15 HP Philosopher’s Stone
Jun. 8th, 2018 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslockCh15 The Forbidden Forest
>This is the chapter that broke my suspension of disbelief during my first reading.
>You know Harry, Minnie might not only not punish you for smuggling dragon, but even award you points.
>Poor Neville, he tries so hard to be liked by our moronic hero only to receive short end of stick.
>Minerva, you want to know something even more unbelievable? Don’t look around, but... there are still people both in books and fandom that think you are a “fair but strict” teacher. Shocking, I know.
>Oh my, Minerva had to do some very serious drinking to erase from her memory 7 years of Marauders terrorising school. I’m not going to believe that on any given day James’ gang didn’t do something way worse than breaking curfew. +1 to Leap of Logic
>”I thought Gryffindor meant more to you than this.”??? Why would you believe such thing, Minerva? You forced the kid to play on House team so this cannot be the reason... +1 to Leap of Logic
>Why “especially these days, it’s very dangerous”? Unless Minnie already knows about culling of unicorns, there is no reason to toss around such words. If she already knows about the problem then why the heck she sends kids into forest?? I cannot get my mind around all of this. +1 to Leap of Logic.
>So let’s check system of penalties for breaking rules at Hogwarts: it’s 5 points for running off during evacuation, attempting to hunt down dangerous monster and endangering two other students. The two students who also create chaos by splitting from evacuation and go monster hunting get rewarded 5 points each. A student who is caught walking around after curfew and spouts nonsense about dragon smuggling: 20 points of penalty and detention. 3 other students caught during the same night spouting the same nonsense? 50 points each and detention. You have very curious discipline methods Minnie.
>Yep, Minerva doesn’t remember her teaching years during Marauders era or she wouldn’t “never been more ashamed of Gryffindor students”. I don’t know about you guys, but to me student trying to feed another student to werewolf would be more deserving of this title.
>Harry is so focused on himself that he doesn’t even try to comfort Neville.
>So the first Ostracising Harry Potter Campaign had begun. Woe our moronic hero. +1 to Crime Count for suggested bulling.
>Why the heck Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs are angry at Harry? If I was one of them I would be happy that my House has a shot at House Cup. Just because Slytherin loses, it doesn’t magically make everyone happy!
>Ron has a point. I would bet my Witcher books collection that twins can easily loose over 150 points during a year. Gryffindors seem to be bunch of drama queens who treat the House Cup like Holy Grail.
>It’s especially hypocritical of the Twins to give Harry cold shoulder.
>Harry swore to not meddle in someone else’s business anymore. Sadly Harry is as bad at following through as he is at logic.
>”“Resign?” Wood thundered. “What good’ll that do? How are we going to get any points back if we can’t win at Quidditch?”” I don’t know Wood, how about studying and earning points back through academics? Hermione did quite good job of it in the beginning of the year.
>Of course Hermione, with who people didn’t want to speak before she lost points, broke down and doesn’t try to earn more points in class. Great, just great. +1 to Leap of Logic.
>You would think that ostracised students would close up ranks and stick together, but nope. Neville doesn’t suddenly become worthy of our hero’s time.
>”All the same, he’d have gambled twelve Sorcerer’s Stones that Snape had just left the room, and from what Harry had just heard, Snape would be walking with a new spring in his step — Quirrell seemed to have given in at last.” Well, it didn’t take Harry that long to break his resolution. Nor did it take much for him to make huge assumption. +1 to Leap of Logic.
>”“No,” said Harry flatly, “we’ve done enough poking around.”” Huh, Harry has some self control and tries to not stick his nose where it doesn’t belong? That is refreshing.
>Who the heck assigns eleven year olds detention in middle of the night? Scratch that, who assigns detention at middle of the night for any student, period. This has to break some kind of regulation or law. +1 to Crime Count.
>Just how much time passed between dragon smuggling incident and this moment? Apparently Harry managed to forget about his detention. Or Malfoy’s detention.
