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deathtocapslock2014-05-23 05:41 am
Deathly Hallows, Chapter 32: The Elder Wand
The beginning of this chapter reminded me of a song that was popular when I was little. This is Skeeter Davis, singing her signature song, “The End of the World,” from the year of JKR’s birth, 1965.
(Written by Rob Crosby and Joanna Smith)
Why does the sun go on shining?
Why does the sea rush to shore?
Don’t they know it’s the end of the world
‘Cause you don’t love me any more?
Why do the birds go on singing?
Why do the stars glow above?
Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?
It ended when I lost your love.
I wake up in the morning, and I wonder
Why everything’s the same as it was.
I can’t understand, no, I can’t understand
How life goes on the way it does.
(Spoken)
Why does my heart go on beating?
Why do these eyes of mine cry?
(Sung)
Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?
It ended when you said, “Goodbye.”
“The world had ended, so why had the battle not ceased, the castle fallen silent in horror, and every combatant laid down their arms? Harry’s mind was in free fall, spinning out of control, unable to grasp the impossibility, because Fred Weasley could not be dead, the evidence of all his senses must be lying--”
OH, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!
Look, Ms. Rowling, you have no right to complain about readers insisting your characters are gay when you write stuff like this. I can understand Harry’s being upset, even appalled, that Fred is dead. He was a good friend and a young man Harry knew and loved. But according to you, Fred wasn’t the love of Harry’s life, so don’t write as if he were. Instead of readers sympathizing with Harry, we’re just annoyed at his histrionic emoting--and wondering if Ginny is really The One for Harry, or if his True Love lies buried under the wall.
Percy acts almost as ridiculously as Harry, putting himself at risk to lie across Fred’s corpse to protect it from further harm. He only leaves when Harry and Ron grab Fred’s body and help Percy carry it to an alcove for safety. Again, where are the levitation charms? I’m not surprised Harry and Ron have forgotten them, since they have trouble remembering their own names, but what’s 12-NEWT Percy’s excuse? (It just now occurs to me that Hermione and Percy would make a great couple. They’re both smart, hardworking, love studying, and are hung up on both obeying and making excuses for authority figures.)
A cluster of giant spiders starts climbing through the hole in the castle wall; they are repelled by Harry and Ron’s Stunners. I can just imagine what the spiders are thinking: At last, we can escape our imprisonment in the forest, throw off the oppression of that lout, Hagrid, and live indoors the way such civilized creatures as we are destined to do.
Percy spies Rookwood and takes off after him. Ron tries to follow, yelling he wants to kill Death Eaters. I’m glad to hear that! It’s long past time the “good guys” quit fooling around and started making the Death Eaters live up to their name. Unfortunately, Ron is restrained by the Hs, who insist finding and killing Nagini is more important than anything else. I don’t understand why all three of them are needed for that project. Why can’t Ron deal death to DEs while the Hs go after the snake? Rowling’s been marginalizing Ron all through this book. Why stop now? Besides, having the Hs kill Nagini together would be a nice parallelism with chapter 17, when Nagini tried to kill them.
Hermione says Voldemort will have Nagini with him, and Rowling breaks one of her last rules as her self-insert, Hermione, orders Harry to enter the Dull Lord’s mind to find out where he is. Harry sees Voldy in the Shrieking Shack, with a beaten Lucius on the ground asking about Draco. We’re reminded again by Voldy that all the Slytherins sided with him because we might not have remembered that from the previous 5,000 times we were told, most recently at the beginning of the last chapter. Lucius wants to call a time out in the battle, ostensibly to make sure Harry’s not killed by someone other than his “master.” Voldy makes one of the few sensible remarks in this book when he calls Lucius’s bluff, saying Lucius just wants to make sure his son is all right. Besides, Voldy doesn’t need to seek Harry because the boy will come to him.
