Deathly Hallows, Chapter 30: The Sacking of Severus Snape

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

This is another of Rowling’s “let’s trash Snape and his fans” phrases. To sack somebody means to fire them, but Snape isn’t fired; he quits. Besides, the only one with the power to fire him is Voldemort, and he doesn’t fire Snape. Take that, Rowling!

Luna Stuns Alecto, and Alecto falls so hard she rattles the glass in the bookcases. (Funny; I don’t remember reading anything about bookcases in the Gryffindor common room. And if the floors are stone, why would a falling body cause them to vibrate enough to make glass rattle?) Ravenclaws sleeping in the dorms stampede down to see what happened. They’re delighted, until the very inappropriately named Amycus (Latin for “friend” when spelled with an I) shows up looking for his sister. Of course, he’s too dumb to answer the door knocker’s question, which means he’s literally dumber than a piece of metal. (Neither could Harry, which makes them nonintellectual equals.) Fortunately for him, McGonagall comes along and answers it correctly, and they go inside. When they find the unconscious Alecto, Amycus has a fit, convinced Voldy’s going to kill them for falsely alerting him to Harry’s presence. He decides to blame it on the kids so the Dull Lord can kill them instead, saying, “Couple of kids more or less, what’s the difference?”

McGonagall says something interesting in reply: “Only the difference between truth and lies, courage and cowardice.” That’s a lovely sentiment, but how true is it? That is, how well does Minerva herself live by those noble words? The truth is, Harry was too young to be on the quidditch team first year, but an exception was made for him, which is a kind of lie because it’s a pretense he’s a second year. The truth is, Albus Dumbledore was an evil asshole, but McGonagall lies and pretends he was a paragon. She also never had the courage to stand up to him, no matter how outrageous his behavior. The truth is it was cowardly for MWPP to gang up on Snape (and others) and bully him, but Minerva still lies by blowing off their criminality as “troublemaking,” and she doesn’t touch the issue of their cowardice at all.

So shut the hell up, old lady. You’re just making yourself look bad. Since we’re in Ravenclaw Tower, let me paraphrase a classic Ravenclawish sentiment and say, “It’s better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a hypocrite and phony than to open it and remove all doubt.”

McGonagall says she won’t allow Amycus to blame the students for his own failures. He replies by telling her she’ll go along, or else, and spits in her face.

And thus we reach the most controversial scene in the entire book: Harry throws off his security blanket and Crucios Amycus, who is thrown into the air, spun around, and smashed into a bookcase.

I don’t know whether it’s overcompensation for the extreme boredom of most of DBP, or if Rowling is writing to make the movie more exciting, but suddenly all the spells “bang,” and they make people slam onto the ground, or fly up into the air, spin around, and then crash into something. It’s quite annoying because (1) it gives the book a cartoonish, 1960s Batman TV show feel. I keep imagining these scenes with a “POW!”, “BLAM!”, “BANG!”, or something similar superimposed over them. (2) These spell-related histrionics don’t change the fact the vast majority of this book is dull enough to put readers into a permanent coma. Here’s a clue, Ms. Rowling: With an interesting plot and characters, you don’t need cartoonish histrionics to hold people’s attention. Without them, every literary frippery in the book won’t distract readers from the cliched boredom of your overall product.

Harry embraces the Bellatrix principle as he understands her statement about “really meaning it” when casting an Unforgivable. In chapter 28, I wrote, “Harry must wonder in the depths of his mind what it says about him, that he is willing to surrender his mind and his will to carrying out the desires of such a person [Dumbledore]. Is he really any better than the Death Eaters who mindlessly follow Voldemort, like crazy Bella?”  We now have our answer to that question: No, Harry is not any better than the DEs who blindly follow Voldemort, including crazy Bella herself. He has no problem with dishing out gratuitous abuse and pain whenever he feels like it, then justifying his behavior by saying the victim “deserved” it. He torments people he regards as inferior “because they exist,” as his father did to Snape, and Bella does to mudbloods. He just does it less frequently. Like James and Bella, his preferred victims are those weaker than he, such as Filch. And using a torture curse on someone for a minor assault defines overkill. Keep this scene in mind when we get to chapter 31, in which Harry goes in the opposite direction in the Room of Requirement and uses a Stunner against the homicidal Vincent Crabbe.

