Deathly Hallows, Chapter 15: The Goblin's Revenge

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

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.

Comments

[oryx_leucoryx]

This is actually chapter 15. The name is correct, though.

Is there a supernatural realm of eternal boredom and frustration?

Wasn't that supposed to be Limbo, before the Catholic Church canceled it?

So why did they not pack the Horcrux in one of their magical bags?

What is your estimate of 'November or December' based on?

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/They decide to take turns so nobody suffers its effects too strongly or for too long./

Umm, why don’t they make sure that nobody wears it, so that nobody’s affected by the Horcrux? Why doesn’t Hermione put it in her bag? If it starts to affect her, then she can pass the bag along to Ron or Harry. Haven’t any of them read or heard of Lord of the Rings?

/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./

Are we supposed to look down on Ron now so that we can condemn him for leaving Harry and Hermione? Because if so, then that’s just unfair. Every time Ron tries to come up with an idea, Hermione criticizes him or shoots him down. And the twins have done a fine job of intimidating Ron into remaining mediocre and modest so that he doesn’t remind them of Percy, so what is he supposed to do? How is he supposed to come up with ideas when he’s surrounded by people who basically tell him to shut up and sit down?

/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./

Just like in the ending of the HBP movie, where Harry and Hermione were standing together on a balcony talking while Ron was left to sit by himself in the background. And where Hermione had to tell Harry that Ron was okay with him dating Ginny, even though Ron was sitting right there!

/Harry is going to feel such love for everybody at Hogwarts that he’ll be willing to die for them, no questions asked./

I wonder if “everybody” included the Slytherins who were ordered to leave. Or Zacharias Smith. Or Argus Filch. Or…

[lynn-waterfall.livejournal.com]

I wonder if “everybody” included the Slytherins who were ordered to leave. Or Zacharias Smith. Or Argus Filch. Or…

Well... they were kind of thrown in for free. It isn't as though Harry had to die any extra for them.

Although if he did, I would bet he'd've said no to that part.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

This continues to be a great sporking. That bit with the locket bothered the heck out of me; it was such an obvious theft from a much greater author. And I thought it was ridiculous that the kids ended up sitting in the woods without the slightest clue about how to hunt for the horcruxes or how to destroy them afterwards. Yes, I know - it was all supposed to be heavily symbolic, with the Trio's isolation reflecting the children of Israel wandering in the desert, etc. That didn't make it any less tedious.

A question: Does anyone have a clue why this chapter is called "The Goblin's revenge?" What revenge did Griphook take? If he took any, it wasn't in this chapter, as far as I remember it?

[oryx_leucoryx]

We know Narcissa wasn't included - Tom manages to torture her after Harry's 'death', while he fails to torture Harry,

[t0ra-chan.livejournal.com]

A question: Does anyone have a clue why this chapter is called "The Goblin's revenge?" What revenge did Griphook take? If he took any, it wasn't in this chapter, as far as I remember it?

Apparently the revenge is not telling Bellatrix that the sword of Gryffindor she has is a fake. If that's a goblin's idea of revenge, I wonder why there where so many goblin rebellions, seeing as goblins are kind of lame.

[maidofkent.livejournal.com]

i think it is a reference to the goblins realising that the Sword of Gyffindor which Snape has placed in the Gringotts vault is a fake, but not bothering to inform him of that fact. They don't seem at all concerned however as to the whereabouts of the genuine article. Since this is, in their view, goblin property and has as far as the goblins know, being purloined by another wizard/witch, it doesn't seem much of a revenge.

if only Hermione, who could solve a logic puzzle at the age of 12, had thought to make a logical list of the known horcruxes and where they were kept, the Trio would have realised that as well as hiding them in 'places of grandeur and mystique', Voldemort also handed them out to faithful followers for safekeeping (the diary to Lucius). That might have indicated Bellatrix as a horcrux-keeper, or indeed Snape, which would have given Harry extra reason to look at Hogwarts as a hiding place. An early return to Hogwarts would have made a much better book. As you say, I am sure the wandering in the wilderness is a symbolic test of faith, but that doesn't excuse the tedium.

[dracasadiablo.livejournal.com]

Maybe Griphook "revenge" was the massive info-dump?
Perhaps the spells the trio had around their tent weren't good enough to fool goblin magic. So, because Griphook could see / sense them somehow he deliberately had his group come so close to the kids. And then had them talk about everything the HRH should know?

It works form me better then them accidentally stumbling so close to the tent and having that conversation by pure chance.