Voldy orders Lucius to find and bring Snape to him. Just then, Harry sees Nagini in her giant floating cage, and he pulls out of the vision. We get another Three Stooges moment as the Trio argues with each other about who should go under the cloak to kill the snake. The decision is made for them by attacking DEs. They escape together, hide under the cloak, and head out of the castle. On the way, they pass McGonagall herding animated desks into battle and Draco trying to convince another DE he’s on their side. Ron rescues Draco from his attacker, then punches him and reminds him that’s the second time they’ve saved his life that night. As they run, they pass the house hourglasses; of course, only the Slytherin one gets broken and spills its jewels onto the floor. No doubt this is Rowling’s Idea of clever symbolism, an illustration of how everything is the result of Slytherin’s brokenness. It’s also a parallelism with HBP, which has the Gryffindor hourglass broken by the DE invasion near the end of that book. Of course, the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw hourglasses are unmentioned and presumably untouched, further proof those houses just exist as set dressing and do not otherwise matter.
They pass Fenrir attacking a fallen student, and Hermione uses a spell to throw him backwards. Trelawney then knocks him out with a crystal ball. Silly as that is, I like the idea of the usually fraudulent psychic using one of the tokens of her trade as a weapon.
The spiders come bursting in the front door, and Hagrid charges down the hall bellowing at everybody not to hurt them. The spiders thank him for his consideration by overwhelming him and carrying him off to the Forbidden Forest. Unfortunately, they don’t kill and eat him. It would be no more than he deserved if they did.
Hagrid does some monumentally stupid things in this series, but I think this is the dumbest of all. If he’s supposed to be a magical Steve Irwin, he’s an insult to Irwin’s memory. Irwin had the same great love and appreciation for uncuddly, misunderstood animals that Hagrid has, but he also realized they could be dangerous and should be approached with caution and respect. Hagrid has all of Irwin’s attraction to “creepy” animals with none of his good sense, charm, or charisma.
As the Trio runs out onto the school grounds, the dementors show up again, an arrival heralded by one of Rowling’s silliest sentences: “The air around them had frozen: Harry’s breath caught and solidified in his chest.” First of all, it is not possible for air to freeze on Earth outside of laboratory conditions, since it has to be well below -300 degrees F/-185 degrees C for that to happen. Second, if the air had really solidified in Harry’s chest, he’d be dead. Granted, that would be a very innovative way for JKR to kill her protagonist, but that’s not what she means, so she shouldn’t say it. What she means is something like, “He froze with horror and dismay,” but she’s trying to be artsy-fartsy, so she can’t write something straightforward like that.
Anyway, HRH try to cast Patronuses, but they’re so freaked out, they can’t. They have to be rescued by Luna, Ernie, and Seamus--y’know, three of those people they didn’t want to work with “because Dumbledore said so.” Then they streak off for the Whomping Willow, but the boys are too dumb to get past it. Hermione has to question Ron’s wizardhood before he remembers Wingardium Leviosa and levitates a stick to stop the tree’s thrashing.
They enter the tunnel, which has somehow developed a lower ceiling than it had in third year (which can’t be accounted for by the growth of HRH), and head for the Shrieking Shack. When they reach the end of the tunnel, Harry crawls up to the hole in the wall that opens into the Shack and witnesses the final confrontation between Voldemort and Snape. Voldy is disappointed that his hot new wand doesn’t work the way he thinks it should and asks Snape why that is. Snape has no idea what’s going on and keeps trying to get permission to fetch Harry. They have essentially the same conversation several times. This is another example of Rowling using dumbness to drag out a scene and create phony suspense. Voldy has already tortured the wand experts Gregorovitch and Ollivander. They didn’t have an explanation for his wand problems; why would Voldy think a Potions expert would?
After about four pages of this nonsense, Voldy finally gets to the point and sics Nagini on Snape. She rips his throat out, and as he lies dying, Harry goes all slack-jawed yokel again and stands there staring at the memories leaking out of the man he hates above all others. If Auntie Muriel could see this, she would change her mind about Harry’s gormlessness. Hermione saves the day by conjuring a flask for Harry to capture Snape’s memories in. Snape looks into Harry’s eyes and dies.
OR DOES HE?
