Deathly Hallows, Chapter 24: The Wandmaker

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Harry seems to be suffering from PTSD at the beginning of this chapter: As he looks at Dobby’s body, he flashes back to kneeling beside Dumbledore’s body at the foot of the Astronomy Tower. That seems a little odd, given the differences in manner of death as well as size, color, and species of the corpses, not to mention that Dobby’s body has to be in much better shape than Dumbledore’s was. You’d think Harry would be reminded of Cedric’s body, since he was killed cleanly and left an intact corpse. But of course, Harry didn’t love Cedric the way he did Dobby and Dumbledore, so I guess that’s why he’s not associating them.

Harry calls for Dobby, “even though he knew that the elf had gone where he could not call him back.” Um, actually, you can, Harry; you just aren’t able to yet.

Bill, Fleur, Dean, and Luna gather around him. Harry asks how Hermione is, and Bill tells him Ron has taken her inside, and she’ll be all right. She’s the hero’s close friend, so she has to be all right, but she really shouldn’t. She was slashed up repeatedly by Bella, Crucioed, and had a large, glass light fixture fall on her from a great height. (You know the ceilings in Malfoy Manor have to be at least 12 feet/3.66 meters high, and probably more.) I’m certainly not an expert in emergency medicine, but it seems to me that just the weight of the chandelier should have broken quite a few bones and crushed some internal organs. The large quantity of broken glass also should have made her hemorrhage, given that she was already cut up from Bella’s knife.

Damn! Rowling had a perfect chance to kill off one of the Trio, but she didn’t take it! That sucks!

Somebody else who should be dead is Griphook. He was already in bad shape when they got to the Manor, and he’s smaller than Hermione. Being crushed by the large light fixture should definitely have killed him. Of course, he can’t be dead, either, because he’s needed for infodumping later in this chapter.

I know a lot of people hate Dobby and Hagrid, and I can understand why. They’re both so over-the-top, it’s easy to get too much of them both. But I’ve always liked them in small doses.

However, Harry never seemed to care that much for Dobby, so I don’t get why--again--we’re being treated to Harry’s angsting over the death of a minor character, which goes on for almost five pages. We’re supposed to believe Harry’s suffering is entirely due to his intense grief--”though Dumbledore, of course, would have said that it was love....” Well, yeah, one does tend to feel grief when someone one loves dies. The description of Harry’s feelings as he digs the elf’s grave is actually very authentic; I’ve dug enough graves to recognize and empathize with his emotions. I just don’t believe Harry feels this kind of grief for Dobby.

What does make sense is the guilt Harry feels because Dobby died saving him. Harry’s insistence on doing the hard work of digging the grave by hand and by himself is his way of paying tribute to and paying back the elf in the only way he can. The book admits as much, saying, “...every drop of his sweat and every blister felt like a gift to the elf who had saved their lives.” I don’t know why Harry can’t just admit feeling survivor’s guilt, instead of pretending it’s grief and love. Well, actually I do. None of Rowling’s self-inserts can feel appropriate guilt because that would be to admit they had actually done something wrong (in most cases, though not in this one). Narcissists admit wrongdoing only in extremis, and psychopaths never at all.

What Harry’s inappropriate grief seems like is more of Rowling’s telling rather than showing: “See? See! Harry is so capable of deep love and loyalty! He’s all broken up over the death of somebody he didn’t know well or even like that much. Only a person who’s really deep and compassionate is capable of such suffering.”

It’s been mentioned by others that Harry loves best those who aren’t around him. When people are present, he’s unpleasant or indifferent to them. That must indicate some kind of psychopathology, but I don’t know what kind. Ms. Rowling must be a very hard woman to live with if she is this emotionally confused herself.

As I was rereading this installment prior to posting it, I remembered something a commentator wrote about Beethoven: He got along best with people when they weren’t around him. When I was in college, I did a directed study one summer attempting to prove (I think successfully) that Beethoven had a Borderline Personality Disorder. So I started wondering: Does Harry have one, too?

This sporking is already book length (225 pages and growing), so I’m not going to explore that topic in detail here. I don’t have the canon knowledge necessary to make a thorough case, anyway. However, I did look up the symptoms of BPD (on psychcentral.com), and they certainly sound a lot like Harry. To qualify, he has to have a majority of the symptoms listed below across time and in a variety of contexts. Here they are:

* Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment

* A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation

* Identity disturbance, such as a significant and persistent unstable self-image or sense of self

* Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating)

* Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior

* Emotional instability due to significant reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)

* Chronic feelings of emptiness

* Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)

* Transient, stress-related paranoid thoughts or severe dissociative symptoms

Yeah, that sounds very Harryish. Sweettalkeress’s HP abridged series is doing a great job of illustrating certain symptoms, such as the identity disturbance (entitled hero vs. tortured martyr), emotional instability, empty feelings, and anger problems. We’ll see the transient dissociation aspect in chapter 34. Harry also comes from the kind of abusive, neglectful background that produces personality disorders of all kinds.