The blood thunders through Harry’s brain, which makes me wonder whether he’s about to have a stroke. The only time I remember feeling like that is when I’ve mowed the lawn with a 100 pound/45.8 kg push mower on a very hot day, say 100 degrees F/38 degrees C or hotter, including the heat index, and didn’t stop often enough to rest, rehydrate, and cool off. Even then, the blood was actually pounding in my scalp, not my brain.

Minerva is astounded to see Harry and tells him his action was foolish. When he replies, “He spat at you,” she says, “Potter, I--that was very--very gallant of you--but don’t you realize--” (Emphasis in original)

Since this is such a controversial scene, I’ll examine it in some detail.

Certain Rowling dittoheads have defended Minerva, pointing out she sounds disconcerted rather than enthusiastic. I think they’re right. (Now, now, that doesn’t mean the apocalypse is at hand. Even a blind person hits the bulls-eye occasionally.) Look at the way the sentences are arranged.

“Potter!” whispered Professor McGonagall, clutching her heart. “Potter--you’re here! What--? How--?” She struggled to pull herself together. “Potter, that was foolish!”

“He spat at you,” said Harry.

“Potter, I--that was very--very gallant of you--but don’t you realize--”

“Yeah, I do,” Harry assured her. Somehow her panic steadied him. “Professor McGonagall, Voldemort’s on the way.”

The fact she’s panicking indicates McGonagall is not in full control of her faculties. That means her words and behavior are atypical, so I don’t take her “gallant” remark literally. I think she was both astounded to see Harry, and to see him Crucio somebody, so when he fished for a compliment by justifying his behavior, she tried to come up with a suitably Gryffindorish accolade as a way of getting him off that subject and back to the more important topic of the danger he was in.

What I want to know is, why is she panicking? She acted her usual calm, in-control, condescending self when talking to Amycus. It wasn’t until Harry revealed himself, cast Crucio, and endorsed Ultimate DE Bella’s viewpoint that she panicked. That means one or more of those three things is causing Minerva’s panic. She is clearly concerned about Harry’s safety because right after the quoted passage, she tries to convince him to leave the castle. She may also be distressed at the sight of him “going DE on Amycus’ ass,” so to speak, even to the extent of quoting one of the most hated and feared DEs, but there is not enough evidence to be sure of that.

As for Harry, sane people will agree that his is an extreme overreaction. McGonagall is his teacher and House Head, but they’ve never been particularly close, so there’s no reason for his avenging fury. If somebody spat in my mother’s face, I’d want to slug them--and probably would--but I wouldn’t want to torture them. What Harry did is like stoning somebody for adultery, or burning them at the stake for belonging to a different religion than your own.

Since he’s so enraged, and behaving in such a (supposedly) out of character way, I think we’re probably supposed to regard this as another example of sweet, innocent Harry being taken over by the Voldie-soul fragment. His agreement with Bella, Voldy’s most rabid lieutenant, is an affirmation of this idea. There’s also the fact that Harry is still fighting off the Voldie-vision from the previous chapter during this scene, which implies he is being influenced by the Dull Lord. Harry’s vision continues during his conversation with McGonagall. However, I haven’t let Harry off the hook for his bad behavior before, and I’m not going to now.

The real danger of Harry’s allowing Voldemort free access to his mind was never that Voldy would learn about Harry’s plans and actions. Harry is far too incompetent for that to be a problem. No, the danger that has now been made manifest is that, by looking into the abyss of Voldemort’s mind, the abyss is now looking into Harry. In fighting monsters, he has become one. (To slightly paraphrase Friedrich Nietszche)

