Deathly Hallows, Chapter 23: Malfoy Manor
Jan. 2nd, 2014 07:11 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslockBeethoven was right: It’s vastly harder to rewrite something you’ve finished than to write something entirely new. Especially when you have to revert to HTML because that’s the only way to enter tables on LJ. Aaaaagggggghhhhh!!!!!
I apologize if they look weird, but I followed the instructions, and that's how they turned out. However, the instructions were posted almost eight years ago, and LJ has changed its programming some since then. It's also possible I couldn't transfer my tables because I wrote this on iPages, not Word.
Are everybody’s barf bags at the ready? All right, then, let’s go!
Hermione hits Harry in the face with a spell that makes his face swell up as if he’s just been stung by an entire hive of bees. The Trio lies about their names, and Harry’s pseudonym is particularly dumb: Vernon Dudley. I know I’m probably being entirely too logical, but if I were in charge of the DEs and their allies, I would give them a list naming not just the people I was looking for, but also their quarries’ friends and relatives. If that had been done, the Snatchers would immediately have said, “Vernon Dudley? Oh, yeah, Harry Potter grew up with an uncle named Vernon and a cousin named Dudley. Given how dumb Potter is, this is probably him using a phony name.” Of course, calling Harry “dumb” would prick his Gryffindor pride, making him indignant, and he would reveal himself by that alone.
Fenrir Greyback says Voldemort’s name has been tabooed because his enemies weren’t showing him the proper respect, so he wanted to be able to punish them when they acted rude. At last the business of referring to him by pseudonyms makes sense. In the previous books, it just makes everybody look too wimpy to call him by his alias. Come to think of it, they still look wimpy in the books when he was incorporeal.
I wonder whether Voldemort is the only name that’s tabooed? What about Tom Riddle? What if somebody calls him a satiric corruption of his name, like Moldyshorts, Oldywart, or even Noisyfart? Those epithets are much more disrespectful than calling him by his assumed name. And if he were really as mean and nasty as he’s cracked up to be, he’d also taboo “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” and “You-Know-Who.” Think of the fun! He and the DEs could wipe out nearly all their enemies at once, just by waiting for them to slip up and use one of his silly pseudonyms.
Despite the efforts of Hermione the Genius, the Trio are found out and taken to Malfoy Manor, along with Dean Thomas and Griphook the goblin. When they arrive, Batty Bellatrix is in charge, and Draco is dragged over to see if he can ID any of the prisoners. He very reluctantly IDs Hermione, which means two of the others must be Ron and Harry. Fenrir Greyback makes some leering remarks about Hermione, but there’s no tension because we know JKR won’t allow her self-insert to be sexually abused.
However, she will allow her to be tortured. With true Gryffindor gallantry, Ron offers himself instead, but Bella wants to spill some muddy blood with her pretty silver knife. Technically, only the handle could be silver; the blade would have to be stainless steel, or a similarly hard metal. Silver is too soft to make an effective knife blade.
Ron, Harry, and the other prisoners are stashed in the cellar, where they find Luna and Ollivander already there. Meanwhile, Bella starts in on Hermione, demanding to know where she got the Sword of Gryffindor, which is supposed to be in Bella’s vault at Gringotts.
I didn’t start out creating tables for this chapter, but they worked so well in my sporking of chapter 35, part 1, that I made some for this chapter, also. First, take a look at how Rowling portrays the torture of Xeno Lovegood in chapter 21. Everyone’s actions and reactions are detailed, and separate assaults on a particular page are designated by number in the Descriptions and Reactions columns. Page numbers refer to the American Scholastic hardcover edition of DH.
Notice the way Xeno reacts to being tortured: He is described as screaming after the first attack. Then he squeals repeatedly, although the second mention of him squealing is dismissed with the phrase, “repeated squeals of agony.” Note that he is described as screaming only once; the rest of the time he squeals, which makes him sound more like a nonhuman animal (a traitorous pig, maybe?) than a human. Next he sobs, and finally, he gives “a wail of fear and despair,” maybe because he’s realized, as terri_testing has asserted, that he’s not going to get out of this encounter alive.
Rowling minimizes the terrible suffering of this old man in two ways: First, she compresses several vicious attacks into one short phrase: “...there was a volley of bangs interspersed with squeals.” The dictionary in my computer defines volley as “a number of bullets, arrows, or other projectiles discharged at one time.” The thesaurus lists the following as some of volley’s synonyms: barrage, bombardment, fusillade, hail, shower, deluge, torrent. In other words, Xeno was cursed at least several times in quick succession, and possibly dozens of times. Hundreds of times is unlikely, given the short time span, but it’s not out of the question. Anyone who doubts these assertions should consider how quickly it’s possible to get soaked in a shower, deluge, or torrent of water. Or watch the title characters’ death scene from the 1967 movie Bonnie and Clyde. That’s what a barrage, bombardment, fusillade, or hail of bullets looks like. Imagine Xeno being cursed even half that many times, half that quickly. It looks a whole lot worse than Rowling makes it sound, doesn’t it?
Notice also that, although he is referred to as being hurt seven times, he only reacts vocally five times. This makes it appear he was not seriously injured by two of those curses. It’s also possible he was briefly knocked unconscious from the assaults and then revived. This would mean he was hurt worse in those instances than in the others, but since the scene is told from the point of view of the Hs, who didn’t see what was happening (and didn’t care, either), we can’t be sure what occurred.
That’s disgusting enough, but it actually gets worse. Now look at the elaborate, loving detail Rowling lavishes on Hermione’s sufferings in this chapter.
So the multiple episodes of Xeno’s torturing are blown off with just a few brief mentions that contain no detailed descriptions of how he was injured or how badly, let alone what his screams sounded like. The DEs hurt him at least as many times as Bella hurts Hermione, and over a shorter period, but his torture is virtually shrugged off by the narrator, being dismissed by only a few brief mentions over just one-and-a-half pages. By contrast, Bella’s torture of Hermione goes on for six pages, with each assault and each scream described in detail, and is briefly described on three other pages. There are nine attacks altogether, judging by the number of screams.
Look also at how Rowling structures these scenes. First, take Hermione and Bella: (1) Bella yells her questions. (2) She cuts Hermione. (3) Hermione screams. In other words, there is a loud sound, then silence, then another loud sound. Like rests in music, those silent pauses between the vocalizations put the focus on the sounds that come after the pauses, i.e., Hermione’s screams. Rowling increases the emphasis in two other ways: (1) Her histrionic descriptions of the screams, e. g., “Hermione’s screams echoed off the walls upstairs.”(2) Her equally histrionic descriptions of Harry and Ron's reactions, e.g., Ron repeatedly bellowing "HERMIONE!", and “The sound went through Harry like physical pain.” There are also several descriptions of their frantic efforts to escape the cellar and assist Hermione.
Contrast that with chapter 21, when the DEs attacked Xeno Lovegood: (1) A DE yells a question. (2) There is a loud “bang” as a curse is fired. (3) Xeno shrieks. By having a yelled question, then a “bang,” then a scream, the loud noises all run together, which implies they’re all equally important. This takes the focus off the torture of an innocent man and gives equal weight to his torturers’ interrogation of him--which is about the Trio. So even when a harmless old man is being tortured, what really matters is not the victim’s suffering, but the danger the interrogation poses to Rowling’s self-inserts (and sidekick)--two of whom are torturers themselves! (Remember Harry’s tormenting of Filch. Come to think of it, Rowling seems to have a thing for defenseless old men being tortured. I wonder if that’s another expression of her hostility towards her father?)