In fairness to Harry, it’s common for teenagers to have fluid identities and behave erratically. That’s not even to consider the tremendous pressure he’s under, with his whole society screaming, “KILL VOLDEMORT! SAVE US ALL! ONLY YOU CAN SAVE US!” That’s far too much pressure to put on anyone, let alone a messed-up kid from an abusive and neglectful background.

Back to the story:

Something good came out of the Mash Up at Malfoy Manor: Harry recommits himself to the Horcrux hunt and is no longer entranced by the Hallows. “...[H]e no longer burned with that weird, obsessive longing. Loss and fear had snuffed it out: He felt as though he had been slapped awake again.” I’m glad somebody slapped you awake, Harry. I’ve been wanting to do that for ages.

After the grave is dug, everybody except Griphook and Ollivander (who are apparently too badly injured) comes out for the burial. Luna again proves herself the most spiritual character in the series as she says some lovely words of thanks and tribute, then Bill uses magic to fill the grave with dirt. I thought Harry would want to do that, too, but apparently not. Or rather, apparently Rowling has finished with the character development and Voldie-vision Harry experienced while he dug, so she can now get on with the plot. However, Harry does tarry long enough to find a rock and use his wand to carve a grave marker.

Now that Rowling has established (to her own satisfaction, at least) that Harry is a fount of love and compassion, he can return to normal, i.e., being a selfish jerk. He demands to see Griphook and Ollivander, and tough luck if they’re not up to his questioning right now. Of course, this is presented as being manly, take-charge behavior on Harry’s part, but it’s really overbearing selfishness and impatience. It’s not as if he’ll be acting on their information until Hermione is ready to leave, and that won’t be for a few days at least. (In fact, it’s not until early May, as we find out in chapter 26. That’s at least five weeks away, and probably longer. The lengthy recuperation required by Hermione and Griphook, even with the assistance of magic, are further evidence they should be dead.)

While the commandant is waiting for the prisoners to be prepared for interrogation, I mean, the hero is waiting for his fellow guests to get ready for his gentle information-gathering, Harry muses again over who sent Dobby and is convinced it was Dumbledead. He doesn’t know how that worked, except that his idol once told him, “Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Tell that to Severus Snape! Tell that to all the victims of the James gang! Tell that to Moaning Myrtle and Rubeus Hagrid! Tell that to all the anonymous victims of bullies and administration favorites over the decades, no, centuries, because you just know Albus Dumbledore, as much as he sucked, can’t have been the only Hogwarts head who let his pets do whatever the hell they wanted without punishment. That sentence should read, “Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it, IF the school officials feel like giving it, and they aren’t overruled by their superiors.”

For some bizarre reason, Bill removes Griphook from the guest bedroom and lays him on his and Fleur’s own bed for the questioning. Way to screw up your marriage in the first year, there, Bill. I sure wouldn’t approve of that, and Fleur seems more fastidious than I am. Harry apologizes to Griphook for disturbing him and asks about his health; this proves Harry learned something from Dumbledore, i.e., insincere concern for others.

Griphook remarks on how unusual it was for Harry to dig a grave for an elf and rescue a goblin. He acts as if Harry were, maybe not the Jesus of this story, but certainly the Gandhi. Maybe my standards are too high, but I see what Harry did as the minimum he owed to decency. It’s a mark of how warped are the morals of both this book and the Potterverse in general that Harry’s minimally honorable behavior is treated as a sign of his extraordinary compassion and goodness. It’s also a mark of just how screwed up are wizard-every-other-species-on-the-planet relations that everybody seems to agree with this view.

Harry tells Griphook he wants to break into the Lestranges’s vault at Gringotts, and Griphook says he’ll think about helping him.

Hermione does something she should have done years ago when she calls herself a mudblood and says she’s proud of it. I’ve thought since I first read these books that someone should have started a mudblood pride movement at Hogwarts. They could have T-shirts and sweatshirts that say, “Mudblood Pride,” “My Muddy Blood Is Richer than Your Pure Blood,” and “Say It Out Loud! Mudblood and Proud!” You can’t insult somebody if they refuse to be insulted.

