Deathly Hallows, Chapter 29: The Lost Diadem

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

Neville hugs the Trio and rather high-handedly tells Aberforth reinforcements are coming, and they should be sent along through the portrait hole, too. It’s no wonder Aberforth’s quarters look so shabby, with all those people running through them day and night.

As Neville and the Trio walk through the tunnel into Hogwarts, they update each other on what’s been happening in their lives. Fortunately for our sanity, short shrift is given to HRH’s activities. We’ve already had to suffer through them; we shouldn’t have to reread them, too.

Neville talks about the torture-loving Carrow siblings. He tells them how Alecto said in the now-required Muggle Studies class that Muggles were filthy and mean. Neville then asked how much Muggle blood she and her brother had and got a slash across the face for his trouble. *sob* This is so touching. It took seven years, but Neville has finally absorbed the Gryffindor ethos: Act first, and worry about the consequences later. And judging by his peremptory behavior towards Aberforth, he's also absorbed that house's arrogant, presumptuous exploitation of others. Hmmm. I wonder if Harry isn't the only Prophecy Boy Albus has been having tête-à-têtes with?

Ron, on the other hand, makes me wonder whether he, like Snape, was “sorted too soon,” when he says, “Blimey, Neville, there’s a time and a place for getting a smart mouth.” Yeah, like when a Gryffindor-adoring Headmaster is in charge, and you’re mouthing off to a teacher he doesn’t like. Then, have at it!

Neville continues with his Tales of the Resistance, adding that things have gotten quieter lately because the consequences of defiance became too severe, including torture. He concludes with the news his grandmother is on the run and finally approves of him. She even called him his parents’ son, which makes me wonder what Frank and Alice were like before they became insane. Were they as unpleasant and MWPP and Lily? Sure, Neville has plenty of reason to be abrasive with the current school administration, but the fact remains, Grandma never approved of him until he became rude, defiant, and disrespectful of authority. Is this really what it means to be a Gryffindor? Do we have any examples of polite, respectful, well-behaved Gryffindors? Or kind, compassionate Gryffindors, for that matter.

When the group arrives in the school, they go to the Room of Requirement, where all the refugees and resistance fighters are living. There are no Slytherins, of course, because we might not have gotten the message during the previous 4,000 pages that they’re bigoted, untrustworthy snobs.

HRH learn the Room gives them everything they need except food, which Aberforth supplies. He must use multiplying charms, since suddenly ordering a lot more food for his pub would raise suspicions, not to mention drain his business’s bank account.

Interestingly enough, the Room didn’t give them a bathroom until girls started staying there and wanting to wash. So apparently Harry isn’t the only wizard with an aversion to cleanliness. This society really is stuck in the Middle Ages. Tell me again why Snape gets ridiculed for having greasy hair? Surely that should be common, especially among teenagers, if wizards don’t bathe often.

Let’s not even think about what else a bathroom is used for. Is this evidence of JKR’s gross insistence that magical people just Vanish their body waste? If so, why do they have toilets? Sometimes, you just need to know when to quit, Ms. Rowling. Learn the meaning of the phrase, too much information.

Another logic fail occurs when the resistance says they’ve been following the Trio’s activities on Potterwatch. Since the Room is deep inside a stone castle with several walls, each of which must be several feet thick, separating it from the outside air, how do the radio waves get in? I’m not buying that there are such things as “magical radio waves” that are different from non-magical ones.

While in the Room, Harry gets another Voldie-vision, this one of Voldy finding his ring Horcrux gone. Realizing Voldy will be heading for Hogwarts soon, Harry says they have to go. Seamus provides an unintentional moment of comedy by assuming Harry means all of them and asking Harry what his plan is for them. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Poor Seamus! If either Harry or his creator had had a plan, we wouldn’t all have been bored out of our minds for the last 400 pages.

Harry proves he has completely surrendered his will to Big Brother Dumbledore (who really is a big brother, in all senses of the phrase, come to think of it) when he refuses the help of the other fighters, insisting he, Hermione, and Ron have to accomplish their secret mission alone “because Dumbledore said so.” Granted, Harry doesn’t actually use those words, but that’s clearly what he means.

“You don’t understand.” He seemed to have said that a lot in the last few hours. Here’s a clue, Harry: If perfectly sane, reasonable people don’t understand what you’re doing or why, maybe what you’re doing is not sane or reasonable!

Speaking of sanity, one could make a cogent argument for Albus Dumbledore’s being insane. I mean, really. Would a sane man expect a dimwitted, barely-trained child to face down and (at least ostensibly) defeat a brilliant, super-powerful adult who had decades of experience on him? Would he string that child along for years, cutting him off from knowledgeable adults who could help him defeat the bad guy, encouraging him to depend only on his equally immature, inexperienced friends? Would he send that child and his friends on a wild Horcrux chase without even telling them what they were looking for, suggesting where they might find it, or how to destroy it once they did find it? Are these the actions of a sane, reasonable person? I think not!

