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deathtocapslock2013-09-28 11:17 pm
for-diddled.livejournal.com) wrote in deathtocapslock2013-09-28 11:17 pm
HBP Chapter Twenty: "Lord Voldemort's Request"
* Hitting bludgers at somebody is very dangerous, and Harry could have been seriously harmed if Coote and Peakes hadn’t caught him. So why use them at all? And for that matter, how come we don’t see more Quidditch injuries? IRL, and if bludgers were always as dangerous as they are here, we’d expect pretty much every match to end with half the players maimed or incapacitated. Honestly, Rowling, try and show some consistency. Either bludgers are annoyances that make you drop the ball, or they lead to serious injuries. Which is it?
* Luna thinks Ron’s making fun of her when he says how much he enjoyed the commentary. Of course, she should have known already that Ron, like all righteous people, just loves seeing Zach Smith humiliated. It serves him right for running away from Voldemort eighteen months in the future!
* Harry runs off to see Dumbledore, and leaves Hermione to do his homework for him. Yeah, I can totally see somebody like this rising to command the élite wizard police force before his thirtieth birthday.
* Maybe Hermione will do his case work for him. And his cooking and laundry, too. I can really see why Lavender might feel jealous of her.
* Dumbledore gets all passive-aggressive about Harry’s not retrieving the memory. I’m still not sure why it’s supposedly so vital, though, since he’s already got more than enough evidence that Tom is using horcruxes. About the only really important information the memory contains is that bit about making seven, but even that’s dubious (Tom might have changed his mind later, or not got around to making them all), and besides it’s not as if Dumbledore’s got any reason to think that this info is in the memory.
* Also, it’s a bit rich for Dumbledore to encourage everybody to show him blind obedience and unquestioning loyalty, and then complain when they’re not very good at thinking up ingenious schemes for themselves.
* Most likely, of course, Dumble’s just manipulating Harry into feeling ashamed and inadequate and even less likely to question the Twinkly One.
* “The idea that Dumbledore valued his opinion this highly” – yeah, don’t flatter yourself, Harry, Dumbledore doesn’t care what you think, unless knowing your opinions will make it easier for him to manipulate you somehow. This goes for everybody else he comes into contact with, too.
* Of course Dumbledore didn’t see fit to tell Dippet about his suspicions regarding Tom.
* Tom wanted to use his teaching position to indoctrinate students and build himself an army. Naturally Dumbledore was determined to stop him. There’s only room for one schoolroom indoctrinator in the wizarding world, Riddle, and don’t you forget it.
* “Professor Dippet was very fond of Voldemort and convinced of his honesty” – gee, I wonder if that had anything to do with the fact that Dumbledore had never told anybody about Tom’s psychopathic tendencies.
* Harry goes into the first memory. We can immediately tell that Hepzibah is morally degenerate because she wears pink.
* Also because she’s fat. Gosh, imagine how much she must have eaten to get like that. She really ought to have learned the virtue of moderation, like Harry, who always limits his portions at breakfast to nine bacon sandwiches or less.
* Hepzibah’s basically a female version of Slughorn: fat, vain, easy to see through and liable to slobber creepily over people young enough to be their children.
* Tom, on the other hand, looks even dreamier than before, although for some reason he’s wearing a suit rather than a set of robes.
* Everybody believes the elf must have poisoned Hepzibah, which makes Harry suddenly feel sympathetic towards Hermione’s SPEW group. Not sympathetic enough to actually help with SPEW’s activities, of course, or to free his own house elf, or to press for greater legal protections for house elves in general. Or to do anything at all, really.
* Tom’s no longer pretty in this next memory. Bad luck, Harry, looks like you’ll have to find someone else to swoon over.
* It’s no wonder Dumbledore prefers to remain at Hogwarts than to become Minister. After all, people are just so much easier to brainwash when they’re still young and impressionable.
* Tom seems sceptical about Dumbledore’s pronouncement that love is more powerful than dark magic. Possibly he’s wondering why, if that’s the case, Dumbledore doesn’t actually act in that loving a way.