For once Harry is allowed to figure out something before Hermione when he tells her and Ron he thinks there’s a Horcrux in Bella’s vault, and that’s why he wants in it.

After finishing with Griphoook, Harry continues his questioning with Ollivander. Keep this fact in mind as you read about Harry’s conversation with the wand maker: Ever since his holly wand broke, Harry has blamed his inability to perform magic effectively on the replacement wands he’s been using, first Hermione’s, then the captured wand Ron gave him.

First Harry asks if his wand can be fixed and is told ‘no.’ Ollivander tells Harry, “...[I]f you are any wizard at all, you will be able to channel your magic through almost any instrument.” Take that, Harry! This is Rowling admitting Harry sucks as a wizard!

Harry also asks why his holly wand broke Voldy’s borrowed wand during their dogfight. It seems Voldy had been told by Ollivander that his and Harry’s wands had twin cores, so Voldy used a different wand because he didn’t want a repeat of the GoF graveyard battle, when the wands nullified each other. Ollivander says, “I had...never heard of such a thing. Your wand performed something unique that night. The connection of the twin cores is incredibly rare, yet why your wand should have snapped the borrowed wand, I do not know....” (Ellipses in original)

*frantically waves hand in the air like Hermione* I know! I know! Call on me, teacher! PLEASE!

Harry’s wand has to think for and protect him because he’s too stupid and incompetent to think for and protect himself! Ollivander’s the expert, and he just admitted it. He said any halfway decent wizard can perform magic with almost any wand. The reason Harry could only work with the holly wand is because of the phoenix feather core it shares with Voldemort’s wand. That is, it wasn’t Harry doing the magic with Harry’s wand! It was the Voldemort soul piece!

Once Harry was forced to use wands that didn’t have that core, the soul piece couldn’t do the work for Harry any more. He was forced to rely on his own magical powers and competence, which are clearly minimal. This is proven by his inability to do effective magic with any other wand.

It’s also proven by an incident from PS/SS. Remember when Harry was being chased by bullies and inexplicably found himself on top of the shed roof? That was the soul piece allowing him to fly like Voldy. Lily could slow her descent from a height, as if she had an invisible parachute, but that is not the same as flying, and we have no evidence she could fly. Only Voldemort and Snape fly without assistance!

The evidence is overwhelming that I am right. How many spells can Harry do effectively? Expelliarmus, Expecto Patronum, Protego--that’s it. Even as a young adult, he is incapable of doing the basic healing or cleaning spells a young child should have down pat before going to Hogwarts. Of course, we’re told the Patronus spell is difficult and advanced, but who told us that? Remus Lupin, friend of Harry’s father, sycophant, and notorious liar, particularly when it comes to flattering Harry. Recall Lupin also said Snape didn’t like James because Snape was envious of Potter Sr.’s Quidditch prowess, and we know that was a lie. Given this evidence, anything Lupin says that cannot be confirmed by an independent source, especially regarding the Potters, should be dismissed out of hand.

True, Hermione has trouble with the Patronus spell, and she’s super-competent. Doesn’t that prove it’s a very difficult spell? Not at all. To take an example from a different field, Ludwig van Beethoven was a virtuoso organist, the greatest pianist of his day, one of the greatest pianists in history, and probably the greatest improvisational musician ever. But he was only a decent violinist. Everybody has areas of weakness, no matter how good they are overall.

In addition, Hermione is very gullible where authority figures are concerned. If a teacher tells her, “The Patronus is a very difficult, advanced spell that many people can’t ever master,” she’ll believe that, which may create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A couple of years ago, another DTCL member and I facetiously suggested Harry was less intelligent than his wand. We didn’t know we were right. It rarely happens, but this is an occasion when I would have preferred to be wrong.

Ollivander also confirms the existence of the Elder Wand, but says he doesn’t know if it has to be captured by murder, or if it can be won by other means. Harry then asks about the Deathly Hallows, but the wand maker has never heard of them. At least, that’s what he claims. Since the Deathstick is part of the set of Hallows, I find it unbelievable that any wand expert has never heard of the rest of the set.

The main point of this conversation is to introduce that “wand mastery” BS that so warped the story and infuriated the independent-minded parts of the fandom. It is completely unnecessary: Harry had defeated Voldemort before with his regular wand--and the graveyard battle at the end of Goblet of Fire is far more interesting and exciting than the contrived silliness of their final showdown at the end of Deathly Booby Prizes.

