Deathly Hallows, Chapter 21: The Tale of the Three Brothers

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Xeno tells the Trio the DH symbol is not “dark” in the sense Viktor Krum thought. He adds he was wearing the symbol in case another believer saw him and could help him find the Hallows. Isn’t it great that he used someone’s else happy social occasion to promote his own selfish, crazy agenda?

He then asks if they know “The Tale of the Three Brothers.” Ron and Hermione say they do, but Harry doesn’t. This shows how intellectually disinterested he is: He’s had the Beedle book sitting around for five months and has been sitting in a tent with it for four months, frequently bored out of his mind, with nothing else to do for entertainment, but even though it’s a short book, he still hasn’t read it! Sheesh! And I’m supposed to find this guy admirable enough to be worthy of emulation? I mean, that is one of the characteristics of a hero/heroine.

Hermione reads the story aloud at Xeno’s request. One thing Rowling got right in the 3Bs story is that it takes place at twilight in Beedle; Ron puts in that his mother always said it was midnight. Either way, those are in-between times of day, neither day nor night, or neither night nor morning, respectively. In folklore, those are the times when the veil between the living and dead or secular and magical worlds is thinnest, and strange things can happen.

We know the story, so I’ll just briefly recap it. Three brothers are walking together when they come to a river that can’t be crossed. They use their magic to build a bridge and are crossing it when they are confronted by the three billy goats gruff Death himself. (I guess if Aberforth were in the story, it would be goats. Or maybe Death would be a goat. Instead of using a scythe to “reap” souls, he’d butt them into the next world.) Death is PO’d because he was “cheated” out of three lives by their magic. Wow. If he’s mad at these brothers because they deprived him of three lives, how much angrier must he have been at Ignaz Semmelweis. His studies of disinfection in maternity wards saved countless people, particularly once Joseph Lister and Louis Pasteur used those studies to develop the germ theory of disease and infection. No wonder Semmelweis was ridiculed and died young, after being beaten to death in an asylum. That was Death’s revenge. At last the truth can be told!

Anyway, Death pretends to be pleased with the brothers’ cleverness and offers each one a prize for beating him. The oldest brother asks for an unbeatable wand, the second for a stone that can raise the dead, and the youngest for something that will keep Death from finding him, which turns out to be the Ultimate Invisibility Cloak, the possession of Death himself.

After the brothers separate, they proceed to put their prizes to use. The oldest brother is a Gryffindor an egotistical blowhard who likes to pick fights, so he promptly goes into a bar and starts bragging he can take anybody in a fight. A Slytherin Another wizard hears him and waits until the loudmouth has passed out drunk in his room. Then he creeps in, cuts the braggart’s throat, and takes the wand.

The second brother is a Ravenclaw too smart for his own good, so he goes home and calls for his dead girlfriend. She shows up, but she doesn’t belong in the living world, and at last the brother becomes so distraught about their inability to be together that he kills himself.

The third brother doesn’t take any chances. Literally. He’s so much a Hufflepuff careful that he lives a long life, literally hiding under the Cloak the entire time, and when he becomes tired of living, he goes with Death willingly, passing his cloak down to his heirs.

Although they’re not called “the Deathly Hallows” in Beedle, Xeno insists that’s what the story is about. The four argue some about it, but we know the pot isn’t cracked in this case. Yes, tiresome as it is, Gary Stu Potter really does own an artifact of Death itself. There’s enough BS in that contrivance to fertilize the entire Corn Belt for decades.

Xeno insists the other Hallows are real as well, which, given the seventh HP book’s title, is inarguable, no matter how stupid it is. Only Hermione is adamant the story isn’t true; her wrongness is one of those annoying situations where feelings and faith triumph over reason. Look, Ms. Rowling, I put up with that nonsense for years on The X-Files. I didn’t like it there, either, but that show was usually so imaginative, well-written, and well-acted, and had such likable main characters and interesting supporting characters, that I was willing to give the irrationality a pass. You are no Chris Carter, nor are Ron and the Hs Scully and Mulder. Voldemort is certainly not Cancer Man.