This was also not the first time Lovegood was attacked by the DEs. It was the third time in as many weeks. It isn’t stated outright that he was harmed on the other two occasions, but only a fool would believe the DEs didn’t torture him when he disappointed them on their previous visits. In addition, Xeno is an old man, not a healthy teenager. That alone makes it worse to torture him than Hermione.
Rowling’s own indifference to a minor character’s completely gratuitous pain is made explicit by the behavior of her “heroic” Hs: They have no reaction at all to any of the times Xeno is attacked, despite their not only being able to clearly hear his shrieks of agony, but also being close enough to render assistance to him. They don’t even talk about helping him. They just stand there listening, like Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel (the “village idiot” character on The Simpsons) trying to make conversation with Stephen Hawking at a cocktail party. They couldn’t care less about saving, protecting, or even helping this pathetic old man who is being tortured right under their noses! (Just like Dumbledore’s attitude towards the suffering baby in “King’s Cross,” come to think of it. There’s an excellent reason for that, as we’ll see in part 2 of that chapter.) They don’t wake up and start responding to the danger of the situation until they hear Xeno leading the DEs up the stairs to get them. In other words, it isn’t until their own asses are on the line that they bestir themselves to action--and then they only exert enough effort to save themselves, not Xeno.
Now, I expect Harry and Ron to react far more strongly to the torture of their friend than to that of someone they don’t know, and whom they regard as having betrayed them. That’s only natural. What is not natural is for any of the Trio to have no reaction at all to someone screaming in agony just a few yards/meters away. For them to feel nothing--no shock, no horror, no revulsion, no desire to help--is at best catatonic, and at worst psychopathic. These characters are not just monumentally selfish; they also seem to be lacking the most basic of human instincts for the care and protection of members of their own species. They are, well, freaks.
They are also gutless. What was it Harry told himself while trying to work up the nerve to jump into the frozen pool? Oh, yeah: “Their daring, nerve, and chivalry set Gryffindors apart.” And what was it James boasted about Gryffindor on that first train ride to Hogwarts? “Gryffindor, where dwell the brave of heart.”
Coulda fooled me.
Returning to Bella’s interrogation of Hermione, I know I’m supposed to be all high-minded and aver, “Torture is always wrong,” but I just can’t get worked up in this case. I also know I’m supposed to see this as an innocent, noble young girl being horribly tormented by a sadistic fiend, but after cataloguing Hermione’s own crimes earlier, I see this as one violent, ruthless criminal abusing another. It reminds me of a book by Kathy Reichs called Deadly Decisions, about a conflict between biker gangs in Canada. The attitude of most of the respectable citizens in the story was, “So what? They’re cleaning up the country by killing each other.” That’s how I feel about Bella torturing Hermione. In fact, when I read this chapter, I thought, “IT’S KARMA, BABY! I’M JUST SORRY YOUR ROTTEN LITTLE FRIENDS DIDN’T GET THEIRS, TOO!”
Back to the story:
I love the way Ron and Hermione compete as loudmouths, with her screaming loudly enough for the sound to echo off the walls, and him bellowing her name each time she screams. I’m really surprised nobody bellowed back, “SHUT THE FUCK UP, RON! YOU’RE DEAFENING US!”
While Ron is uselessly screaming, Luna is making herself useful by using a rusty nail to cut through the ropes binding the prisoners. Ron stops yelling long enough to bring out his Deluminator, which has some lights from their tent stored in it. Harry gets out his magic mirror and, seeing the blue eye in it again, tells where they are and demands help.
Draco is ordered to bring Griphook upstairs to look at the sword and authenticate it. Little does Draco know that Harry has persuaded the goblin to proclaim sword a fake even if it’s not.
Dobby suddenly appears and Apparates Luna, Dean, and Ollivander to Shell Cottage. I thought one had to be familiar with one’s destination to Apparate there, and Dobby’s never been to Bill’s house. Either Rowling’s screwed up again, or this is another difference between elves and humans regarding the rules of Apparition.
Lucius hears the crack of Apparition and orders Pettigrew to investigate what’s going on in the cellar. Ron and Harry grab Peter, and Ron takes his wand. Peter’s first impulse is to strangle Harry with his awesome silver hand, his master’s wishes be damned, but Harry reminds Pettigrew he owes Harry a life debt for saving him back in PoA. Just as if this were a 1950s B-horror movie, the hand gets angry at Peter’s merciful act and turns on him, strangling him instead. All those fan theories about how the hand would be used against Remus, and that were much cooler than anything in the actual book, bite the dust along with Peter.
Although Ron and Harry try to save Pettigrew, they are unsuccessful. They drop his body and head upstairs to rescue Hermione. They see her collapsed on the floor at Bella’s feet, while Griphook examines the sword. He conveniently declares it a fake and gets slashed in the face and kicked by Bella for his trouble. She then calls Voldemort and offers Hermione to Fenrir.
Ron completely blows the element of surprise--stupid Gryffindor! he could use some Slytherin subtlety--by screaming, “NOOOOOOOOOOOO!” and charging into the room, wand a-blazing. Bella loses her wand, which Harry grabs, but she gains Hermione and holds a knife to her throat, which she uses to force Ron and Harry to surrender.
Dobby exhibits both Gryffindor foolhardiness and Slytherin dramatics by making the crystal chandelier drop onto Bella, Hermione, and Griphook. Bella drops Hermione and leaps to the side, but the light fixture lands on the girl and the goblin.
As Ron rescues his girlfriend, Harry grabs the three wands Draco’s holding and Stupefies Greyback. Narcissa rescues Draco, who has cuts all over his face from the flying, broken crystals, and Bella screams at Dobby, calling him a traitor. Dobby Apparates out with the Trio, just as Bella throws her knife at him. They land at Shell Cottage, just in time for Dobby to die in front of Harry from Bella’s knife.
While all this was going on, Harry’s Voldie-vision allowed him to tune into the Dull Lord tracking down, questioning, and killing Gregorovitch. Although Harry manfully fought against the mental contact, he conveniently received just enough information to move the story forward.
Whew! That chapter was a long one--29 pages of histrionics and screaming. On the plus side, we are now fewer than 300 pages from the end of the book. Hang on, people! We can make it!
Happy New Year, everyone!
I apologize if they look weird, but I followed the instructions, and that's how they turned out. However, the instructions were posted almost eight years ago, and LJ has changed its programming some since then. It's also possible I couldn't transfer my tables because I wrote this on iPages, not Word.
Are everybody’s barf bags at the ready? All right, then, let’s go!
Hermione hits Harry in the face with a spell that makes his face swell up as if he’s just been stung by an entire hive of bees. The Trio lies about their names, and Harry’s pseudonym is particularly dumb: Vernon Dudley. I know I’m probably being entirely too logical, but if I were in charge of the DEs and their allies, I would give them a list naming not just the people I was looking for, but also their quarries’ friends and relatives. If that had been done, the Snatchers would immediately have said, “Vernon Dudley? Oh, yeah, Harry Potter grew up with an uncle named Vernon and a cousin named Dudley. Given how dumb Potter is, this is probably him using a phony name.” Of course, calling Harry “dumb” would prick his Gryffindor pride, making him indignant, and he would reveal himself by that alone.
Fenrir Greyback says Voldemort’s name has been tabooed because his enemies weren’t showing him the proper respect, so he wanted to be able to punish them when they acted rude. At last the business of referring to him by pseudonyms makes sense. In the previous books, it just makes everybody look too wimpy to call him by his alias. Come to think of it, they still look wimpy in the books when he was incorporeal.