It is essential to remember that Rowling didn’t work this “wand mastery” garbage into the story until the final book--and two-thirds of the way through the final book, at that. If it had been important, it would have been brought up and built up far sooner, e.g., the way Harry’s painful scar was. The real reason for the “wand mastery” nonsense is to give Rowling an excuse to kill Snape. It serves no other purpose!

After finishing with Ollivander, Harry goes outside with Ron and Hermione. He tells them the conclusions about the Elder Wand he’s gleaned from his Voldie-visions and Ollivander’s information. He’s realized that Gridelwald was the hot blonde who stole the EW from Gregorovitch, and that when Dumbledore defeated his ex, he became the wand’s owner.

Just then, Harry has another convenient Voldie-vision. He sees Voldy arrive at Hogwarts and wait at the gates for Snape to let him in. I don’t understand this. Since the Dull Lord has taken over the school, shouldn’t he be able to get in by himself? Since he can fly, why doesn’t he just fly over the walls? That’s what he does later during the final battle. More arbitrary nonsense.

Anyway, the DL sends Snape back to the school, promising to meet him later. Then he goes to Dumbledore’s tomb and breaks it open. Carrying on magical society’s liking for traditions that have been abandoned by non-magical society, the body is wrapped in a shroud. “The face was translucent, pale, sunken, yet almost perfectly preserved.”

Hmmm. I wonder if his body smelled like flowers? In an episode of The X-Files, a man died, but several days after his death, his body had not begun to decompose and smelled like flowers. Scully, who was raised Catholic, says in Catholic doctrine there are people called “incorruptibles,” saints whose bodies do not decompose, and that smell faintly like flowers. I’m really sorry Rowling did not include that nauseating little detail to make her Dumbledore worship just that bit more offensive. On the other hand, if mary_j_59 is right, and Snape is a saint, that bodes well for anybody who wants to resurrect him.

After thinking contemptuously about Dumbledore, Voldy takes the EW from the corpse’s fingers. The last sentence of this chapter is actually very good: “The spiderlike hand swooped and pulled the wand from Dumbledore’s grasp, and as he took it, a shower of sparks flew from its tip, sparkling over the corpse of its last owner, ready to serve a new master at last.”

Comments

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

Or a case of the 'Emperor's New Clothes'. No one wanting to admit that they aren't as beautiful as everyone else says?

I really must say that that I kept expecting her to pull it off, Even tho' I wasn't enamored over bk6's romances, I told myself that it was part of the alchemy symbolism, After all, she pulled off a great apparent switch at the end while still leaving obvious clues (to those of us who looked carefully) regarding Dumbledore's death.

And then she dropped it all. Even in bk6, she started dropping the use of symbolic clues. Albus' was only the first threat of death not preceded by blue flames. It was one of the main reasons I originally believed he was still alive. She changed the rules (unless the Hand of Glory burns blue like a Corpse Flame? Never heard of it doing so, but then Harry couldn't see it. Or I suppose that all the green light in the cave overshadowed any blue?).

And in changing those rules, the books lost a lot of what I (and many others) found so intriguing. Unfortunately, she left us with the long camping trip - which perhaps represented Jesus in the Garden of Gethsename? With Ron leaving/the disciples falling asleep? I don't know what to make of Hermione staying by his side or Ron's return. She changed it all from Alchemy to Religion.

Sorry - muddled post.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Even tho' I wasn't enamored over bk6's romances, I told myself that it was part of the alchemy symbolism

I don't have any literary training and only came across the Alchemy theories in passing, but there was a hard core of H/Hr fans who were convinced that Rowling knew what she was doing and that the rules of Alchemy meant that Hermione and Harry were destined to be a romantic couple.

One of the silver linings of the complete disaster that is DH is that the book shows that Rowling *didn't* know what she was doing ... all across the board. If DH had been a good book with a solid plot then it would have seemed like sour grapes for H/Hr fans to say "oh, but she failed with just the romance". As it is we know that Rowling was pretty much a failure all over. :-) If you know what I mean.

Sometimes I get quite sad about how so much brain power, from so many people, some so much brighter than Rowling, was wasted in trying to foresee how she was going to put her jigsaw together ... when in the end she wasn't able to do so, and didn't even try. Just inventing brand-new pieces - the Hallows - in the final book of the series to cover up the missing bits. Pfah.

I never heard of the 'blue flame' theory before. From what you've said I think you're one of those clever people who were 'betrayed' by Rowling. :-(

I think this post is a bit muddled too. :-)

[hwyla.livejournal.com]

Well, I can see the 'chemical marriage' of alchemy also being represented more by Ron/Hermione. I think they are just as opposite each other as Harry/Hermione - perhaps even more so.