I think the best dissection of this nonsense was written by our own madderbrad on 12/15/09. I can do no better than to quote his remarks in full:
One of the most STUPID and CONTRIVED scenes in the entire book. In EVERY OTHER PASSAGE where Riddle has killed someone it's been via a “flash of green light.” The housekeeper and her children--green light. Grindlewald--green light. The goblin--green light.
But here? Why, Voldemort not only DOESN'T use the instantly-kills-him-dead curse, he also gets Nagini to do the deed!!!
Why, oh why, after just explaining his reasons for killing Snape--so that he, Voldemort, will personally become the Master of the Elder Wand--would the dark lord then turn around and use Nagini, or ANY proxy, to do the deed for him? Risking mastery of that wand?
And why not a curse that kills Snape instantly? Like *every other murder* that has preceded this scene in the book?
Answer--because Harry needed to sneak up and grab Snape's memories. So Rowling just needed to write it this way. No character-based reasons. No plot-based reasons. Just “because otherwise the plot wouldn't go where I need it to go” reasons.
Horrible. Just a horrible, horrible book.
THANK! YOU!
This is not even to mention the fact that, when Arthur and Harry were bitten by Nagini, they managed to live because, as mongooses Gryffindors, they’re obviously immune to snake venom, at least immune enough for treatment to be successful. Only a fellow snake dies at the teeth of another snake.
Wait a minute. I thought Dumbledore implied Snape had been “sorted too soon”? Doesn’t that mean he’s an honorary Gryffindor? Shouldn’t that therefore make him immune to snake venom, too, at least enough for him to live long enough to get treatment? So we can hope somebody came along with more sense and/or compassion than the Fool’s Gold Trio and gave him that treatment.
The first time I read this scene, I thought Snape behaved very strangely. He just stands there, barely moving, saying little, and what he does say does not resemble his usual smart, incisive speech patterns. Look at this typical sentence from Snape’s dialogue in chapter 1: “The Order is eschewing any form of transport that is controlled or regulated by the Ministry; they mistrust everything to do with the place.” In “The Prince’s Tale,” he speaks both cogently and sarcastically even when very angry about Dumbledore’s demand that Snape kill him: “You refuse to tell me everything, yet you expect that small service of me!” But standing here confronting Voldy, knowing he might be facing his death, the best he can come up with is, “You--you have performed extraordinary magic with that wand.” Usually he just repeats,“Let me find Potter. Let me bring him to you.” Why the difference? It can’t be because he knows Voldemort might kill him; he’s known that was a possibility ever since he turned double agent, particularly since the Dull Lord’s return three years earlier. Yet before this he’s had no trouble crafting long, complex sentences while talking to the DL.
Even more weird, Snape does not attempt to either escape or fight back when attacked by Nagini. This man is an expert duelist, as we saw in chapter 30: “Professor McGonagall moved faster than Harry could have believed: Her wand slashed through the air and for a split second Harry thought that Snape must crumple, unconscious, but the swiftness of his Shield Charm was such that McGonagall was thrown off balance.” But just two chapters and not more than a couple of hours later, he just stands there literally waiting to die: “And Voldemort swiped the air with the Elder Wand. It did nothing to Snape, who for a split second seemed to think he had been reprieved: But then Voldemort’s intention became clear. The snake’s cage was rolling through the air, and before Snape could do anything more than yell, it had encased him, head and shoulders, and Voldemort spoke in Parseltongue.”
So in the first case, Snape is attacked without warning and responds, not just instantaneously, but also so powerfully that his attacker is thrown off balance. In the second case, he is given ample warning through Voldemort’s behavior that he is in danger, yet when he thinks he’s been attacked in the same way, he just stands there. Then the snakeball rolls toward him, and he still just stands there. He doesn’t try to duck, run away, put up a Shield Charm, or take any other kind of evasive or defensive action.
Now, I ask you, does that make sense? It does not. As Judge Judy Sheindlin says, “It doesn’t make sense. And if it doesn’t make sense, it’s probably not true.”
There is another possibility.
As Luna Lovegood said, with the smartest Slytherins, you have to consider that what happened is what they meant to happen.