I wonder whether Voldemort is the only name that’s tabooed? What about Tom Riddle? What if somebody calls him a satiric corruption of his name, like Moldyshorts, Oldywart, or even Noisyfart? Those epithets are much more disrespectful than calling him by his assumed name. And if he were really as mean and nasty as he’s cracked up to be, he’d also taboo “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” and “You-Know-Who.” Think of the fun! He and the DEs could wipe out nearly all their enemies at once, just by waiting for them to slip up and use one of his silly pseudonyms.
Despite the efforts of Hermione the Genius, the Trio are found out and taken to Malfoy Manor, along with Dean Thomas and Griphook the goblin. When they arrive, Batty Bellatrix is in charge, and Draco is dragged over to see if he can ID any of the prisoners. He very reluctantly IDs Hermione, which means two of the others must be Ron and Harry. Fenrir Greyback makes some leering remarks about Hermione, but there’s no tension because we know JKR won’t allow her self-insert to be sexually abused.
However, she will allow her to be tortured. With true Gryffindor gallantry, Ron offers himself instead, but Bella wants to spill some muddy blood with her pretty silver knife. Technically, only the handle could be silver; the blade would have to be stainless steel, or a similarly hard metal. Silver is too soft to make an effective knife blade.
Ron, Harry, and the other prisoners are stashed in the cellar, where they find Luna and Ollivander already there. Meanwhile, Bella starts in on Hermione, demanding to know where she got the Sword of Gryffindor, which is supposed to be in Bella’s vault at Gringotts.
I didn’t start out creating tables for this chapter, but they worked so well in my sporking of chapter 35, part 1, that I made some for this chapter, also. First, take a look at how Rowling portrays the torture of Xeno Lovegood in chapter 21. Everyone’s actions and reactions are detailed, and separate assaults on a particular page are designated by number in the Descriptions and Reactions columns. Page numbers refer to the American Scholastic hardcover edition of DH.
| Page Number | Times Xeno-Related Action Mentioned | Description of Words and Actions | Xeno's Reactions | Trio's Reactions |
| 420 | 4 | 1) “There was a bang and a scream of pain from Xenophilius.” 2) “another bang, another squeal” 3) bang 4) bang |
1) scream 2) squeal 3) none 4) none |
none mentioned |
| 421 | 3 | 1) “...there was a volley of bangs interspersed with squeals of agony from Xenophilius” 2) Xeno sobs while speaking 3) “Xenophilius gave a wail of fear and despair.” |
1) repeated squeals of agony 2) sobbing 3) wailing |
none mentioned |
| 422 | 5 | 1) Xeno tries to climb the stairs. 2) Xeno draws nearer. 3) He’s feet away. 4) He tries to shift more debris. 5) His face appears before them. | none mentioned | 1) Harry says they have to leave. The Hs climb over debris. 2) Hermione frees Ron. 3) She tells Ron and Harry what to do. 4) She continues to give orders. 5) She Obliviates Xeno and makes the floor collapse under them all. |
Notice the way Xeno reacts to being tortured: He is described as screaming after the first attack. Then he squeals repeatedly, although the second mention of him squealing is dismissed with the phrase, “repeated squeals of agony.” Note that he is described as screaming only once; the rest of the time he squeals, which makes him sound more like a nonhuman animal (a traitorous pig, maybe?) than a human. Next he sobs, and finally, he gives “a wail of fear and despair,” maybe because he’s realized, as terri_testing has asserted, that he’s not going to get out of this encounter alive.
Rowling minimizes the terrible suffering of this old man in two ways: First, she compresses several vicious attacks into one short phrase: “...there was a volley of bangs interspersed with squeals.” The dictionary in my computer defines volley as “a number of bullets, arrows, or other projectiles discharged at one time.” The thesaurus lists the following as some of volley’s synonyms: barrage, bombardment, fusillade, hail, shower, deluge, torrent. In other words, Xeno was cursed at least several times in quick succession, and possibly dozens of times. Hundreds of times is unlikely, given the short time span, but it’s not out of the question. Anyone who doubts these assertions should consider how quickly it’s possible to get soaked in a shower, deluge, or torrent of water. Or watch the title characters’ death scene from the 1967 movie Bonnie and Clyde. That’s what a barrage, bombardment, fusillade, or hail of bullets looks like. Imagine Xeno being cursed even half that many times, half that quickly. It looks a whole lot worse than Rowling makes it sound, doesn’t it?
Notice also that, although he is referred to as being hurt seven times, he only reacts vocally five times. This makes it appear he was not seriously injured by two of those curses. It’s also possible he was briefly knocked unconscious from the assaults and then revived. This would mean he was hurt worse in those instances than in the others, but since the scene is told from the point of view of the Hs, who didn’t see what was happening (and didn’t care, either), we can’t be sure what occurred.
That’s disgusting enough, but it actually gets worse. Now look at the elaborate, loving detail Rowling lavishes on Hermione’s sufferings in this chapter.
| Page Number | Times Hermione-Related Action Mentioned | Description of Words and Actions | Hermione's Reactions | Ron and Harry's Reactions |
| 463 | 1 | “...there was a terrible, drawn-out scream from directly above them.” | “terrible, drawn-out scream” | Ron bellows, “HERMIONE!” and starts to “writhe and struggle against the ropes” that tie him and Harry together. |
| 464 | 5 | 3) “Hermione screamed again....” | scream | 1) Ron yells, “HERMIONE!” three times in reaction to scream on 463 2) Harry tells Ron to be quiet so they can plan. 3) Ron bellows her name twice more when she screams again. 4) Bellatrix questions her again about the sword. |
| 465 | 4 | 1) Hermione says, “we found it--we found it--PLEASE!” and screams again. 2) Bella questions H further; “another terrible scream.” 3) Bella threatens to “run H through” with her knife. | 1) scream 2) “another terrible scream” 3) none listed | 1) Ron struggles some more. 2) Ron bellows her name again. 3) none listed |
| 466 | 7 | 1) H screams again. 2) Bella questions her more and Cruciates her. 3) H screams. | 1) screams again 2) “Hermione’s screams echoed off the walls upstairs.” 3) “Hermione was screaming worse than ever.” | 1) “The sound went through Harry like physical pain.” He runs around the cellar looking for a way out. 2) Ron half sobs and pounds the walls with his fists. Harry “in utter desperation” gropes in his neck pouch for the two-way mirror. 3) Ron bellows her name twice more. |
| 467 | 1 | Bella questions H again. | H sobs as she says the sword is fake. | Harry tells Griphook to lie and say the sword’s fake. |
| 468 | 1 | H screams as she’s “being tortured again.” | “An awful scream drowned out Harry’s words: Hermione was being tortured again.” | They continue to work with Dobby to escape. |
| 469 | 1 | H screams again. | “Hermione screamed again.” | Harry forces himself to come out of his Voldie-vision at her scream. |
| 471 | 2 | 1) H screams again. 2) She’s on the floor. | 1) “Hermione gave a dreadful scream...” 2) H is on the floor at Bella’s feet. “She was barely stirring.” | 1) none mentioned 2) They watch and wait for a good time to attack. |
| 472 | 4 | 1) Bella tells Fenrir to take “the Mudblood.” 2) Harry and Ron attack. 3) Bella tells them to stop or H dies. 4) Harry and Ron pause. | 1) none mentioned 2) none mentioned 3) none mentioned 4) Hermione seems to be unconscious. | 1) Ron bellows, “NOOOOOOOOOOOO!” 2) H and R attack. 3) They pause. |
So the multiple episodes of Xeno’s torturing are blown off with just a few brief mentions that contain no detailed descriptions of how he was injured or how badly, let alone what his screams sounded like. The DEs hurt him at least as many times as Bella hurts Hermione, and over a shorter period, but his torture is virtually shrugged off by the narrator, being dismissed by only a few brief mentions over just one-and-a-half pages. By contrast, Bella’s torture of Hermione goes on for six pages, with each assault and each scream described in detail, and is briefly described on three other pages. There are nine attacks altogether, judging by the number of screams.
