Deathly Hallows, Chapter 26: Gringotts

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

HRH and Griphook are finalizing their plans to attack Gringotts. Hermione will Polyjuice herself as Bella. Hermione’s wand was lost at the Malfoys’, and she doesn’t like Bella’s wand that she’s carrying as part of her disguise. She says it doesn’t work right and feels like a piece of Bella. Harry restrains himself from pointing out she sounds like him with his borrowed wand, figuring he’d better not pick a fight with her right now. Gee, ya think?

It’s really not the same situation, though. I can see where a wand that had killed and tortured multiple people would make a person uncomfortable about using it. Even if there were nothing wrong with the wand itself, the knowledge of such a history could produce profound psychological discomfort in the user. Harry would probably not want to use the knife that killed Dobby, either; that’s not the fault of the knife, but of his own discomfort.

Harry thinks Hermione’s real problem is that she didn’t take the wand from Bella by force, thus winning its allegiance and bending it to her will. So a wand is a phallic symbol, but if you take it by force, it’ll relax and enjoy your usage of it? That is so sick on so many different levels and in so many different ways at once.

Griphook quite sensibly keeps a close eye on the Trio, figuring correctly they’re just waiting for the chance to screw him over. Proving that even the dimmest bulb on the tree can occasionally glow brightly, Harry is nervous about their undertaking, convinced it’s all going to go wrong.

They arise at dawn in early May and prepare to leave, apparently without eating. Hermione-as-Bellatrix changes Ron’s appearance, while Harry and Griphook hide under the security blanket invisibility cloak. Harry carries Griphook piggyback. I hope he’s been working out because that’s going to get tiring really quickly.

They Apparate to London and enter the Leaky Cauldron. When they enter, Hermione says, “Good morning,” to the bartender, who looks surprised. Harry whispers she’s too polite and needs to treat people like scum. Yeah, Hermione, just imagine everybody is Marietta, and you’ll do fine.

They run into another DE who is surprised to see Bella out, thinking she was imprisoned  at Malfoy Manor for her mistakes. Hermione replies “in a magnificent imitation of Bellatrix’s most contemptuous manner.” How much did she really have to imitate, though? She’s been treating others contemptuously for most of the series, and it’s only gotten worse as time has progressed.

When they arrive at Gringotts, the doors are guarded by two wizards holding Probity Probes. These are long staffs that are supposed to detect disguising spells and hidden magical objects, like the metal detectors at airports, court houses, and other public places. What they sound like, though, are something the Taliban or other religious fanatics would use to detect sexual misbehavior. You just know if such a thing could be invented, they would jump at using it.

Harry Confunds the wizard guards so they can get in. Unfortunately, the goblins have been warned about a fake Bella, so they question her, and Harry has to Imperio them. It says he cast the curse “for the first time in his life.” I had two thoughts about that: (1) Why do we have to be told that? No reference has been made to his casting it before. (2) How many times is he going to cast it in the future, if this is only his first time?

This curse creates a feeling in Harry’s arm that is described in almost sexual terms, as a warm, tingly feeling. There is an enormous number of gratuitous sexual references in this book. Was Rowling not getting enough at home when she wrote it?

They ride a little cart into the bowels of Gringotts--right through a waterfall that washes off all their concealment and disguise spells. Griphook says it works on anything magical. This is what they get for going to a school with no theater department. If they’d gone to a normal school, they could have disguised themselves using makeup, wigs, shoe lifts, etc, and the waterfall would only have made them wet.

When they arrive at the vault, it’s guarded by a badly-abused dragon. The depravity of the Potterverse must be getting to me because I’m not nearly as revolted and enraged at the description of the dragon’s mistreatment as I normally would be. What I actually find even more disgusting than the abuse itself is the matter-of-fact way everybody, human and goblin, regards it. Neither here nor later does Hermione do any shrieking about “oh, how horrible it is, the way it’s forced to obey,” the way she did with elves. It doesn’t even get the compassion she gave Buckbeak. I swear, she can turn her sympathy on and off like a light switch.