* “‘I’m glad to hear that you consider them friends,’ said Dumbledore. ‘I was under the impression that they are more in the order of servants.’” No wonder Dumbledore’s lot hate the DEs so much. Narcissism of small differences, and all that.
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I wonder if there are times when Voldemort feels insulted by Harry being his rival. “I was a prefect and Head Boy and I learned how to conquer death… and my destined nemesis is a teenager who is only interested in Quidditch and has his friend do all of his homework for him?”
/Dumbledore didn’t see fit to tell Dippet about his suspicions regarding Tom/
Oh, but he’ll see fit to tell Dippet to not consider Tom for the DADA position. Possibly harboring a monster that killed a student? Not important enough to mention. Wanting to teach at Hogwarts? OH, DON’T YOU DARE, YOUNG MAN!
/Dumbledore had never told anybody about Tom’s psychopathic tendencies/
Again, why did JKR set it up this way? Why didn’t Albus tell anybody? If this took place in the Muggle world, he could be arrested for being an accomplice to a crime or for criminal negligence. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t have Dumbledore be this powerful figure who knows everything and does nothing about it, but is still supposed to be benevolent. Otherwise you’re going to run into “The Problem of Evil.”
Unless we’re supposed to look down at Dippet because he can’t innately sense Tom’s evil like Albus can and he has to be told that Tom is bad news instead of just figuring it out on his own.
/Hepzibah’s basically a female version of Slughorn: fat, vain, easy to see through and liable to slobber creepily over people young enough to be their children/
Yeah…this is where things become uncomfortable for me, both from the text and from the fandom. I disagree with the fandom’s interpretation of Slughorn as an ephebophile. However, no matter how much I may dislike it, the interpretation is there. But what’s even more troubling is how Slughorn’s sexuality is portrayed, as well as that of Hepzibah. Because I agree with you: Hepzibah is the female version of Slughorn in the sense that both are overweight, middle-aged, gullible, portrayed as contemptible, and easily won over by Tom. And what’s troubling to me is that, in a lot of fanfics, her feelings towards Tom are often excused or romanticized. She’s viewed as pathetic instead of predatory and the same thing happens to Slughorn. In a lot of fanfics, he’s often excused for having feelings for one of his students – nay, it’s perfectly natural! After all, Tom is just so handsome.
Yes, I know that Tom is mature for his age. Yes, I know that he’s a psychopath. Yes, I know that in this scene with Hepzibah, he’s technically an adult. But that doesn’t change the fact that Hepzibah is “greedily” ogling someone who is young enough to be her son. That doesn’t change the fact that Pedo!Slughorn, in a lot of fanfics, sexually fantasizes about someone who is also young enough to be his son and who has been his student from the age of eleven. Yet in so many fanfics, Hepzibah and Slughorn are portrayed as lovelorn saps who just can’t help themselves.
Another reason why this bothers me is because I just know that if one swapped Tom with Hermione and switched Hepzibah with Slughorn in this scene, everyone would calling Slughorn a creepy and perverted pedophile who needed to be locked up (I bet that even many Snape/Hermione fans would call foul). But with Hepzibah, it’s okay because she’s just a silly and pathetic old woman and besides, the guy that she’s lusting over is evil!
/for some reason he’s wearing a suit rather than a set of robes/
Tom is visiting a witch and he’s presumably passing himself off as a pureblood (or, at least, as a half-blood who kowtows to pureblood ways) and he’s wearing a suit? Are suits acceptable wizarding attire, then? If that’s the case, then why did Barty Crouch Sr. stand out when he wore a suit?
I mean, I know that Voldemort wore a suit in the OotP movie, but that was in the train station and he was appearing only to Harry. Or did the movies change JKR's mind?
/Not sympathetic enough to actually help with SPEW’s activities, of course, or to free his own house elf, or to press for greater legal protections for house elves in general/
*sighs* Well, his author ended up not doing anything about the house elves, so why should he? I’m still trying to figure out what the whole point of SPEW and the house elves were.