Look also at how Rowling structures these scenes. First, take Hermione and Bella: (1) Bella yells her questions. (2) She cuts Hermione. (3) Hermione screams. In other words, there is a loud sound, then silence, then another loud sound. Like rests in music, those silent pauses between the vocalizations put the focus on the sounds that come after the pauses, i.e., Hermione’s screams. Rowling increases the emphasis in two other ways: (1) Her histrionic descriptions of the screams, e. g., “Hermione’s screams echoed off the walls upstairs.”(2) Her equally histrionic descriptions of Harry and Ron's reactions, e.g., Ron repeatedly bellowing "HERMIONE!", and “The sound went through Harry like physical pain.” There are also several descriptions of their frantic efforts to escape the cellar and assist Hermione.
Contrast that with chapter 21, when the DEs attacked Xeno Lovegood: (1) A DE yells a question. (2) There is a loud “bang” as a curse is fired. (3) Xeno shrieks. By having a yelled question, then a “bang,” then a scream, the loud noises all run together, which implies they’re all equally important. This takes the focus off the torture of an innocent man and gives equal weight to his torturers’ interrogation of him--which is about the Trio. So even when a harmless old man is being tortured, what really matters is not the victim’s suffering, but the danger the interrogation poses to Rowling’s self-inserts (and sidekick)--two of whom are torturers themselves! (Remember Harry’s tormenting of Filch. Come to think of it, Rowling seems to have a thing for defenseless old men being tortured. I wonder if that’s another expression of her hostility towards her father?)
This was also not the first time Lovegood was attacked by the DEs. It was the third time in as many weeks. It isn’t stated outright that he was harmed on the other two occasions, but only a fool would believe the DEs didn’t torture him when he disappointed them on their previous visits. In addition, Xeno is an old man, not a healthy teenager. That alone makes it worse to torture him than Hermione.
Rowling’s own indifference to a minor character’s completely gratuitous pain is made explicit by the behavior of her “heroic” Hs: They have no reaction at all to any of the times Xeno is attacked, despite their not only being able to clearly hear his shrieks of agony, but also being close enough to render assistance to him. They don’t even talk about helping him. They just stand there listening, like Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel (the “village idiot” character on The Simpsons) trying to make conversation with Stephen Hawking at a cocktail party. They couldn’t care less about saving, protecting, or even helping this pathetic old man who is being tortured right under their noses! (Just like Dumbledore’s attitude towards the suffering baby in “King’s Cross,” come to think of it. There’s an excellent reason for that, as we’ll see in part 2 of that chapter.) They don’t wake up and start responding to the danger of the situation until they hear Xeno leading the DEs up the stairs to get them. In other words, it isn’t until their own asses are on the line that they bestir themselves to action--and then they only exert enough effort to save themselves, not Xeno.
Now, I expect Harry and Ron to react far more strongly to the torture of their friend than to that of someone they don’t know, and whom they regard as having betrayed them. That’s only natural. What is not natural is for any of the Trio to have no reaction at all to someone screaming in agony just a few yards/meters away. For them to feel nothing--no shock, no horror, no revulsion, no desire to help--is at best catatonic, and at worst psychopathic. These characters are not just monumentally selfish; they also seem to be lacking the most basic of human instincts for the care and protection of members of their own species. They are, well, freaks.
They are also gutless. What was it Harry told himself while trying to work up the nerve to jump into the frozen pool? Oh, yeah: “Their daring, nerve, and chivalry set Gryffindors apart.” And what was it James boasted about Gryffindor on that first train ride to Hogwarts? “Gryffindor, where dwell the brave of heart.”
Coulda fooled me.
Returning to Bella’s interrogation of Hermione, I know I’m supposed to be all high-minded and aver, “Torture is always wrong,” but I just can’t get worked up in this case. I also know I’m supposed to see this as an innocent, noble young girl being horribly tormented by a sadistic fiend, but after cataloguing Hermione’s own crimes earlier, I see this as one violent, ruthless criminal abusing another. It reminds me of a book by Kathy Reichs called Deadly Decisions, about a conflict between biker gangs in Canada. The attitude of most of the respectable citizens in the story was, “So what? They’re cleaning up the country by killing each other.” That’s how I feel about Bella torturing Hermione. In fact, when I read this chapter, I thought, “IT’S KARMA, BABY! I’M JUST SORRY YOUR ROTTEN LITTLE FRIENDS DIDN’T GET THEIRS, TOO!”
Back to the story:
I love the way Ron and Hermione compete as loudmouths, with her screaming loudly enough for the sound to echo off the walls, and him bellowing her name each time she screams. I’m really surprised nobody bellowed back, “SHUT THE FUCK UP, RON! YOU’RE DEAFENING US!”
While Ron is uselessly screaming, Luna is making herself useful by using a rusty nail to cut through the ropes binding the prisoners. Ron stops yelling long enough to bring out his Deluminator, which has some lights from their tent stored in it. Harry gets out his magic mirror and, seeing the blue eye in it again, tells where they are and demands help.
Draco is ordered to bring Griphook upstairs to look at the sword and authenticate it. Little does Draco know that Harry has persuaded the goblin to proclaim sword a fake even if it’s not.
Dobby suddenly appears and Apparates Luna, Dean, and Ollivander to Shell Cottage. I thought one had to be familiar with one’s destination to Apparate there, and Dobby’s never been to Bill’s house. Either Rowling’s screwed up again, or this is another difference between elves and humans regarding the rules of Apparition.
Lucius hears the crack of Apparition and orders Pettigrew to investigate what’s going on in the cellar. Ron and Harry grab Peter, and Ron takes his wand. Peter’s first impulse is to strangle Harry with his awesome silver hand, his master’s wishes be damned, but Harry reminds Pettigrew he owes Harry a life debt for saving him back in PoA. Just as if this were a 1950s B-horror movie, the hand gets angry at Peter’s merciful act and turns on him, strangling him instead. All those fan theories about how the hand would be used against Remus, and that were much cooler than anything in the actual book, bite the dust along with Peter.
Although Ron and Harry try to save Pettigrew, they are unsuccessful. They drop his body and head upstairs to rescue Hermione. They see her collapsed on the floor at Bella’s feet, while Griphook examines the sword. He conveniently declares it a fake and gets slashed in the face and kicked by Bella for his trouble. She then calls Voldemort and offers Hermione to Fenrir.
Ron completely blows the element of surprise--stupid Gryffindor! he could use some Slytherin subtlety--by screaming, “NOOOOOOOOOOOO!” and charging into the room, wand a-blazing. Bella loses her wand, which Harry grabs, but she gains Hermione and holds a knife to her throat, which she uses to force Ron and Harry to surrender.
Dobby exhibits both Gryffindor foolhardiness and Slytherin dramatics by making the crystal chandelier drop onto Bella, Hermione, and Griphook. Bella drops Hermione and leaps to the side, but the light fixture lands on the girl and the goblin.
As Ron rescues his girlfriend, Harry grabs the three wands Draco’s holding and Stupefies Greyback. Narcissa rescues Draco, who has cuts all over his face from the flying, broken crystals, and Bella screams at Dobby, calling him a traitor. Dobby Apparates out with the Trio, just as Bella throws her knife at him. They land at Shell Cottage, just in time for Dobby to die in front of Harry from Bella’s knife.
While all this was going on, Harry’s Voldie-vision allowed him to tune into the Dull Lord tracking down, questioning, and killing Gregorovitch. Although Harry manfully fought against the mental contact, he conveniently received just enough information to move the story forward.