The others argue with Harry, pointing out they can obviously be trusted because they wouldn’t be in the Room if they hadn’t been driven to take refuge in there by fighting the bad guys. Harry starts to panic as they argue. Here’s another clue, Harry: That “panic” is your instincts again, telling you, This is BS, Harry! Listen to your friends! They haven’t been brainwashed by Dumbledore. They can still think clearly and independently. What they’re saying makes sense. Accept their help. You need all the help you can get!

Several more people arrive as they argue, including the twins and--hold your breath, Brad--the awesomest girl in all of fiction! Ginny! Yay! While Ron starts out supporting Harry, he finally says they should let the others help, and Hermione agrees. Overwhelmed and confused, Harry surrenders (some Gryffindor he is!) and asks about the Ravenclaw diadem. Cho says there’s a statue of Rowena wearing the crown in their common room and offers to take Harry. Ginny has an attack of jealousy and vetoes that, substituting Luna. Um, Ginny, you need to read more fanfic. HP/LL is a pairing many writers have used.

Harry and Luna hide again under the security cloak and head for Ravenclaw Tower. To get in, you have to answer a question, which of course confuses poor Harry no end. The question is asked by an eagle-shaped door knocker that talks, which sounds really cool. Some of these magical touches are very nice.

They get into the room, and Harry comes out from under the cloak to look at Rowena’s statue. Just then Alecto Carrow arrives and calls Voldy with her Dark Mark.

I think Rowling didn’t let us see what was happening at school while Harry was wandering in the wilderness because she knew Harry and his activities were boring, and she didn’t want us to see more interesting characters and activities to emphasize that. Also, because the Hs are two of her self-inserts, she can't take the focus off them for more than a short time, or her narcissistic discomfort becomes too great.

Comments

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

/Yes, she doesn’t appreciate him when he’s his quiet, Herbology-loving self. No, it’s only when he puts himself in harm’s way that she finally condescends to appreciate her own grandson. How wonderful. /

Actually, it's worse than that. Neville put himself in harm's way when he volunteered for the Sirius-rescue mission in Book 5. He flew from Scotland to London on an invisible creature (when he's had a phobia about flying/falling ever since Uncle Algernon). He fought bravely, saved Harry's life by jabbing his wand in a DE's eye when his broken nose prevented him from articulating clearly enough to cast spells, defied Bellatrix herself, ordered Harry not to give up the prophecy orb for his sake, and continued fighting bravely after he'd suffered the Cruciatus from Bellatrix.

All that, and Augusta is still ragging him to prove himself to her by taking a class he doesn't like and isn't particularly good at, at the beginning of book 6.

Courage to face one's deepest fears? Putting oneself in danger to help others? Resource? Determination? Refusal to give up, in the face of being disarmed, outnumbered, and in overwhelming pain?

All worth little or nothing, in Augusta's eyes.

But start mouthing off and indulging in vandalism--NOW Neville's a True Gryff and her son's worthy heir.

Makes you wonder, really it does, what Augusta and her son thought of Barty Senior's innovative policies....

[oryx_leucoryx]

Neville can see thestrals - he saw his grandfather (which one?) die. Still, flying cross-country is a big deal.

[sunnyskywalker]

Who was it who said the seventh book might as well have been called Harry Potter and the Snape-Shaped Hole? Because it does read like that. We're stuck in a tent with Harry the Maguffin, trying to piece together little scraps to figure out the real plot back at Hogwarts.

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

You know, the first time I read that phrase I just took it as a vicious-and-merited commentary on the cartoonish-nature of Jo's last book.

In children's cartoons, the coyote leaving a coyote-shaped hole in the glass when he hurtled himself upon his inevitable destruction....

But you've transfigured it (or, at least transfigured my understanding of it).

The Snape-shaped hole.

What SHOULD have been there. The absence that warps what WAS present around it.

Everything organizes itself around making sense of the hole.

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

...the real story is actually about Neville and Severus...

In dramatic terms, the protagonist of a story is the one who undergoes change. If there's no change, you don't have a story; you just have an incident or a series of incidents. Severus and Neville are the only characters in the Potterverse who undergo positive change. Everyone else either stays the same or gets worse. Harry at seventeen is not much different from Harry at eleven--which counts as negative change, since he should have been spending those seven books growing up.

As you say, Book Seven should have been about the interactions of the Primary Protagonist (Severus) and the Secondary Protagonist (Neville). Instead we're forced to drag around after Harry, who's not a Protagonist but merely a Hero, and a singularly un-appealing one.

[oryx_leucoryx]

In COS, when Ron receives Molly's Howler, Harry doesn't realize what it is until Ron says so, and the Howler starts yelling. But Neville manages to mention that Gran had once sent him one, and that trying to ignore it made the outcome worse. Under what circumstances was that Howler sent that Harry did not witness the event? Well, it is possible that Neville received it while camping with Great Uncle Algie. Or he received it at Hogwarts, on a day Harry wasn't present at breakfast, when the mail usually arrives. When did Harry miss breakfast in first year? I think the only times were the three days he was incapacitated after his encounter with Quirrellmort. Is it possible Gran berated Neville for trying to stop Heroic Harry from breaking rules? (I'm assuming she heard of the events from Neville. Or possibly her old classmate Minerva.)