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Remember that sometime around then Dumbles came to own the Deathstick. And Tom had in his possession a stone with the symbol of the Hallows. I think Dumbles feared Tom was after his wand.
Unless we’re supposed to look down at Dippet because he can’t innately sense Tom’s evil like Albus can and he has to be told that Tom is bad news instead of just figuring it out on his own.
Dumbles wouldn't have figured it out on his own based on what Dippet could know. Dumbles recognized it because he met Tom at the orphanage, before he put up the brilliant, eager student front.
Re: Pedo!Slughorn - I saw some Horace/Lily fics that were sweet, even before the movie came out with that goldfish(?) thing.
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I'm afraid I don't quite follow you here - are you implying it's awful to feel an attraction to someone who'is younger than you yourself are? If so, why?
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That being said, I think that there's no problem with such pairings as long as both parties are legally adults and fully and freely consent* to the relationship. I can't even bring myself to condemn someone older falling in love with someone inappropriately younger than themselves, or even situations like a teacher falling in love with their student. Every time I try, I remember some advice my grandmother gave me when I was younger: "Getting married doesn't mean you stop falling in love with other people. Lots of people do. What it means is you stop doing anything about it." People fall in love when they fall in love and no position or commitment guarantees the people you connect to emotionally will be the ones you can develop a relationship with.
When you fall in love with someone you can absolutely under no circumstances be with - that's tragic.
When you fall in love with someone who's under age or under your care and Act. On. It! - now you're going to The Special Place in Hell on a fast track.
*Any relationship in which one party is under the direct control of the other, as student, employee, whatever, cannot to my mind give truly free consent just by the nature of the relationship.
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Theoretically, Hepzibah’s feelings for Tom wouldn’t be much of an issue because they’re both consenting adults. But it’s the way that the scenario and relationship between them have been set up that is unsettling on multiple levels. There’s the fact that she’s old enough to be his mother that’s disquieting. There’s also the fact that she’s his client; the only reason that he’s in her house in the first place is to do business with her. But she actually sulks when she thinks that Tom is only there for her antiques: as in, he’s only there because he’s doing his job.
There’s the fact that the relationship is entirely one-sided since Tom clearly does not reciprocate her feelings. He gives her flowers as a means to sway her, which puts him in the role of manipulator and seems to indicate that he is holding the reins of power in this relationship. Yet, financially, he is dependent on her in a way because she is his customer. It’s not a surprise that a few people jokingly compared the relationship between Tom and Hepzibah to that of a gigolo and his much older client. Tom doesn’t like Hepzibah, yet he has to put up with her unwanted advances because of her money (and antiques). The scenario just by itself is troubling enough; the big age difference just makes it worse.
And then there’s the double standard. Again, if a pretty young woman was in the house of a much older man strictly to do business and he was flirting with her and hinting that they should be more than business partners while she was just trying to do her job, a lot of people would see him as a creep and probably wouldn’t feel too bad that she ended up killing him. But switch the genders around with Tom and Hepzibah, and suddenly Hepzibah is a poor woman who only wanted love.
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Ministers usually get replaced within 10 years or so. Dumbles managed to remain headmaster for some 40 years or so.
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Harry being given command of the elite wizard police force is consistent with the JK portrays her wizarding world.
Dumbledore defeats Grindwald and becomes headmaster. Ludo Bagman is made Head of Magical Games and Sports. So what if he is lack in sercurity and in Mad Eye Moody's word always been dim - he was a Quidditch star! Arthur Weasly doesn't understand even basic muggle items, yet is in charge of the misuse of muggle artifacts.
People like Percy who think competence matters are looked down on.
“‘I’m glad to hear that you consider them friends,’ said Dumbledore. ‘I was under the impression that they are more in the order of servants.’” No wonder Dumbledore’s lot hate the DEs so much. Narcissism of small differences, and all that.
Is there anyone Dumbledore considers his friend?
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