deathtocapslock | Deathly Hallows, Chapter 15: The Goblin's Revenge (Reply)

And thus begins...The Camping Trip from--I want to say Hell, but I’m sure Hell is a lot more interesting than anything in the next 200 pages. Is there a supernatural realm of eternal boredom and frustration? If there isn’t, there needs to be. I’ll call it Dullsville.

The next day, HRH remove themselves to the outskirts of another town, which Harry enters to find food. Unfortunately for him, the dementors are already there, and he’s so overcome he has to leave, without either casting his Patronus or getting food. Hermione figures out the Horcrux was causing his problem and starts wearing it herself. They decide to take turns so nobody suffers its effects too strongly or for too long.

They move from place to place, scrounging food where they can, going hungry when they can’t. They don’t know where to go or what to do to find Horcruces, so they just wander around, boring themselves and us. I found one unintentionally funny sentence about Ron: “He did not seem to have any ideas himself, but expected Harry and Hermione to come up with plans while he sat and brooded over the low food supplies.”

Well, whose fault is that, Ms. Rowling? You’re the one who’s spent the last four books making Ron dumber and dumber, depriving him of any meaningful activity, while you shoved Harry and Hermione into increasingly dominant roles. Now we’re supposed to be surprised Ron’s a helpless, whiny loser? I don’t think so!

This reminds me of a scene in Patricia MacDonald’s novel, Lost Innocents. A woman kills her husband, and when she complains about being a widow, another woman asks, “Well, whose fault is that?”

HRH are arguing again about where Voldy might have hidden his Horcruces. Harry gets so annoyed--with Ron, of course, not Hermione--that he wants to (1) throw something at his friend and (2) throttle him. Now you know how we feel about this whole book, Harry!

This goes on for several pages, and the Trio is ready to punch each other’s lights out, when Harry hears someone coming. This just happens to be a group of people and goblins who have precisely the information the Trio needs to get moving again. Several more pages are devoted to infodumping, the only important point of which is that there’s a fake Sword of Gryffindor in Bellatrix’s bank vault. There’s also a brief mention that the Quibbler is now the newspaper of record.

Hermione remembers the portrait of Headmaster Black she stole liberated from 12GP, and the three start questioning him about the latest Hogwarts news. He tells them about the phony “punishment” Ginny, Neville, and Luna “suffered” for trying to take the sword from Snape’s office. The only other interesting point he offers is that goblin-made weapons have built in Scotchguard, repelling dirt and absorbing strengthening agents. Dumbledore used the sword to destroy a ring.

Harry and Hermione realize the sword can destroy Horcruces and start trying to figure out where the real sword is. Of course, poor, dumb Ron is left out of this discussion until they see fit to invite him into it. There are umpteen references in the previous few pages about the Hs looking at each other, planning, and talking, with Ron not even mentioned. I can’t blame fans who were convinced Harry and Hermione were destined for each other. No self-respecting girl would want a dumb lump who just sits around and complains and waits to be told what to do. Okay, that often describes Harry, too, but Ron is much worse.

Fortunately, he comes to the same conclusion. When they finally ask his opinion, he tells them he’s PO’d at having to go looking for something else they don’t know how to find. Ron confronts Harry with Harry’s darkest fear, the one Harry had been hoping neither of his friends would notice: He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He has no plan. They’re just on a wild Crumple-Horned Snorkack chase.

Wow. That’s really sad, when even your characters admit they’ve been wasting their--and thus the readers’s--time. I wonder if this is Rowling’s oblique way of admitting she didn’t know what she was doing, either, when she wrote this book?

Hermione tries to deny it, but Ron forces her to admit she agrees with him. “...[T]hey were three teenagers in a tent whose only achievement was not, yet, to be dead.” We are now on page 308, and that summarizes everything that’s happened since page 222.

They argue, and Ron points out, “It’s all right for you two, with your parents safely out of the way--”

“My parents are dead!” Harry bellowed. It’s just like slinkhard’s icon. :D I even expected Harry to give Ron a hard slap across the face.

They end up pulling wands on each other, with Hermione--as usual--averting disaster by putting up an extra-strength protection charm, with her and Harry on one side and Ron on the other. Harry’s Power the Dark Lord Knows Not flares again as he “feels a corrosive hatred toward Ron: Something had broken between them.” Ron storms out into the dark and stormy night, Hermione cries, and Harry goes to bed but doesn’t sleep.

So now Harry feels “corrosive hatred” for the boy who’s been his best friend for six years? This is November or December, but we’re supposed to believe that in fewer than five or six months, at the beginning of May, Harry is going to feel such love for everybody at Hogwarts that he’ll be willing to die for them, no questions asked. This is despite that fact that, in the intervening months/pages, we will see no indication at all of the kind of spiritual or emotional growth that would give rise to such a self-sacrificing impulse. Yes, people who believe this really do have STUPID written on their foreheads.

I’m sorry if this sporking was boring, but this chapter is boring--and it’s 27 pages long! It was harder to get through than any other so far because of the boredom and length.

I’m now thinking this book should have been called Harry Potter and the Deadly Boredom, but I guess then it wouldn’t have sold as many copies. Besides, truth in advertising is anathema to this series.