>So who came up with the punishment? Snape? I don’t think he would put any student in danger. Minnie? After her spectacle at beginning of the chapter I’m not sure. Filch? He doesn’t struck me as type who would leave punishing to someone else. So this leaves us with Albus and Rubeus. If I was to place bets I would go for Albus, since at this point Harry stopped sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. +1 to Crime Count for endangering lives and health of students.
>There potentially are werewolves in the forest. There certainly are giant spiders in the forest. And Centaurs. And creepy unicorn vampire. I don’t think I can stress enough how much I hate this situation.
>Hagrid is once again showing his blood prejudice and bad mouths Filch. I honestly don’t know why Filch doesn’t grab his cat and leaves to live among muggles, since both children and grownups in WW treat him like shit.
>Hagrid, who already started working toward securing the title of Educator of Year for the second year in the row confirms that, yes kids are going with him into the forest. +1 to Crime Count
>”[Lucius] -tell yer that’s how it is at Hogwarts,” (...)”Copyin’ lines! What good’s that ter anyone? Yeh’ll do summat useful or yeh’ll get out.” That is quite curious system. How about you tell that to Severus or Dolores? Also notice that Hagrid subtly threatens Draco. Considering that we never hear about Lucius having any complains about endangering his only child, I would’ve bet that Draco never told his father about this. Unless dethroning Albus in CoS was part of pay back.
>If you don’t want anyone to ‘take risks’ then why don’t you drag the kids to your Hut and pour them some hot tea?
>Any way, why the heck do they hunt for unicorn killer in the middle of the night? Visibility outside of the Forest would be shitty. Once they step in, they won’t be able to see their noses.
>So there is something in forest that can kill horned horse, but cowardly dog is good enough to protect you from that thing? That does not compute. That does not compute...+1 to Leap of Logic
>Hagrid the passive-aggressive man child continues to amaze me: this time he terrorises poor kids by telling them that Fang is coward.
>So how do wizards control colour of sparks they shoot from wands? Do they have to speak incantation to shoot sparks?
>Perhaps Hagrid was hoping that all those kids will die in forest so he could cover up his crime spree?
>H&H admire pretty horseman. Enough said. +1 to FWBP.
>It seems that Centaurs as their racial trait have Philosophy for Dummies preloaded into their brains. Fast forward a few books and Jo will introduce a human using the same quirky character mold.
>Apparently Hagrid never before heard sound of ‘cloak trailing on ground’.
>So our fearless leader of the expedition left two defenceless kids on their own in middle of the forest, while there is unicorn vampire on loose. Not to mention giant spiders! +1 to Crime Count. +1 to Death Count
>Draco in truly schoolboy fashion decided to scare Neville. Cute. +1 to Spell Count for Neville.
>So Hagrid whines that they won’t catch anything after boys made so much noise, yet instead of going back, he decides to mix up groups. +1 to Leap of Logic.
>Harry gets to experience life threatening situation with Draco. Do they become friends? Nope!
>Voldie is quite creepy in this scene. Good job Jo.
>Voldemort, as usual, picks the least effective way to accomplish anything. In this episode we have occasion to observe how you should not hunt. Or how to not satisfy your vampire kink.
>Once again people around Harry acts normal in scary situation, while he acts like baby lemming. +1 to Death Count
>More admiring of handsome horsemen. Mmmm +1 to FWBP
>Harry gets proposition of ridding centaur! +1 to FWBP
>Bane: Do you have no shame? A human on your back?
Firenze: Do you know who this is? A Gary Stu of this stor-
Bane: Who cares! You shouldn’t try to seduce humans in front of us!
Firenze: But I want to have bigger role in future instalments!
>Firenze, I don’t know about defenceless. Unicorns have horns.
>So what is this ‘terrible price’ and does it only counts toward Quirrell’s life or does Voldie also have to deal with consequences of blood drinking?