Xeno goes down to the kitchen to make Plimpy soup. However, if Luna has come back, there is no sign of her. HRH don’t notice that inconsistency.

Ron doesn’t believe the 3Bs story is true, either, and he doesn’t seem to be sucking up to Hermione when he says it. He blows it off as the kind of story that’s supposed to teach lessons to children. “‘Don’t go looking for trouble, don’t pick fights, don’t go messing around with stuff that’s best left alone! Just keep your head down, mind your own business, and you’ll be okay.’” Of course, that first sentence contradicts the entire Gryffindor ethos. The second comes from the Good German playbook. Since JKR keeps shoving WWII down our throats, I wonder if she was aware of the implications when she wrote that sentence.

The Trio starts arguing about which Hallow would be the best to have. Ron proves wand = penis by saying the Elder Wand would only provoke people if you went around shouting, “‘I’ve got an unbeatable wand, come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough.’”  Look at that phrasing: “have a go” is British slang for “have sex with”; “hard enough” rather than “tough enough” or “bad enough” (either of which would be the expected phrase in that context) is an obvious sexual reference. Put the two together and the sexual implications of that sentence are unmistakable. Lower down the same page, Hermione says, “Some wizards just like to boast that theirs [wands] are bigger and better than other people’s.” Wizards, not witches.

They start talking about how “infallible” Harry’s cloak is. Um, correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t Pseudo-Moody and Dumbledore both able to see through it? So were Mrs. Norris and Nagini, but in their cases, it was probably smelling rather than seeing.

While they talk, Harry notices the painting Luna put on her bedroom ceiling of the Trio, Ginny, and Neville, with the word friends painted in gold bordering it all around. The portraits are so realistic, “Harry thought they breathed.” I know this is creepy and sad, since those people aren’t really her friends, with the possible exception of Neville, but rereading this, what I thought about was what a waste it is for someone with Luna’s considerable artistic talent not to use it.

People who can paint portraits that well are extremely rare; Pierre Mignard is the only one I can think of offhand. This is also the only sign of true artistic genius we’ve seen in the entire series. It sucks no end that so much time is wasted on stupid quests, dumb romance, and main character angsting that we never see Luna’s talent being developed, or what, if anything, she did with it. Probably nothing, given what Philistines magical people seem to be.

Think how cool it would have been if Luna’s artistic genius had been used in the resolution of one the stories.

Looking around her bedroom, Harry comes to the conclusion that Luna isn’t around and hasn’t been for weeks. When Xeno comes back with a tray of food, Harry asks him where Luna is. Xeno tries the “Plimpy fishing” line again, but Harry doesn’t buy it, not because you can’t make Plimpy soup without the Plimpies Luna is supposedly catching, but because the tray is set for four rather than five. Holy logic, Batman! Who are you, and what have you done with that dunderhead, Harry Potter?

Xeno admits he tricked them because Luna’s being held hostage by the Death Eaters, and he’s trying to get her back by trading Harry for her.

HRH look out the window and see someone arriving. Xeno tries to Stun them, but Harry shoves his friends out of the way and jumps aside, so the Stun hits the Erumpent horn and explodes it. Harry and Hermione aren’t buried in the rubble--of course--but Ron has a bureau fall on him, and Xeno falls down the spiral staircase.

Just then the DEs arrive. Thinking Xeno’s lying to them about Harry’s presence, they start torturing him. The Hs stand there silently listening to this, making no move to do anything until one of the DEs does a revealing spell, and the bad guys come looking for them.

Then the Hs rescue Ron--first trying to lift the dresser, then doing a Hover Charm. Honestly, I felt like Rowling had forgotten this charm again, then remembered it halfway through the paragraph and stuck it onto the end.