Whew! That chapter was a long one--29 pages of histrionics and screaming. On the plus side, we are now fewer than 300 pages from the end of the book. Hang on, people! We can make it!
Happy New Year, everyone!
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no subject
Date: 2014-01-03 09:14 pm (UTC)And go after those friends and relatives and hold them hostage. Nothing happens to the Dursleys or the Weasleys. After Dudley says goodbye to Harry and heads off with his parents to protective custody, the Dursleys vanish from the book and are never mentioned again. Despite Harry breaking up with Ginny in order to protect her, the Weasleys are never threatened.
/Bella wants to spill some muddy blood with her pretty silver knife./
But not her wand. For some reason, Bella insists on using a knife for most of this chapter instead of a wand. Why a pureblood fanatic like her would ‘behave like a Muggle’ by favoring a Muggle weapon over her own wand, I don’t know. Is it the same reason why James somehow didn’t have his wand on him in this book either?
/after cataloguing Hermione’s own crimes earlier, I see this as one violent, ruthless criminal abusing another./
Torture is always wrong, so I don’t approve of what Bellatrix is doing. I will, however, point out that Hermione’s mutilation and scarring of Marietta is never condemned nor is Harry’s use of the Cruciatus Curse. In fact, Amycus Carrow is not even described as if he is being tortured, like Xenophilius Lovegood was. All that happens is that there’s a “bang” and he goes flying and crumbles in a heap. There are even less pages and paragraphs describing what happened to him than there are of Xenophilius.
So, yes, Bellatrix torturing Hermione = terrible and harrowing. Harry torturing Amycus = not even worth describing as torture.
/the hand gets angry at Peter’s merciful act and turns on him, strangling him instead./
Even though Voldemort explicitly ordered the Death Eaters to not kill Harry, that the boy would be his alone to kill. In fact, Peter doesn’t even set Harry free, he just hesitates. Hesitating to disobey your master’s orders constitutes rebellion and defiance now?
/All those fan theories about how the hand would be used against Remus, and that were much cooler than anything in the actual book, bite the dust along with Peter./
As well as all those fan theories about how the life debt would play out. Yes, it turns out that it wouldn’t be anything as dramatic as Peter saving Harry’s life in return or expressly sparing him or helping to stop Voldemort. Nope, a few minutes of hesitation are all that’s needed to repay Harry’s decision to keep Remus and Sirius from killing Peter. In that case, Harry owes Draco a life debt for hesitating to identify him. Unless JKR forgot what she’d written and thus unintentionally made Dumbledore a liar.
/Harry grabs the three wands Draco’s holding/
And somehow gains mastery of Draco’s wand and the Elder Wand. I guess that means that Snape/Remus/Tom/Peter/Draco/etc. are and were all masters of Harry’s wand at some point?
no subject
Date: 2014-01-04 10:17 am (UTC)"No, not Harry", screamed Lily as Voldemort approached.
"No,not Harry", squealed Lily as Voldemort approached.
IMO it's clear which sentence one would use to convey the horror of this situation.
Torture is always wrong, so I don’t approve of what Bellatrix is doing. I will, however, point out that Hermione’s mutilation and scarring of Marietta is never condemned nor is Harry’s use of the Cruciatus Curse. In fact, Amycus Carrow is not even described as if he is being tortured, like Xenophilius Lovegood was. All that happens is that there’s a “bang” and he goes flying and crumbles in a heap. There are even less pages and paragraphs describing what happened to him than there are of Xenophilius.
Agree with all of this.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-05 02:27 am (UTC)I doubt the Snatchers are as smart as you. Also, multiply the number of people they're looking for by the number of family members and friends, all the permutations, and I doubt the size of the resulting list would be easy for many people to memorise.
- he’d also taboo “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” and “You-Know-Who.”
But isn't that what Riddle *wants* people to call him? They have to call him *something*.
(Actually, I would have thought that 'Lord Voldemort' is exactly what he *would* want people to call him. His minions call him 'my lord'; that's clearly his preference, he *wants* to be called a 'lord'. Lord who? Lord Voldemort -- wait, no, YOU CAN'T CALL ME THAT.
It just doesn't make sense. More of Rowling's silliness. The wizarding public not wanting to mention his name, fine; he's a bad guy. But the bad guy then enforcing a ban on his own (preferred) name/title? I don't get it. Unless someone can explain that to me - better than Fenrir! - I'm chalking this one down as a Rowling flaw. The whole Taboo thing was silly anyway.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-05 02:28 am (UTC)Your tables are pretty, but made redundant by the above facts, I feel.
Also, other reasons why our intrepid heroes would not pay as much attention to Xeno as Hermione:
the girl he loveshis best friend as "sound ... like physical pain".So, yeah. Cute tables are cute but I think you're comparing apples and oranges.
I also know I’m supposed to see this as an innocent, noble young girl being horribly tormented by a sadistic fiend -
Yes.
- but after cataloguing Hermione’s own crimes earlier, I see this as one violent, ruthless criminal abusing another.
Blimey. You've got to be kidding me.
You remind me of one or two excited anti-Hermione fans I've encountered over the years:
Brad: Hermione is the heroine of the books!
Anti-Hr fan: But she's a criminal! She scarred Marietta!
With non-permanent pimples; to a girl who betrayed a multitude of peers to a sadist, breaking an oath in doing so!Brad: She's saved Harry's life innumerable times!
Anti-Hr fan: She scarred Marietta!
mitigating factors as previously conveniently ignored.Brad: She strives to save poor defenceless creatures like Buckbeak!
Anti-Hr fan: Marietta!
Brad: And the elves!
Anti-Hr fan: Marietta!
Brad: She's altruistic, extorting Harry not to lie!
Anti-Hr fan: Marietta!
Brad: She tries her hardest to help her peers learn how to defend themselves!
Anti-Hr fan: Marietta!
Brad (becoming excited): She becomes Minister of Magic, brokers peace in the Middle East and cures cancer!
Anti-Hr fan: Ah ... oh, right - Marietta!
Sorry, I'm feeling a bit silly today. Anyway, a "violent, ruthless criminal"? Hermione Granger? No.
Oh, forgot to say ... although we are supposed to think that Bellatrix is a sadistic expert at torture, I guess it's clear that she left the ULTIMATE torture spell in reserves, right? Worse than blugeoners, worse even than the CRUCIATUS 'super torture' spell itself, Hermione can be only grateful that Bellatrix didn't recourse to the ULTIMATE in the most HORRID of torture spells ...
... and curse the poor girl with pimples!! Right? :-)
no subject
Date: 2014-01-05 03:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-01-05 05:18 am (UTC)Yes, that makes perfect sense. The general public were too scared to use the name; only Harry & Co. used it.
(As an aside, I consider Ron's "DON'T SAY THE NAME ... uhm, because I just have a *feeling*" - to be pretty much the most horribly egregious proof of Rowling's poor abilities as a writer. Honestly, I could see myself using such a stratagem in a story - I don't know how to get the plot from A to B, oh nuts, I'll just wave my hands and have something happen with no reason behind it - that I'd write back in primary school. It's something that even I know a real/mature author shouldn't do. It's horrible. And yet Rowling did it. Does she even 'know', or does she deliberately skip over it in her mind? How can any (self-respecting) author write garbage like that? Argh. Sorry, but the sheer amateurishness of Ron's 'feeling' artificially preventing Harry from saying 'Voldemort' until his author needed him to do so is just so appalling bad ...)