[dracasadiablo.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why they couldn't have just went to France for a while.
If they used one of many muggle ways to get there, there zero chances DE would have been able to stop them.
And it could have worked well with things we've seen before. What with Fleur's parents coming from France, using polyjuice potion to look like random muggles, getting out of reach of their MoM (plus snatchers and Dementors) and they might have found Madam Maxime (who should be on their side) and asked her about ways to destroy Horcruxes or something.

... and they could have used muggle money to buy food in France. So if nothing else we wouldn't be subjected to endless "we are hungry" whining.

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

The odds of the trio just happenning to come across the motley band in the middle of the wilderness and then the goblin just happenning to spell out exactly what parts of the plot they needed to know next must be too small for the human brain to even comprehend. What was the point of Dumblesnore's subterfuge with the sword? He could have just said in book six - "Harry, in case anything should happen to me I want you to keep the sword of Gryffindor. It is the only artefact we have which can destroy Horcruxes. The Ministry would try to stop you receiving the sword if they could. I am going to make a replica of the sword to foist on the Ministry so that they will think they have the real one."

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

Didn't they just release unbaptised infants from Limbo? Thus reserving Hell and Limbo for adults who failed to make the best of their lives? (but by the terms that their denomination lays down of course).

In any case, perhaps the Asphodel meadows work better as a metaphor here.

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

I've decided that Dumb's master plan was really the same as that employed in Pratchett's Guards, Guards against the dragon. Colon, Nobby, and Carrot decide that Colon should take a long shot with his lucky bow and try to hit the dragon in its voonerables. The plan can't fail, because "When you really need them the most,": he said, "miillion-to-one chances always crop up. Well known fact."

"The sergeant is right, Nobby," siad Carrot virtuously. "you know that when there's just one chance which might just work--well, it works. Otherwise there's be no--" he lowered his voice-- "I mean, it stands to reason, if last desperate chance didn't work, there'd be no... well the gods wouldn't let it be any other way. They wouldn't."

But then Colon thinks of a problem:

"Weell, what if it's not a million-to-one chance?... last desperate million-to-one chances always work, right, no problem, but... well, it's pretty woss-name, specific, I mean, isn't it?"

"You tell me," said Nobby.

"What if it's just a thousand-to-one chance?" said Colon agonizedly.....

Carrot looke up. "Don't be daft, Sergeant," he said. "no one ever saw a thousand-to-one chance come up. The odds against it are--" his lips moved-- "miliions to one."

"Yeah. Millions." agreed Nobby.

So our boys in blue decide that what they need to do to ensure success is to improve the odds: Against.

Nobby put his head on one side.

"It looks promising," he said critically. "We might be nearly there. I reckon the chances of a man with soot on his face, his tongue sticking out, standing on one leg and singing The Hedgehog Song ever hitting a dragon's voonerables would be... what'd you say, Carrot?"

"A million to one, I reckon."


Dumble's plan in a nutshell: make success as unlikely as possible and trust to luck to come through for Harry.

It was endearing when Fatty, Nobby, and Carrot tried it.

[attilathepbnun.livejournal.com]

That's because Pratchett made it funny

[oryx_leucoryx]

And neither of the three coppers was meant to be a super-intelligent mentor character.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Ron would still have complained about the food, because it is foreign. In GOF he never tried the French foods.

[dracasadiablo.livejournal.com]

And Colon, Nobby, and Carrot were risking their own lives.
Not making a million to one plan that some kid was supposed to get done.

[dracasadiablo.livejournal.com]

Sad but true.
And it's not just Ron. In the books there's a strong "it's foreign so it's; funny, stupid, inferior, stereotypical and (sometimes) dark or evil" vibe.

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Good point! I'd missed that!

However, a) if a death conferred the protection, as mary_j-59 once pointed out, it was probably the headmaster's death that dis so, and would have been extended towards his students.

b) if the protection was conferred by Harry's mastery of the Elder Wand and its unwillingness to do anything against Harry's wishes, well, Harry didn't especially care whether Tom tortured any of his followers, now did he? At least not until he knew it was a mum who cared more about her son than her lord's victory.

c) wasn't it lucky that Tom just happened to pick one of the followers who'd have strong reason to lie, under certain circumstances? Rather than, say, the loyal Bella?

[nigoslava.livejournal.com]

Did he torture Narcissa?

[oryx_leucoryx]

We don't know what exactly Tom did because Harry was playing dead, but what Harry knows is

"You," said Voldemort, and there was a bang and a small shriek of pain. "Examine him. Tell me whether he is dead."