Hermione saves the day again. First, she makes the floor collapse onto the DEs, allowing them to see Harry, while Ron is covered by the cloak. Then she Apparates the three of them to a distant field.

“What a revolting development this is!” That catchphrase predates the lives of everyone on this forum, but it perfectly describes how I felt about the last few pages of this chapter. “Their daring, nerve, and chivalry set Gryffindors apart.”

HAH! There is nothing daring, nervy, or chivalrous about standing around listening while an old man is being tortured, particularly when he may already have been severely injured by a fall down a staircase. First Xeno is cursed four times when the DEs arrive. Then he is subjected to “a volley” of curses, which means at least several more. Ron can’t do anything because he is out of commission--as usual--not that he would have if he could, as we’ll see in the next chapter. But the Hs could have at least attempted to rescue Xeno. Instead, all they think about is saving their own skins. And you have the nerve to call Snape a coward, Harry?

Yes, Xeno betrayed them. So what? He admitted he was doing it only because he saw no other way to rescue his daughter. The Trio also should have expected to be betrayed at some point. It’s part of the ugliness of war. Real war, that is, not the contrived kind of kiddie war found in this book. It’s perfectly understandable and forgivable that an old man, who has no one else in his life to love but his daughter, would put her life ahead of the lives of strangers, no matter who those strangers were. If the Trio were truly heroic, rather than heroic as an informed attribute, they would have understood this and tried to save Lovegood anyway. Saving people who don’t deserve it is part of being a hero or heroine. Somewhere in one of those umpteen books she’s read, Hermione should have read that.

I’ve certainly read it in both the Warriors and Percy Jackson series. "Chivalrous Gryffindors" Harry, Hermione, and Ron have had their butts kicked in the heroism department by a bunch of stray cats and the bastard offspring of obsolete gods and goddesses. How sorry is that?

The Fool’s Golden Trio is the worst bunch of role models ever.

Comments

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Yes - but also, only when he thinks they deserve rescuing. In the movie, Harry looks all horrified and tries to stanch the wound, but in the book, he doesn't lift a finger to save Snape. As I've been saying for years, Snape reaches out to him, not the other way around.

[wolf-willow31.livejournal.com]

They had to "clean up" so much in the movies in order to make Harry and friends seem like decent people. I sometimes wonder what JKR thinks of that, or if she thinks about it at all. And sometimes I wonder how the movies would have been received if they'd been shot "as written" by JKR. Would audiences have reacted differently to the "heroes"?

[ioanna-ioannina.livejournal.com]

I so much wish they did it... :´-(( I hate it when somebody speaks about how excellent author Rowling is and how good her books are for children. I spent some years discussing with my students about the morality of the books - no chance to persuade even the best teens, logical, good people, everything, that their beloved children book has any moral problém. They just don't see it. They've identified with the "heroes" - and this is an end. Maybe have they seen it in the pictures...

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

I think, actually, that oneandthetruth's theory of spiritual development explains your students' reactions. They aren't bad people; they're kids. To them, or most of them, loyalty to one's peers is paramount, and they don't question "their side" very much. The trio are fellow teens, on the "right" side. In a way, the teenagers are reading the books the way they were meant to be read.

But I do think that, if the students have seen the movies, this will also influence their interpretation of the books. And the movies do make the trio nicer and better people than they are in canon.

[ioanna-ioannina.livejournal.com]

I think you're right.
The weird thing is that they were perfectly capable of discerning good from bad - in a story where the auctor himself did not mess up like Rowling. Like, discussing LOTR, they understood that Frodo failed. Antigona - yep, she was right burying her brother. Orestes and the Eumenids - understood. But Potter...
I'm very cautious since then with my heroes and villains. The auctor has to be the one, who has to understand what is right and what is not. Not only in the story, but just right and wrong. Heroes can do wrong and villains can do right - but the auctor has to acknowledge it. Otherwise - rowlingmess. :-D
The horrible thing is, kids sometimes emulate their heroes. "Why are you doing xxx?" - "Well, it's OK, Harry did so as well..."
And now, imagine this:

"Why did you turn your back to the car crash and haven't call the police or hospital?"
"Well, it was only old Smith lying there and bleeding, and he never liked me, and the other one was an unknown and looked well enough..."
"Do you know that Mr. Smith died from suffocating with his own blood?"
:-O
"Dou you realize it's partly your fault?"
"Why? Harry did the same in the book, and he is a hero!"

