if they delay too long, Umbridge might get rid of the locket. She might have already, since it doesn’t open.

“Unless,” said Ron, “she’s found a way of opening it and she’s now possessed.”

“Wouldn’t make any difference to her, she was so evil in the first place,” Harry shrugged.


Shouldn't they be more worried about possessed!Umbridge?
If Voldy's soul fragment was possessing her in the same way Ginny was possessed (at that time they had no idea that locket isn't the same as the diary) then there was a possibility of Voldemort finding out about it.
And if he knew that one of his Horcruxes was unguarded he might have done something to move and protect the rest.

Then Rowling indulges her bathroom humor fetish again by having them use what appear to be public toilets to “flush themselves” into the building. Yes, you read that correctly: They step into toilets and flush to enter the Ministry.

Ugh, yes.
I was unhappy and dismayed by Myrtle spending time in the toilet and hoped that JKR won't inflict more of the same on us.

Maybe this was supposed to be something "funny" to brighten the doom and gloom of the situation?

Hermione and Harry continue riding in the elevator, and when it opens, they are confronted with Dolores Umbridge.

Rowling really had no idea what to do with Ron in the last book.