I’ve toyed with the idea of writing a fanfic in which Snape outsmarts both his “masters” and survives to escape Britain and live happily elsewhere. This is the way it would go:
Realizing he’d been screwed over by Dumbledore and would likely suffer the same fate with Voldemort, Snape makes plans to survive the final battle and establish a new life afterwards. He constructs a simulacrum of himself and hides it on the grounds of Hogwarts. He spells it to say Dull Lord-flattering remarks, as well as stereotypical things such as “Yes, my Lord,” “Let me go for the boy,” “My Lord knows I only seek to serve him,” and the like. He also fills it with the memories it will need to convince Harry they’re on the same side, and that Harry can trust him as a conduit for Dumbledore’s orders. When Voldy sends for Snape during the final battle, Snape realizes it’s time to put his plan into action. He activates his double, sends it to Voldy, Disillusions himself, and escapes to a new life of freedom and happiness. The double stands in front of Voldy, taking no action on its own, just responding to its “master.” Nagini kills the double, leaving Snape the true master of the Elder Wand, which is why it won’t work for Voldemort. Everything happens afterwards as it does in Rowling’s book.
Now that’s Slytherin cunning!
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Actually, I’d think that it would be the opposite. Hagrid kept Aragog in a box while hiding him at Hogwarts. I’d think that Aragog would’ve been quite happy to get to stretch his legs in the forest.
/We’re reminded again by Voldy that all the Slytherins sided with him/
So, what was that fan excuse about how some Slytherins surely must have come back to fight, proving that they weren’t all evil, and we just didn’t see them?
/Hermione has to question Ron’s wizardhood/
In a call-back to PS/SS.
/Then they streak off for the Whomping Willow, but the boys are too dumb to get past it./
Because Crookshanks was the reason that Harry and Hermione got past it, but has inexplicably vanished in between books.
/Hermione saves the day by conjuring a flask for Harry to capture Snape’s memories in/
But she doesn’t save Snape. She didn’t think to use dittany to stop the wound or use any spell to help him. No, her first priority is to capture Snape’s memories instead of trying to help Snape himself. She treated Harry’s snake bite and Ron’s splinching, but somehow she’s unable to treat Snape’s bite here.
I like your simulacrum idea. :)
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So, what was that fan excuse about how some Slytherins surely must have come back to fight, proving that they weren’t all evil, and we just didn’t see them?
That nonsense only began when JKR stated in an interview that the Slytherin students came back with Slughown in direct contradiction to what she'd written in DH. Fortunately she later recognized her error and said that no slyth students fought for the Light.
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When was this, if you don't mind my asking? Also, if she did say that, that's kind of disappointing IMHO.
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So as far as canon goes, any reader is free to decide for themselves on which side any Slytherin fought. Including some that came to Voldemort and then brought down any number of DEs when nobody was looking.
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I have mixed feelings about that. It would be nice to see they are not all evil. But, when has the "Light" side ever shown that a Slyth could be accepted on their side? Pansy speaks out and they are all thrown out by the "fair" teacher McGonagall.
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Crookshanks was another one-book wonder, who was important in Book Three and rarely mentioned again. I don't recall his last actual appearance. The last one I remember off-hand is seeing him batting at Extended Ears in Book Five, but I doubt that's really it. Can one of our canon-mavens fill me in?
P.S. I like ‘out-to-stud.’ From now on that’s my headcanon of where Snape is after escaping from the Shrieking Shack and from wizarding Britain.
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Severus, having eaten Fawkes, developed remarkable skill with fire magic and a beautiful baritone singing voice. He left Britain after graduation and eventually settled in the U.S., but ended up travelling a lot in his career as a world-famous opera singer. He never married, but had plenty of opera groupies who helped him get over his low self-esteem. As far as the wizarding world knows he remained childless, but as revenge against purebloods and their arrogance, he made many contributions to muggle sperm banks over the years. In decades to come, the wizarding world saw brilliant, powerful, black-haired, hook-nosed “muggleborns” showing up all over the world. At least, in cities with opera houses.
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Thank you.