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

That's a really interesting point you make; make mary=j_59 can address it, since she also works with children and teens professionally.

But that kids can understand that even a beloved hero can sometimes do wrong, and mess up, and do things not to be emulated--just so long as the author understands this, and authorially separates the behavior that makes the hero "a hero" from the behavior that shows s/he has flaws and problems (hopefully to overcome), like other humans....

But if the author does not: It's Okay If A Gryffindor Does It!

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Oh, I HOPE kids wouldn't emulate the trio's behavior in real life! As to kids understanding the intentions of better and clearer-headed authors: not always. I think most of my best readers do. But, apparently, after the movies came out, there were a lot of fans exclaiming, "Boromir's a good guy! I always thought he was a bad guy!" Well, of course Boromir is a good guy! He's a good guy who happens to be deeply flawed and conflicted, makes a serious mistake, and then redeems himself. Some fans had to actually see that, in Sean Bean's fine performance, before they understood it.

So - I think some of these kids truly don't notice how awfully the trio (especially Hermione and Harry) actually behave. If they visualize the scenes, I get the impression that they're already seeing something more like the movies. What Rowling intended, not what she actually wrote. And the messages some of my young Gryffindor friends* seem to take away are things like: be brave, help your friends, do the right thing, and other such basic lessons. ((*I mean high school and college age wizard rockers.)

[ioanna-ioannina.livejournal.com]

Yes, Boromir's story needs some thinking, too, and it's far better to actually see his heroism and struggle than only to read about it - because it's so difficult to see in the first reading.
Which struggle was bigger and more heroical than that of Faramir, I think, *because* of Boromir's inner conflicts that he overcame at the end.
(But in the first reading, it was not clear for me, either. I was thinking: hey, Boromir was a danger, why the hell do they bury him like this? Why is Frodo speaking about him so kindly? And with Frodo near the end: what the hell is he doing, is he not the hero, or what? Why is he claiming that Ring as his? But the auctor helped me to understand both in rereading and rethinking. Because his right was real right and his wrong was real wrong, and not vice versa, like with Rowling.)

And yes for the second time - the Potter movies benignify the "heroes" in rereading the books. Even for some adults. They are able to argue with you to the death, that something happened in the books, or not happened in the books, and in fact, they remember it from the movies. (I haven't seen the Potter movies, so it's more easy for me to say, no, this is something new for me, are you sure it was there in the pages?)

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Oh - Wow! Our Dad read us the LOTR when I was ten, and I can't remember ever thinking Boromir a bad guy. But it's also true that I've reread the books many, many times. Are you familiar with Catherine Chmiel's artwork? She has an image of Boromir, as a little boy, holding toddler Faramir, and it tells you everything about these two and their relationship. Just came across this image - which I also love - while looking for that one.

But yes, Tolkien, IMO, had his morality straight, and Rowling doesn't. I truly think she doesn't know she doesn't; she thinks she put things in the books that are actually not there.

(http://pinterest.com/pin/72831718946392496/)

Source: img-fan.theonering.net (http://img-fan.theonering.net/~rolozo/images/chmiel/Boromir_Faramir_and_Finduilas_study.jpg) via María Eugenia (http://pinterest.com/maescio/) on Pinterest (http://pinterest.com)

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

I just replied to you, but my comment got marked as spam because I tried to include a lovely image of Boromir and Faramir as children. How do I get it out of the spam filter?

[ioanna-ioannina.livejournal.com]

Bad LJ!
Maybe a link?