My problem is why the general populace is so scared to say the name in the first place. Wouldn't Riddle *want* them to say it? So the ones that caved would say "Lord Voldemort". The ones that didn't, that resisted in the first war ... they'd omit the title and just say "Voldemort", or otherwise anything else.
Like "Riddle". But that brings up the question as to why Dumbledore never used Riddle's half-blood heritage to completely derail his 'wizard purity' drive in the first place. Something else a character with half a brain wasn't allowed to do because the author didn't want them to, for the convenience of her story's plot.
Still, okay, I suppose by the time of DH itself the choice of taboo makes good sense, thank you. My previous objection isn't as strong as I'd thought.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-05 01:31 pm (UTC)The film made the contemptible crux of Deathly Hallows even worse than the text - having Hermione be fine with Harry's megalomaniacal, schizophrenic impulse to go to his death by dark wizard. The Hermione written in the text for much of the series would have stopped him even if she had to lobotomise him and take him far away from the UK and abandon the matter of Voldemort and the whole shambles of Death Eater rule.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-05 09:54 pm (UTC)Harry would argue that Voldy doesn't seem to be doing it this time (6th year) and THEN Ron would say something about having a 'feeling' that Voldy is luring them into a false sense of security - waiting for Dumbledore followers to get used to saying it before making it a locator once again.
She could even have had Ron comment on how that would be the better strategy instead of doing it as soon as the Ministry accepted Vaoldy was back. For once we would have had a glimpse of the supposed 'chess master'
I totally agree that it is ridiculous that Albus never 'outed' Tommy's blood status. I can only imagine that perhaps he was afraid of a backlash against halfbloods? Or perhaps that Tom would let everyone know that Albus knew exactly what kind of nasty boy he was once his letter was delivered?
no subject
Date: 2014-01-05 10:39 pm (UTC)That does seem to make the most sense.
And Dumbledore's general modis operendi of people should just accept what I say. Don't they realize how brilliant I am? Why should I have to provide proofs or explanations?
no subject
Date: 2014-01-06 11:56 am (UTC)However I'm used to seeing it more as a positive change; like many/most of the canon corrections the films had to try and make sense of Rowling's books (seriously, like, did *anyone*, even Rowling, see a series of 8 films ending with a five minute monologue by the boy hero before he casts a *single spell* to defeat the world's nastiest wizard? And if we wouldn't accept it in a movie ... why a book? The film's entirely different ending is one of the biggest slabs of vindication as to the paucity of Rowling's plot that we ever saw).
Anyway ... sure, you have a point, maybe it's entirely consistent for Hermione to have done everything, even up to casting a stunner, to stop Harry going on his suicide march. Her strongest drive/goal in the whole series is to support him, keep him alive, after all.
On the other hand, her concession that she can't go with him - the "I'll go with you" line - is heralded as a triumph in H/Hr circles. She volunteered to walk with him to his death ... lots of points there, for romance or angst, take your pick.
I tend to take an attitude between your "lobotomise/force" stance and the romantics (although I do like the latter); Hermione would never have accepted that Harry should walk to his death because Harry had not explored other options. I don't think intellect!Hermione could *ever* accept something like that; an impulsive decision to kill oneself. Of course, Harry had been brainwashed by Dumbledore to be a sacrificial pig - that's clear from the text, he felt it was his 'job', he proceeded on automatic, and that's why I discount the boy's heroism a lot from the view of the pro-canon/Jo crowd. I dare say Rowling needed Harry to stay away from Hermione just so Dumbledore's brainwashing wouldn't be questioned by the readers.
I guess we could explain movie!Hermione as quickly working out, in just a few seconds, that Harry had to die. I've forgotten the scene; Harry tells them he's a Horcrux? Maybe she'd read enough to be convinced that there was no other way to get rid of Voldemort. And with Britain the way it was she knew that neither she nor Harry - Gryffindors, after all - could abandon the country in its state under Riddle. So Harry had to die. But she was prepared to go/die with him, to comfort him to the very end ... so yeah, I don't see the scene as 'even worse than the text'. Like most of the film differences, they improved on Rowling's simplistic plots.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-06 07:52 pm (UTC)But isn't that what Riddle *wants* people to call him? They have to call him *something*.
(Actually, I would have thought that 'Lord Voldemort' is exactly what he *would* want people to call him. His minions call him 'my lord'; that's clearly his preference, he *wants* to be called a 'lord'. Lord who? Lord Voldemort -- wait, no, YOU CAN'T CALL ME THAT.
It just doesn't make sense. More of Rowling's silliness. The wizarding public not wanting to mention his name, fine; he's a bad guy. But the bad guy then enforcing a ban on his own (preferred) name/title? I don't get it. Unless someone can explain that to me - better than Fenrir! - I'm chalking this one down as a Rowling flaw. The whole Taboo thing was silly anyway.
My (admittedly joking) headcanon is that "'Lord Voldemort" was one of those "cool"
usernames, net namesnicknames people decide to use when they are young and then years later look think about and groan.Voldy being a dim lord and all couldn't admit that his "name" now sounded embarrassing even to him so he went with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named silliness. xD
Okay, yes I know there's no chance of that but it's the only thing that makes the whole thing bearable.
I agree that Ron's "feeling' it might be a bad idea is preposterous. IF she had just had him tell Harry that he overheard his parents discussing how the name had once been made into a locator in the fist war, then it would make sense. That way Ron could point out information that the trio hadn't had before, that puts saying his name in a new light.
Ah, but that would make sense! And we can't have that.
Beside, Harry and most of the "good" characters have been running on feelings for years. No reason to change that now. After all it's not like any time they had a "feeling" or "just knew" something they made a wrong decisions before, right? *eye roll*
no subject
Date: 2014-01-06 08:34 pm (UTC)It's also spectacularly stupid fake name to use because it's very obviously a muggle name.
While it's true that picking a fake name in a very small community (where you assume everybody knows or have heard of everybody) taking a muggle name while trying to avoid being detained by "mudblood" hunters is not a smart way to go.
Also, Harry saying he was a Slytherin?
I understand that he have only seen Slytherin common room (and it's a nice callback to book2) but come on! The way JKR wrote it most DE and snatchers are past Slytherins. So, if they wanted interrogate Harry on Slytherin ("And how do bedrooms look?" . . .) he'd be out of luck. And some of them may even have kids in Slytherin now. And know that there's no "Vernon Dudley" in Slytherin.
Plus, shouldn't a "good little Slytherin" be at school now? Enjoying being a top dog and lording their power over the rest of the houses? Not hiding in the woods.
Fenrir Greyback makes some leering remarks about Hermione, but there’s no tension because we know JKR won’t allow her self-insert to be sexually abused.
However, she will allow her to be tortured. With true Gryffindor gallantry, Ron offers himself instead, but Bella wants to spill some muddy blood with her pretty silver knife.
See, I have a problem with this.
If JKR decide "nope, no sexual abuse or even hints of possible sexual abuse in my books!" and then never wrote Hermione being threatened by Greyback or the closest to girl-on-girl torture porn I have ever seen in YA books? That would be one thing.
But as we have Greyback and Bellatrix getting off on torturing somebody?
Then that opens two big and nasty cans of worms.
One; If there's sexual abuse or possible sexual abuse in HP books?
Then what is happening back at Hogwarts? Even if DE stationed there aren't abusing kids in that way, there are still a lot of hormonal
HitlerVoldy Youth there who were given the power to punish others as they want.Are we really to believe that, for example, Crabbe never molested anybody during that year? Or threatened to?
And that a big % of Hogwarts students wasn't living in fear of somthign like that happening?
The only way I can see that avoided is if Snape was making metric tons of some libido killing potion and spiking everybody's food with it.
Two; Why Hermione?