But, yea, I felt somewhat betrayed once all the symbolic connections were dropped. At one point in the series, I remember thinking that if she described Sirius' laugh as a bark, just one more time I would give it up as a lack of verbal imagination. Then I discovered theories on the web and got caught up in it all as hints and symbols.

I do think she actually did start out with the intention of using all those hints to mean something. There are just too many instances where this shows. But along the way she dropped it. Perhaps she was peeved that so many folks were figuring things out based on her hints? Or maybe it got too convoluted? Or she just wanted it all 'finished' and gave up in bk7.

I was especially disappointed when the CupboardManSnape that Harry built in bk6 came to absolutely nothing in the last book. Just burnt to a crisp in fiendfyre. I have at least come to terms with that. I wanted it to be the beginning of an understanding. However, it is after all a pretty good symbol of his 'scorched earth' existence with the death of Lily. Doesn't mean I had to like it.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Well, I can see the 'chemical marriage' of alchemy also being represented more by Ron/Hermione. I think they are just as opposite each other as Harry/Hermione - perhaps even more so.

I'm pretty sure the H/Hr alchemy fans had that handled. :-) I didn't understand it myself.

I do think she actually did start out with the intention of using all those hints to mean something. There are just too many instances where this shows. But along the way she dropped it.

I don't think so. I think the horribly amateurish and terrible writing of book 7 - provably a literary disaster - shows that Rowling never had the brains to do anything clever. The woman grabbed everything she could from popular culture and myth and mashed it all together; there wasn't anything particularly 'clever' there either. Also she showed that almost every book was written as a stand-alone effort; the series failed because she couldn't connect them together, a flaw almost as bad as the huge contradictions that were embedded within DH.

No, I think the zenith of Rowling's cleverness was in cute little puns and linking wizards' names and behaviour with their hidden facets - Sirius's bark, Lupin's surname, etc. I think, from what we know of her limitations - from the colossal flaws of DH and how she completely failed to 'close' the series - she didn't have any real plan from the start.

[oryx_leucoryx]

I totally agree with you. Rowling was just following a trail of free association - so everything in her world somehow relates to something in folklore or the classics, but without working in the depth that could have made it into an actual 3D world. The fans picked up on the pieces and added missing depth and got more out of it, but since the additional dimension was never planned to be there everyone filled it in differently. Thus we got several theories of how the DADA teachers represent the seven mortal sins, or how each book was about one of the heavenly virtues, or how the seven potions symbolized something or other, but when DH was supposed to deliver the final 7th piece it didn't. Similarly Rowling threw in just enough bits of alchemy that knowledgeable fans knew what else their theories needed. And found some of it in the rubble. But since Rowling never meant to have a complete alchemical story, only 'hey, I think it has to do with something red and something white', the things the fans found were only incidentally there.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

And I totally agree with you. :-)

Seriously, I don't particularly like to demean people - particularly successful billionaires that 99.99% of the world thinks is a genius (because of the commercial success) :-) - but I think ten years of membership in the HP fandom and seven years of documenting the series's/DH's failures allows me to do it in this case. I really do think the proof is there. An abundance of proof.

... so everything in her world somehow relates to something in folklore or the classics ... Similarly Rowling threw in just enough bits of alchemy ...

I never realised it quite so clearly as I have now in reading your comment, but that's why there were so many theories, so many fans willing to believe that Rowling was going somewhere. Because she stole so much, so many bits and pieces, there were therefore a large number of readers whose own literary knowledge or interests intersected with what was on the HP page. Bits that would ping on their radar.

And they all assumed that Rowling had incorporated those bits with intelligence and planning.

Ultimately I think Rowling was a lazy, simply adequate author. I appreciate that it would have been hard for her - with her "oh, maths!" non-logical mind - to pull all of the threads together in book 7 and make a clever ending. It would have taken her a lot of effort.

She didn't even try.

DH is full of such shocking amateurish errors, problems that even I would have been ashamed to write in high school. From Ron deciding that everyone should abstain from saying the word 'Voldemort' 'just because' through to the flat out contradictions of the desperately-introduced wand lore and Elder Wand malarky. Rowling didn't even try to write a good book.

Add to that the twin sin of her having been hoist by her own petard - all those threads had been placed by her 'free association' in the first place, thrown in without thought of repercussion or meaning - and yeah, I have no sympathy for Rowling. It's a crime that she got away with it.

If you don't mind I'm going to steal your "Rowling was just following a trail of free association" description too; that's a perfect summary.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Feel free, I did not copyright anything in my posts.