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

No, that was the problem, actually. You can't include links, and the image code I tried to paste did. Try googling "Boromir Faramir Chmiel" and you should be able to find it.

I'll try reposting the rest of the comment later. Briefly, our Dad read us the books when I was ten, and I can never, ever remember thinking Boromir a bad guy. I adore Faramir - but the brothers' love for each other is so strong! How can anyone who loves Faramir be a bad guy?

As to the morality of the two authors, no arguments from me!

[ioanna-ioannina.livejournal.com]

I've found it. Awww!

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Good! For those who haven't, I'm going to try again, without a link. Granted, we've strayed far from Deathly Hallows - but would that any of the trio had grown up into such fine people as these two.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

That's the problem with these kids: They're not old and experienced enough to realize that sometimes authors can be very messed up people who intend to write one thing but actually write something very different. So when the author indicates that "so and so's the hero, and it's okay when he does this," they take that assertion at face value and don't think, "Wait a minute. That's not really heroic behavior. We're being told one thing and shown something else." It takes time, experience, and maturity to be able to figure that out. And many people never develop the ability to do that.

Several months ago, I was talking to a middle-aged woman about the Twilight books. I mentioned how sick and disgusting it is when Edward repeatedly tells Bella he has to restrain himself from killing her, and that such scenes tell girls that men with violent impulses towards them are sexy and romantic. She blew off my objections, saying, "Oh, that's just because he doesn't want to turn her into a vampire." So It's Okay If A Cullen Does It, too.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

What's interesting also, and what shows the pernicious influence of Harry Potter, is something that came up in a conversation I had with oryx a while back. I mentioned the Percy Jackson books as promoting honor and integrity. She said she'd seen the movie of The Lightning Thief, and that not only did she care nothing for Percy or his mother, but that Percy'd done something so bad it was worthy of Hermione. She didn't say what it was, but nothing like that happened in the books. Apparently, the movie makers decided they needed to make Percy more of a badass in the movie--you know, more like Harry, the Big Deal Hero of this generation.

[oryx_leucoryx]

FYI in the movie Percy puts medusa's head in the fridge and sticks a note telling his stepfather to not open the fridge.

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

What happens in the book is that Percy comes home with the head and is strongly tempted to show it to his stepfather when he realizes the man has been hitting Percy's mom. (The SF was always verbally abusive and demeaning to both Percy and his mom, but I don't think he'd ever hit either one.) He decides not to because that would be demeaning to his mother. She's an adult; she got herself into this situation; it would be robbing her of her autonomy for Percy to rescue her. He goes back to Camp Half-Blood and later receives a letter from his mother telling him she just got a large payment for selling an "amazingly realistic" statue of a man playing cards, the SF's favorite occupation. She uses the money to go back to school and get a good job.

I loved the way the author, Rick Riordan, showed that sometimes being a hero means not rescuing others. Sometimes they have to be allowed to rescue themselves. That's a remarkably mature and nuanced message, especially for a "kid's book." It's one of the things I love about that series.

Similarly complex messages are found in the last book of the series. Percy admits he wasn't the one primarily responsible for the defeat of Kronos. It was Clarisse, a girl who can't stand Percy, and who's been tormenting him from the first book. Imagine if Draco had been the one to defeat Voldemort, and Harry admitted it! Percy also insists even the demi-gods and -goddesses who betrayed his side be buried with full honors because they realized at the end they'd done wrong and tried to rectify it. You'll never find such generosity of spirit in Harry Potter. Rick Riordan rules!

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Well, sure. Snape's an adult. Only teenagers matter.

In the book, Harry just sits there staring at Snape, watching him bleed to death. (Not that Hermione or Ron behave any better.) It's as if he's already dissociated, the way he does after he looks at the memories and realizes he has to die. Researching dissociation for this sporking, I've realized there's a good case to be made that Harry has a dissociative disorder of some kind, and that it becomes active under certain stressful circumstances.