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Someone had mentioned at one time or another that it made no sense that Snape wasn't constantly taking a potion to keep him from being susceptible to snake venom. And I had always kind of agreed with that. But everything about this scene suggests he has just been waiting to die. But letting himself die when Harry didn't have the information he needed? That didn't make sense to me.
He had to seriously just not care about the end of the war at all, and maybe he didn't but that isn't what we'd been lead to believe.
ETA: And now that song is stuck in my head.
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As for Severus: His fear indeed was not of death but for the failure of his mission, that somehow, if Harry was killed by anyone but Voldemort, the latter would not be destroyed. Or worse, that Harry might try to defeat Voldemort in battle while trying to live - how many would die unnecessarily when the one crucial move was Harry's death by Voldemort? And he had just missed the chance to talk to Harry a few hours previously, because he did not know the time had come. If only he had known that Voldemort was protecting Nagini!
At the same time, once Voldemort brought up the matter of the Elder Wand Severus didn't want Tom to realize it was Draco who took the Mastery from Albus.
What annoys me is that the whole scene could have been avoided if Albus had bothered to talk to Harry from one of the other portraits in the castle. Harry could have left instructions to Hermione and Ron to find and destroy the Diadem and gone to die hours previously.
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This phrase covers so much in the books.
Voldemort feared DD not because of his power, but because if DD ever decided to talk DD could have made all Voldy's plans fall apart.
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But--but--then Rowling wouldn't have had an excuse to kill Snape! After all her hard work on this series, how can you begrudge this poor, long-suffering woman her one, dearest, heart's desire?
Not to mention that it was always dumb to assume Harry would even talk to Snape, let alone listen to anything he had to say. How did Albus think that was going to work? He'd spent six years poisoning their relationship, then he thought fate was going to wave its magic wand and suddenly, Harry's going to listen to his most hated enemy? I realize the man's a psychopath with no empathy, but even allowing for that, even allowing for magical people's lack of logic, that's so incredibly stupid, it's--it's--I can't even describe it. How was it everyone believed this man was so brilliant, allowed him to be in charge, and usually followed him without question?
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The only other reason for Dumbles to insist on having Snape deliver the message rather than some other Order member whom Harry actually trusted (Minerva, Lupin, Arthur) is that Snape was the only minion Albus had who had sworn himself into actual slavery, and would have to obey no matter how much he hated doing it. That doesn’t explain why Albus didn’t plan to have his portrait do the job itself.
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That doesn’t explain why Albus didn’t plan to have his portrait do the job itself.
We know the answer to that: Because he is a coward who doesn't want to be confronted with his own responsibility for anything.
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That would involve Albus not only showing genuine moral courage, but having the brains to have made a back-up plan. Not gonna happen!
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And yes, it's a great commentary on the over-the-top reaction to Fred's death. And yes, this scene is certainly another place where canon undermines the reading that our Harry is strictly heterosexual....
(Percy's reaction is mroe excusable--losing a brother just when you've become reconsiled to him after two years' estrangement must be hard. And, I don't know, in my experiend people tend either to be afraid to touch, or to cling to, the recently dead. Perce seems to be doing the latter, which makes his helping Harry to carry it not stupidly forgetting levitation charms but a refusal to let go of his brother's body.)
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Bwahahahaha! Torturing my readers with insanely catchy but infuriating songs--just one of the many services I offer. BTW, the Deadly Hollows sporkers also referenced that song, although they didn't quote the whole thing or link to it. The next installment is very song-heavy, with 7 songs included in whole or part. Maybe you should skip it. Oh, wait, you can't. It's The Prince's Tale, part 1. *more evil laughter*
As for Harry being strictly straight, he's probably not. Most people have at least a little of both inclinations. What annoys me about Rowling is that she writes this stuff, then acts like there's something wrong with her readers when we pick up on it. Is she really so clueless that she doesn't see it? Was she really so invulnerable to criticism before DH came out that nobody said, "Uh, Jo, are you aware that makes Harry sound gay, and like he's in love with Fred? Are you sure you don't want to rewrite that?"
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Er, yes, if they are honest with themselves.