Taking aside the whole "Hermione is a criminal / isn't a criminal thing" there's still the fact that out of three of them Hermione a *girl* is the only one threatened and tortured. Why not have Greyback (who we know likes attacking boys) also comment on how much Ron looks like Bill (who was already mauled by him) and how much he'd like killing or turning Ron?
It would even be in character for him.
Basically, why is Greyback only targeting (sexually or otherwise) a female character?
And why is Bellatrix torturing Hermione and not Ron? Or even Harry? Sure, she can't kill Harry as he belongs to her master, but torture him a bit? Harry who (successfully or not) cast Cruciatus on her? And who she hates for being a pain for her master?
If she wanted to use Hermione as a example and make the boys talk to save her, then why not torture her in front of them?
No, it looks like Hermione is the one threatened and tortured (and even torture is sexualised) just to have a female abused.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-06 09:07 pm (UTC)When reading this chapter for the first time I was uncomfortable with how much it looked like torture porn. The way everything is so lovingly described is a bit disturbing. Even the fact that we don't see the torture itself makes it, IMO, worse. While reading we are picturing what's happening and our minds can conjure the worst things we can think of.
Reading this comparison to what Xeno went through only makes it worse. I agree with you that shrugging off Xeno's pain and making it unimportant is wrong. That part of the book (same as so many others) should have been handled better.
But I don't think that writing that in the same way as torture in this chapter would have made it better for me.
In addition, Xeno is an old man, not a healthy teenager. That alone makes it worse to torture him than Hermione.
I'm not comfortable with classifying torture or saying that "this kind of torture was worse then this = so person X's pain and suffering were smaller then person Y's" in any way.
So, this kind of thing is disquieting to me. I don't think we can make that kind of statements. It just doesn't lead anywhere good. We can go on with "Ah, but Bella is a sadist who gets off on torture and have even tortured people to insanity before! While the nameless DE might be just punch clock villains who are just magically slapping Xeno around! That means his pain is lesser!" or "But Xeno is a father who's daughter is held by monsters! Aside from pain and fear he's feeling for himself, the fear for his child must be even grater! That means his pain is more important!" /seriously, when I was reading the Xeno chapter I felt horrible for his pain but I had even more sympathy for how terrified he must be thinking what DE might do to Luna to punish him.
Pain is pain. Torture is torture. And that is always wrong. Even if the one being tortured is a bad person torture is still wrong.
Now, I expect Harry and Ron to react far more strongly to the torture of their friend than to that of someone they don’t know, and whom they regard as having betrayed them. That’s only natural. What is not natural is for any of the Trio to have no reaction at all to someone screaming in agony just a few yards/meters away. For them to feel nothing--no shock, no horror, no revulsion, no desire to help--is at best catatonic, and at worst psychopathic.
I think that trio went from "good, close frineds" to almost "one codependent organism with no connection to anybody else" a while ago.
They think and care almost exclusively about each others. Even people they are interest (however tangentially) them are in some way extensions of "Trio". Ron's sister, Ron's brothers, Ron's family who we like, Harry's godfather . . .
For 3 books I was wondering do they even see other people as people anymore. So, their total detachment while seeing Xeno's torture doesn't surprise me.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-06 09:54 pm (UTC)Torture (even if fictional) bothers me regardless of who's being tortured.
The point I was trying to make with "it's the girl being tortured" is; that is same old crap.
Female character is threatened with sexual violence, the one enduring torture porn, the one seen as a "week link", the one boys must rescue (never mind that they were saved by Luna, Doby and incredibly stupid
plot holesilver arm) . . .Seriously, a lot of times we see (or are told about) somebody being tortured (in any way) it's a female character (Lily begging for Harry's life, Charity Burbage begging for her life, Alice Longbottom tortured into insanity, Myrtle the first killed student / child we read about even if we aren't shown her death or even distressingly, expected to feel sorry for, Marietta and her pain, Umbridge and her trauma at the hands of the centaurs, Hermione's torture here).
When it's a male character it's handled much differently. They either die in some heroic (well, if they are "good") way or they aren't even aware of what killed them. No begging for them. Even DD's suicide by Snape was shown differently.
Torture? Harry shrugs off Crucio like it's nothing. It hurts him but he's not afraid. Torture quill? Who cares that's mutilating his hand, his pride and principles are more important!
Idk, there's just somthign about the way JKR writes genders and torture / death that bothers me.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-07 01:42 am (UTC)Ooh, excellent point. I hadn't considered that, but you're right. Girl on girl torture porn. Yep, nothing gay about that, either. Come to think of it, Bella must never have heard of AIDS, hepatitis, or other blood borne diseases. Otherwise one would think fear of infection alone would have made her go for another form of torture.
I agree with you that shrugging off Xeno's pain and making it unimportant is wrong. That part of the book (same as so many others) should have been handled better. But I don't think that writing that in the same way as torture in this chapter would have made it better for me.
I don't see why she had to have detailed descriptions of anybody's torture. I think we can all agree that this book is WAY too damned long already. Cutting Hermione's torture--if she had to have it at all--to a couple of pages and a few brief mentions would have helped to shorten DBP. Harry and Ron would have been strongly motivated to rescue her regardless. Making it so long and detailed gives the impression Rowling is getting off on the pain and violence. I've read many horror novels and some brutally realistic other fiction (e.g., anything by Andrew Vachss). The only other book I've ever read that goes on with a violent scene so long and so "lovingly" is The Game, by JKR's partner in sickness and misogyny, Laurie R King. In that case, it's a long and graphic description of boar-hunting that sounds like gay male torture porn. Both of these books are really sick and very pornographic.
I'm not comfortable with classifying torture or saying that "this kind of torture was worse then this = so person X's pain and suffering were smaller then person Y's" in any way.
That's not what I meant. I was referring to the biological fact that the older you get, the easier it is to get injured, and the longer it takes and harder it is to heal. That's why it's worse to torture an old man than a healthy teenager. It's also a fact that some people have a higher tolerance for pain than others, or a slightly different nervous system, so they're more or less susceptible to pain, depending on their biology. But since there's no objective way to measure that yet, you're correct that one can't say whose pain is worse.
I think that trio went from "good, close frineds" to almost "one codependent organism with no connection to anybody else" a while ago.
LOL! That makes them sound like the Blob in the 1950s horror movie. I'm now imagining them as a big, pink sphere of jelly, rolling around Britain, sucking up Horcruxes and destroying them by ingesting them, the way the Blob killed people. It also makes them sound like the main characters in the first horror story I ever read. These five men were chewed up in a threshing machine, then rose from the dead and fused themselves into one body to get revenge on the man who killed them. They had one torso, four heads and legs, and I think two arms. Maybe people who say Rowling writes horror are right. ;-)
no subject
Date: 2014-01-07 02:42 am (UTC)How many other male characters are broken and/or grovel and beg?
no subject
Date: 2014-01-07 03:15 am (UTC)I wouldn't expect them to react exactly the same in both circumstances, but Rowling has cast them as heroes, and heroes are supposed to be at least a teeny bit better people than average, yes? Furthermore, she has flagged Harry in particular as having an exceptional capacity for love and a "saving-people thing." This is what she expects us to believe of him. So shouldn't Our Heroes at least twitch when they hear Xeno's squeals of agony? Even just in the same way people tend to instinctively flinch when they see someone else's thumb get smashed with a hammer? They could be upset that he turned them in and still react to his pain. Or if they're too wrapped up in their own fear even for that, shouldn't they have a moment after they escape where one of them says what a dirty traitor Xeno was, and another realizes that gosh it would be tough to have one's child held hostage, and what would they do if one of them were captured? And maybe they don't come to an agreement, but sit and and somber a bit after their narrow escape.