They get into the vault, but the treasure has been enchanted to replicate and become burning hot when touched. Hermione levitates Harry to reach the Hufflepuff cup on a high shelf; he uses the sword’s blade to catch the handle.

Of course, things go belly up: Since the vault is too crowded to avoid touching anything, they are nearly buried in a tide of hot metal. However, as with the chandelier, nobody is seriously injured. When Harry rescues Griphook, the goblin thanks him by grabbing the sword from him; Harry realizes Griphook never expected them to give him the sword. Smart goblin.

The vault door bursts open, and they find themselves surrounded by armed goblins, with wizards on the way as backup. It’s done for selfish reasons, but Harry frees the dragon and they jump on its back. The dragon makes a break for freedom, and HRH and the dragon force their way out of the bank. Once in the street, the dragon takes off and flies. That must have been quite a sight for the London commuters that morning.

This scene is actually quite exciting and well-written. Now, if an editor had just taken an axe to the rest of the book...

Comments

[malic-ba.livejournal.com]

Hi oneandthetruth, first off thanks for all the entertaining sporking!

WRT to Hermoine, though, I tend to think that it's not inconsistency but progression.

Buckbeak and the elves were several years ago when Hermoine was not even, or just barely, a teenager. Then she had sympathy for others, even if she tended to think she knew what was right for them (which lots of well intentioned people do, and not just when they're 13!) In recent years she's become much colder, more focused on her friends and her cause. Now she's what, 17, and "at war". How many young revolutionaries are so passionately committed to their cause that they don't care about others and excuse terrible behaviour in its service?

Even so, she still shows more hints of humanity than the other 'heroes', like in the wash up to the Xeno scene we were talking about a couple of weeks ago.

I don't think her portrayal is unrealistic or an exceptional character flaw.

What does get to me is the way Rowling never calls her, or any of her other 'heroes', on the problems with that attitude or the consequences for others. No, she seems to believe, and encourages her readers to believe, that it's ok to hurt people you don't like, because they deserve it. Nothing changes in the epilogue because everything was fine. No need for introspection on the heroes using torture or mind control, or a school system which encourages bullying and sets groups of kids at each other's throats. No discomfort at disfiguring someone without warning for putting their mother ahead of some disturbing acquaintances. (Whether that was for six months or for life is completely irrelevant.) No sorrow over the way war twists people into cold hearted bastards.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/Harry has to Imperio them/

I find it interesting that Harry performs two of the three Unforgivable Curses but not the third, as many fans expected that he would during the final confrontation with Voldemort. I thought that when Harry did perform the Imperius Curse for the first time, it would be a big deal. It would either set him off toward the path of corruption or it would scare him off. Instead, the Imperius Curse, which Barty Crouch Jr. suffered under for years, has as much dramatic impact and consequence here as a Jedi mind-trick. And, of course, we all know that Harry suffers no consequences for casting the Cruciatus Curse.

/What I actually find even more disgusting than the abuse itself is the matter-of-fact way everybody, human and goblin, regards it. Neither here nor later does Hermione do any shrieking about “oh, how horrible it is, the way it’s forced to obey,” the way she did with elves./

She does say that the treatment of the dragon is “barbaric” in the movie.

/That must have been quite a sight for the London commuters that morning./

Yes, somehow the Ford Anglia is noticed back in CoS, but nobody cares about the dragon here?

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Er--in POA, Snape is on hand to tell the duo they'd been seen and to warn them what punishment they'd earned (permanent expusion from the WW, for a violaton of the Statute of Secrecy of that order)--and Dumbles and Minerva were on hand to waive the punishment.

Since neither is the case here--especially not someone to make sure HRH get off--Jo has to just ignore her previously-stated rules.

Unless, of course, the international community decides to take a hand.

Uh-oh, I feel another drabble coming on.

[sharaz-jek.livejournal.com]

Neither here nor later does Hermione do any shrieking about “oh, how horrible it is, the way it’s forced to obey,” the way she did with elves.

Nor, of course, does she say this when Harry uses the Imperius curse.

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

Hermione will Polyjuice herself as Bella.