He used Imperio on the goblins during the bank heist without blinking. Now he’s using Crucio. All that’s left is Avada Kedavra, and he’ll have the full set of Unforgivables to hang on his belt. Of course, Rowling doesn’t allow him to go there, and I’m sure she thinks that’s a big deal. It’s not. Syndicated columnist James J. Kilpatrick once wrote that rape is a worse crime than murder because, in a murder, the victim is at peace and no longer suffering, while a rape victim suffers forever. Using that logic, it’s far better to kill someone, cleanly and painlessly, than to torture them. I could even argue it’s better to kill them than to Imperio them, particularly if the victim does something horrible while under Imperius, i.e., something they would never have done had they been in control of themselves. Both of the non-fatal Unforgivables can leave lasting psychic scars on their victims that may never be overcome. By contrast, a quick death leaves the victim in peace and out of pain. Harry’s blithe-spirited, self-righteous descent into darkness proves those people who thought Harry might become a Dark Lord were closer to the truth than they’ve ever been given credit for being.

As for McGonagall’s reaction, she’s been criticized almost as much as Harry for calling his cursing “gallant.” (Emphasis hers) However, she first calls it “foolish,” which means she didn’t initially approve of it. I don’t know why it should be foolish; they’re already fighting the DEs, so attacking one shouldn’t make things any worse. And if Harry can take one out of commission, so much the better.

McGonagall also tries to get Harry to leave, which I find very strange. Weren’t she and Aberforth in Gryffindor? What happened to the house that was always spoiling for a fight? What’s this “running away from battle” business? Minerva’s the Head of House, too! She should be setting a better example than this. Maybe she was also “sorted too soon,” and should have been a cowardly, self-serving Slytherin.

Harry explains he’s looking for the diadem, and the Carrows start to wake up. McGonagall proves she has also fallen into the moral abyss by using Imperio to make Amycus pick up his and Alecto’s wands and give them to her. This is another example of how undeserving of respect the “heroes” of this series are. Minerva’s not only using an “Unforgivable”; she’s using it for a completely gratuitous reason. It would have been faster and easier for her to Accio the wands. Yet she and Harry have the unmitigated gall to condemn Snape for using the third, most humane Unforgivable on Dumbledore when the old man was already dying and faced a far slower and more painful death than an AK, even if he had died safely in his bed at Hogwarts. (They didn’t know at this point that Dumbledore had insisted Snape kill him, so I don’t fault Harry and Minerva for condemning the “murder” itself.)

After demonstrating she is on the same [im]moral level as her ex-student (who is unfortunately not “an ex-student” in the Monty Python parrot sense), she conjures a rope and ties the Carrow siblings together. Later in the chapter, she conjures a net and hangs them from the ceiling. Two of these steps are just wasted effort. If McGonagall wants the wands, she can just Summon them, or God forbid, ask Harry to pick them up and hand them to her. Equally dumb is putting the Carrows into a net and hanging them from the ceiling. It’s not that hard to step around them if they’re against the wall, which is probably where the bookcases are. As long as she’s netting and levitating the Carrows, she ought to clean up all that broken glass, which is far more dangerous to the students than bound DEs. The only thing she does that makes sense is to tie the Carrows up, since the immobility curses wear off over time.

Once Harry assures Minerva he’s on a mission from Dumbledore, she instantly drops all resistance and gets to work securing the castle against Voldy, but says they’ll have to get around Snape. Spoiling for a fight, Harry says about confronting Snape, “Let me--” OH, YES, HARRY, PLEASE DO! I SO WANT TO SEE THAT, YOU GRANDIOSE LITTLE SHIT!

McGonagall wants to evacuate the students, and Harry suggests the Hog’s Head tunnel. Poor Aberforth! After this is over, he ought to apply to the Ministry of Magic for war damages so he can repair his home and business. This is what he gets for being a nice guy. If he were a selfish prick like his brother, he’d have been long gone, like he advised Harry. Nice guys really do finish last in the Potterverse.

McGonagall says there are “hundreds of students” to evacuate. How is that possible? Only purebloods are at school, and even when it’s full, Hogwarts only has a few hundred students. Oh dear, math, again.

She sends her cat Patronuses--which are of course nice, ordinary alley cats, not those nasty purebred Persians like Umbridge uses--to call the other House Heads to her. As she proceeds down the hall, with Harry and Luna behind her under the cloak, the last of the three interesting and decent characters in this book (the others being Aberforth and Neville) makes an appearance.