Something like that would leave enough space to let the reader decide how they balanced Xeno's culpability against his victimization, not make the Trio too "perfect," and still make them look like decent people. Surely the final book in a series with supposedly moderately heroic characters is the point at which you're meant to show your protagonists becoming better people than they have been, able to sympathize and rise above where they might not have in previous books? Able to see a bigger picture, not just "Enemy SMASH"? This is why we were all expecting the Houses to work together, the magical species to become allies, the Dementors to be defeated, or at least one of the many injustices in the wizarding world put on track to be righted. After 6 books, Voldemort dying wasn't going to be a satisfying conclusion on its own. What does that leave? The protagonists growing as people surely figures in most possible endings. But in this book, they seem to regress.
The Pettigrew vs. Silver Hand thing is such a mess. I can't think of any explanation other than that she lost track of the plot thread and shoved in a hasty solution just to be done with it. Like so many other subplots! Poor subplots, they deserved better.
I expect that Bella's knife is a magic silver knife like the one Peter has, something capable of slicing off an entire human hand in one stroke and who knows what else. Maybe magic knives don't count as too Muggle-ish? They're probably an ancient magical technology and so would get grandfathered in as they might not have if invented today.
Why couldn't Harry have been trying to peek into Voldemort's head on purpose at this point to get intel? Something that would make him less passive, and the visions less contrived.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-07 03:38 am (UTC)And she must never have heard of legilimency either. If she knew she should have been able to use it on freshly tortured Hermione and find out whatever she wanted.
Sure, she's the one who taught Draco occlumency (and btw, aunt or not; can you imagine just how Draco must have enjoyed having crazy Bella rummaging in his head.) but it's not like one must be a legilimens to teach occlumency, right?
Oh, wait . . . math.
I don't see why she had to have detailed descriptions of anybody's torture.
Total agreement. Torture is not something to be taken lightly and should be written with care. If the author doesn't want to turn it into torture porn they should keep it short and make sure that their "good" character show sympathy for the victim.
That's not what I meant. I was referring to the biological fact that the older you get, the easier it is to get injured, and the longer it takes and harder it is to heal. That's why it's worse to torture an old man than a healthy teenager. It's also a fact that some people have a higher tolerance for pain than others, or a slightly different nervous system, so they're more or less susceptible to pain, depending on their biology. But since there's no objective way to measure that yet, you're correct that one can't say whose pain is worse.
Ah, I get it now. But I doubt JKR would. Pain and all kind of injuries are too often turned into a joke or seen as no big deal. Yes, in her world potions and spell "fix" things but I think she forgets that they don't do anything for mental trauma. Besides, Xeno's a "traitor" so why should anybody care? :(
That makes them sound like the Blob in the 1950s horror movie.
xD
I was think more like them one day being WW's "Our
DarkLight Lord The Three That Are One" or something like it.no subject
Date: 2014-01-07 03:43 am (UTC)Draco is always written as a pathetic coward and definitively not as somebody we should feel sorry for.
No, IIRC, only female characters get to be tortured in number different ways.
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Date: 2014-01-07 04:04 am (UTC)You know; "Power corrupts", "He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." kind of thing.
Give us three characters who started as flawed (but who isn't?) but still nice kids and along the way got twisted by a horrible society, monstrous mentors and by the choices they made. So that by the end of the last book readers have no doubt about the fact that the "heroes" are now heroes in name only.
But instead we got a highly unsatisfactory book that pretty much glorifies detachment and seeing others as things, might makes right and the idea that if you are one of the "good guys" you can do anything at all and it's perfectly okay.
In a book like that the idea that there may be shades of gray in Xeno's "betrayal" have no place.
Frightening really, when you consider how praised the books are and how many kids adore them.
I expect that Bella's knife is a magic silver knife like the one Peter has, something capable of slicing off an entire human hand in one stroke and who knows what else. Maybe magic knives don't count as too Muggle-ish? They're probably an ancient magical technology and so would get grandfathered in as they might not have if invented today.
*snort* It probably have precision-guided spell on it too! That's how it target locked to Dobby.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-07 06:41 am (UTC)It's possible, of course, that Cruciatus doesn't cause physical damage, since it's magical pain. Then the main physical risk would be knocking yourself into something while thrashing.
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Date: 2014-01-07 06:50 am (UTC)It's just that I'm always acutely aware of how easily the human body is injured, and how long and inconvenient the healing period can be. It annoys me to see such things treated lightly in adventure fiction. "Broken foot? Oh, I'll just chase the bad buys for another mile and a half before I look at it."
no subject
Date: 2014-01-07 07:46 am (UTC)Exactly. I mentioned Andrew Vachss above. All his books are "gritty anti-hero" novels. His main characters come across as heroic only because the people they're fighting are so much worse. His Burke series is about a career criminal in New York City who usually battles child pornographers. His new series features a former mercenary who's retired from the French Foreign Legion and living under an assumed identity. Those men aren't just unsavory; they stink to high heaven. But as unpleasant as they are, I don't doubt they'd have at least a little sympathy for somebody in Xeno's position. Sure, they'd be PO'd at him for betraying them, but they'd also understand he was terrified for his daughter and realize it was reasonable for him to put his child's well-being ahead of the safety of three strangers.
Rowling is right that this is the kind of ugly choice people are faced with in wartime. But instead of using this situation to explore the cruelty of war, and how important it is for the good guys to win so nobody has to make that choice again, she just presents it as a simple[-minded], clear-cut case of "bad man betrays heroic Trio = he deserves torture and no sympathy." So she ends up giving the opposite message to the one she probably intended.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-07 07:53 am (UTC)That would be wonderful. I would love to see a fanfic written on those lines.
And think how delightfully confusing that would be for the public! People would like the books but feel conflicted about it. Religious nuts wouldn't know whether to praise or condemn them. They feature witchcraft (bad), but the witches/wizards are rotten people (good).
Of course, I think that's how those of in the Rowling-critic community do see the books. The problem is, the rest of society isn't as perceptive as we are. *sigh*
But instead we got a highly unsatisfactory book that pretty much glorifies detachment and seeing others as things, might makes right and the idea that if you are one of the "good guys" you can do anything at all and it's perfectly okay.
In a book like that the idea that there may be shades of gray in Xeno's "betrayal" have no place.
Frightening really, when you consider how praised the books are and how many kids adore them.
IOW, the books glorify the mindset of a narcissistic psychopath: "We are all Voldemort now."
no subject
Date: 2014-01-07 09:29 am (UTC)I don't think there's any need to go on a search mission for deep hidden reasons why Hermione was tortured:
“Wait,” said Bellatrix sharply. “All except. . . . except for the Mudblood.” Greyback gave a grunt of pleasure.
Hermione was picked because she's a Muggle Born, the one of the Trio with the biggest target on her back. With Public Enemy #1 Harry out of the running - "the Dark Lord wishes to dispose of Potter himself" - Hermione was the next most hated person, and the least respected....
“If she dies under questioning, I’ll take you next,” she said. “Blood traitor is next to Mudblood in my book."
Idk, there's just somthign about the way JKR writes genders and torture / death that bothers me.
I don't think there's enough 'torture' in the series to form a conclusion. Snape isn't tortured, he's just killed. Harry's experience of the Cruciatus Curse in book 4 is no picnic either.
I've got a gripe about Rowling's writing gender along another axis ... she lets the girls get away with much more (violence) than the boys. Ginny cursing Smith, assaulting Smith, Hermione slapping Draco, sending killer canaries at Ron ... with no reprisals. Girls can do that sort of thing in safety, don't you know. But if a *boy* tried ...