Did they only choose Hermione because she's The Girl and Rowling couldn't countenance either of the boys going trans for even a few hours? I mean, none of the trio have ever been portrayed as great actors, but Ron at least has been mentioned as being good at mimicry, and this could be an opportunity to set up his amazing ability to mimic Harry's parseltongue so accurately later (which I still don't believe).

Harry thinks Hermione’s real problem is that she didn’t take the wand from Bella by force, thus winning its allegiance and bending it to her will.

The wand idiocy again...

It was established in the first book that not all wands work equally well for all wizards. We can easily explain Harry's difficulties with his replacement wand by saying that the wand is attuned to a frequency of magic completely off from his: he is able to use it after all, it's just uncomfortable, like trying to move around in a pair of shoes one size too small. The same may be true of Hermione and Bellatrix's wand even without the disquieting psychological associations.

They arise at dawn in early May and prepare to leave, apparently without eating. Hermione-as-Bellatrix changes Ron’s appearance, while Harry and Griphook hide under the security blanket invisibility cloak. Harry carries Griphook piggyback. I hope he’s been working out because that’s going to get tiring really quickly.

You forgot the part where Harry demanded that his hosts, who have been so gracious about letting them into their home, sheltering and feeding them and caring for their injuries, stay in their rooms like small children who can't be trusted not to tattle until they've left on their Super Secret Mission. Disgusting.

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

Harry Confunds the wizard guards so they can get in. Unfortunately, the goblins have been warned about a fake Bella, so they question her, and Harry has to Imperio them.

Why couldn't he just Confund the goblins too? It would be one thing if goblins had been stated or shown to have some form of resistance to mind-altering spells that meant nothing less than an Imperius would be effective (and that Imperius itself had been established as more effective/less resistible than a Confundus), but it wasn't, so the action feels completely gratuitous, like Harry was just itching to use that curse and took the first excuse his could. He certainly enjoyed it enough. I wonder if he got the same titillating tingle every time he used one of the Prince's curses in HBP.

They get into the vault, but the treasure has been enchanted to replicate and become burning hot when touched.

This is actually a really clever trap, since I'm assuming that the worthless duplications immediately bury the actual treasure beneath themselves. Unless the would-be thief knows how to cancel the enchantment (and if they did, wouldn't they have done so before?) any further attempts to retrieve the treasure can only make things worse.

When Harry rescues Griphook, the goblin thanks him by grabbing the sword from him; Harry realizes Griphook never expected them to give him the sword. Smart goblin.

See, kids, if you had just explained why you couldn't return the sword immediately, Griphook wouldn't have felt the need to doublecross you before you doublecrossed him. On the other hand, I doubt they were ever capable of truly returning the sword to the goblins since it seems to somehow be bound to the Hogwarts Sorting Hat regardless of where it may be physically located at any given time. Of course, the kids had no way of knowing that, so the offer itself would still have been in good faith...

It’s done for selfish reasons, but Harry frees the dragon and they jump on its back. The dragon makes a break for freedom, and HRH and the dragon force their way out of the bank. Once in the street, the dragon takes off and flies. That must have been quite a sight for the London commuters that morning.

You'd think at least Hermione would worry about violating the Statute of Secrecy so blatantly, or if the dragon was just too big for a Disillusionment Charm they'd offer at least a throw a line to that effect. Also, IIRC, the goblins were effectively herding the dragon toward the exit through the way they used the noise makers. The dragon was terrified of them and tried to move away from them, but the goblins using them were all positioned between the dragon and the lower levels of the bank: it had nowhere to go but up and out. It's at least possible that goblins knew exactly whose vault had been broken into, and even if they didn't support the Trio, they were still more than happy to help anyone leave a black-eye on one of Voldie's supporters.

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

Never mind that Bill actually worked at Gringotts and could be a big help. Perhaps he could have warned them about the waterfall and the other protections.

Hogwarts has taught them well - never ask someone older and more experienced for help.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Yes, Griphook's information was outdated, as he had been on the run since late September or thereabouts. Bill's information would have been up to Easter time, about a month old.