From behind a suit of armor stepped Severus Snape.

Ah. At last. Finally we have somebody worth reading about.

Of course Harry, the Boy Made of Love, feels boiling hatred at the sight of the man who dared to expect Harry to obey the rules his enemy. There’s a gratuitously condemnatory reference to Snape’s greasy hair, which comes rather ill from Maggot-Hair Harry, whose male allies only got a bathroom when girls joined their group.

As Snape slowly approaches McGonagall, he questions her about the Carrows and looks near her, trying to suss out where Harry is hiding under his cloak. She attacks with a slash, but Snape shields himself so quickly she is thrown back. Then she sends a torch at him, which he turns into a giant snake, which she turns to smoke and then flying daggers that pursue him and force him to hide behind a suit of armor. Just then the cavalry other House heads arrive, gang up on the man their Dark Lord has put in authority over them, and drive him from the castle. Of course Minerva, who just used an Unforgivable to fetch wands, calls him a coward for running rather than fighting--oh, yeah, four against one again (six, if you count the kids). Well, she is a Gryffindor. They consider those odds fair.

Flitwick begins “muttering incantations of great complexity.” Pity we never saw these before now, JKR. They would have made the series so much more interesting, unlike that lame pseudo-Latin claptrap you annoyed us with. Harry asks Flitwick about the diadem, but of course he gets the same “lost for centuries” answer everybody else gave him. An occasional competent adult would just show up how incompetent everybody else is. That’s why we’re prevented from seeing Snape until right before his death, and then he behaves just as incompetently as every other character.

Minerva tells the other House heads they’re defending the castle and evacuating the students. Harry and Luna go back to the Room of Requirement to find it even more crowded with reinforcements, including the rest of the Weasley clan.

Molly tries to order Ginny to Hogsmeade because she’s underage. Ginny’s hair flies (of course) as she argues with her mother about joining the fight. When her father gangs up on her, she’s forced to compromise and stay safely in the Room, although she leaves later, as we shall see. I have to wonder whether she would be forced to sit out the battle if she were a 16-year-old boy. I doubt it. Families often screw over youngest daughters in this way--and in Ron’s case, sons in other ways. (Why, yes, I am the youngest in my family. How did you know?)

Percy shows up and is forced to abase himself before his family will take him back. Rereading this scene, I almost expected the twins to demand he fall down and lick their boots as a condition of allowing him to re-enter the family. I was also disgusted at how Arthur and Molly abdicated their responsibilities as family heads to their children in this way, rather than telling the twins to fuck off and leave Percy alone. Obviously Harry’s “Power of Love” has spread to his adopted family, since they were all so eager to forgive Percy’s “treachery”--but only after sufficient groveling on the free thinker’s “traitor’s” part. That’s what families like the Weasleys (and mine) call independent thought and action.

This is definitely on my list of “Most Disgusting DH Scenes.” There’s a thought: Maybe after this sporking is finished, we should have a discussion about which scenes in this book are the worst and why.

Harry has just been told Ron and Hermione have gone looking for a bathroom when he gets another Voldie-vision and realizes the Dull Lord is at the gates.

Comments

[oneandthetruth.livejournal.com]

So yeah, Harry hates Dudley the worst--no, he hates Draco the worst--no he hates Snape the worst, but never tries to fling anything halfway harmful towards Voldemort, who is supposedly Hitler and Satan rolled into one.

And who killed his parents, thus making Harry an orphan who had to be raised by his abusive relatives. This is really messed up.

[vermouth1991.livejournal.com]

Remember the scene from 1984 (this community has long since discovered the dystopian nature of HP, hasn't it?) where the rally speaker recieved a "This just in: Oceania is at war with Eastasia, Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia" note, and he changed his tune *mid-sentence* without even breaking synthax? That's how cheap emotions can be.

Jo made a genuinely good point about her books never being too bright and shiny when she pointed out that "Duh, the premise of book one chapter one is a double homicide." But the series didn't really live up to that, in many ways.