And your candidates for Jo's characters who fulfill that requirement in canon would be....?
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And it nicely accounts for Snape's "face like a death mask" and "blank eyes."
It's inegnious, but I see a couple major problems. First, Tom's a Legilimens. he should be able to tell if the body standing before him is inhabited or not. Worse, Snape should expect him to, so not expect the subterfuge to work.
Second, why on earth should Snape provide the simulacrum with the memories to persuade Potter? He can't have expected either to be killed slowly like that (vide your earlier anadmiversions on how OOC it was for Tom not to use AK), or for Harry to come creeping up at the last minute to get them.
Moreover, TOM must not learn that Harry was his (second-to-last) Horcrux, or Tom might have the bright idea of entombing Harry alive rather than killing him. Leaving the memories in an undefended simulacrum would be asking for trouble.
One workaround might be, if Severus created a simulacrum and possessed it (leaving his real body in a coma somewhere). In which case his passivity is equally explained--the whole point of the simulacrum was to have it killed off by Tom, leaving real-Snape free. But there's no canon evidence for Snape having any such abilities....
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And it nicely accounts for Snape's "face like a death mask" and "blank eyes. It's ingenious,
Thank you. That means a lot coming from such an expert analyst as yourself.
but I see a couple major problems. First, Tom's a Legilimens. he should be able to tell if the body standing before him is inhabited or not. Worse, Snape should expect him to, so not expect the subterfuge to work.
I could blow off your critique by saying, "Why do you expect me to explain this more logically than Rowling did herself?", but that would negate much of the purpose of this forum, wouldn't it? : D
Re Tom the Legilimens, we already know Snape could fool him, so if he programmed his double with some of that ability, it could have fooled Tom for long enough to work. Severus wasn't expecting an in depth mind rape; he was figuring he'd just have to hold Voldy off long enough to fetch Potter and inform him about Scummy's plans. As it happened, Voldy was so hung up on his impotent wand--pun intended--that he didn't seem to care about anything but that. Tom was also losing his mind at this point, and crazy people can be the ultimate in one track mindedness, as I know from experience. All roads lead to their one obsession. Furthermore, we know Tom was melting down and losing control, as evidenced by his murderous rampage against his own followers. It makes sense his powers in all areas would be weakening as well. That could be the reason the EW didn't work for him: The fault was not in his wand but in himself.
Re your other objection, the purpose of the fake Snape was to take Severus's place so he could escape. It therefore had to be able to tell Harry about Scummywhore's plans, which means it had to have the necessary memories. While Severus knew he might be killed by Tom, he couldn't be sure of it, so he programmed his double to cover all eventualities. Knowing how hell-bent Tom was on killing Harry, and knowing about Tom's deteriorating abilities and mental stability, Snape may have figured Legilimency was a risk he was willing to take. That is, even if Tom found out about the Harrycrux, he would still want to kill Harry so much he (1) wouldn't be able to restrain himself, and/or (2) wouldn't have the mental capacity to come up with your fiendishly clever suspended animation idea. And given his extreme paranoia (another sign of his deteriorating mental state), he wouldn't be willing to listen to any of his few remaining loyal followers even if they worked up the nerve to suggest keeping the Potter brat alive indefinitely. He'd just assume they were trying to stab him in the back and probably kill them for their trouble.
That would make a great fanfic, though, if there were to be a SA Harry. Snape would hear about it and have to come back to save the day again. Poor guy. He just can't catch a break. ; )
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And I agree that Tom's not on his best game here--hell, read the forthcoming chapter when he throws an AK at Harry Potter AGAIN. (As in, the very definition of insanity--doing the same thing, over and over, and expecting different results....?)
My main objection is really artistic---while I must naturally applaud anything that allows Severues to escape, or that paints him in a rosy light--well, he's not privy to the number of pages to the end of the book, now is he? How's he to know that the time for giving Potter the memories is upon him? Programming the simulacrum with the memories is just too convenient; it would make more sense to send the simulacrum to Tom but plan on some other method of giving Harry the information.
Ah, well, you said you had further details forthcoming--I shall await.