>Firenze is up to speed because he read the script. Or was brainwashed by Dumbledore. Take your picks.
>Honestly if Firenze wasn’t telegraphing plot of this book neither Harry nor I would come to conclusion Jo expects of us. +3 to Leap of Logic.
>Kids need to go to sleep. They are jumping from facts to assumptions in so rapid and paranoid way that it gives me headache. +1 to Leap of Logic
>If Hermione knows at this point that divination is ‘imprecise’, then why did she take this class in PoA?
>Dumbledore rewards Harry for breaking his oath. He gets his superb spying gadget ‘just in case’ he needs to once again stick his nose where it doesn’t belong.
>I would like to note that there is no mention of Hagrid looking for, or finding Draco. Nor does our hero wonder what happened to his rival. Poor kid.
>Conclusion of this chapter: If you do something that the rest of your family disagrees with, it’s ok for them to ignore your existence, spread nasty rumours about you or send you into mortal danger.
>Did I mention how much I hate this chapter?
Crime Count: 5
Death Count: 2
Freud Would Be Proud: 3
Leap of Logic: 11
Uncovered: 0
Spell Count: 1 for Neville
*Edited typo*
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no subject
Date: 2018-06-08 02:04 pm (UTC)I think that this is the reason, though: yes, she gives Harry a broom for free, but she takes a ridiculously large amount of points from her own House in this scene.
/why the heck she sends kids into forest?/
The only rationale that makes some kind of sense is the idea of ironic punishment. I think that something like this happened in an episode of "Hey Arnold": one of the characters stole meat from the butcher because he was hungry, so he was forced to work for the butcher as punishment.
/“never been more ashamed of Gryffindor students”. I don’t know about you guys, but to me student trying to feed another student to werewolf would be more deserving of this title/
Even if we assume that JKR didn't plan the Marauders by this point, what about the Weasley twins? Did Minerva conveniently forget about those 'lovable' troublemakers who enjoy breaking rules?
/the first Ostracising Harry Potter Campaign had begun/
Even when I first read this part, I couldn't believe how petty and childish Gryffindor House was being. Did Slytherin House treat Draco like this when they heard about how many points he'd lost for them? I don't get how JKR could not realize how bad this makes Gryffindors look. And notice that we don't get this same reaction when Harry's suspected of entering his name into the Goblet of Fire or when he nearly kills Draco.
/Why the heck Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs are angry at Harry? If I was one of them I would be happy that my House has a shot at House Cup/
The same reason why Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff don't grow to resent Gryffindor like they resented Slytherin for winning the Quidditch Cup all those years in a row. Slytherin is evil incarnate, so it's only natural for Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff to root for Gryffindor, the only 'true' competitor to Slytherin, to win.
/It’s especially hypocritical of the Twins to give Harry cold shoulder/
Why does nobody point out that the Twins are the last people who should be angry at Harry and Ron? And the way that the rest of the Quidditch team calls Harry "the Seeker" instead of his name is so melodramatic, childish, and ridiculous.
/I don’t know Wood, how about studying and earning points back through academics? Hermione did quite good job of it in the beginning of the year/
But according to Hermione, it's not about books and cleverness. It's about more important things, like friendship and bravery and...sports.
/Neville doesn’t suddenly become worthy of our hero’s time/
Really, the treatment of Neville is similar to that of Mrs. Figg. You would think that a lonely little boy like Harry would be happy for any kind of affection from someone, but he's just as judgmental of those two as everyone else is. He criticizes Mrs. Figg for having a smelly house and too many cats, as I'm sure the Dursleys did, and he criticizes Neville because he's an uncool dweeb...even though on Privet Drive, *Harry* was the uncool dweeb.
/dethroning Albus in CoS was part of pay back/
Well, and sending Hagrid to Azkaban.
/Harry gets to experience life threatening situation with Draco. Do they become friends? Nope!/
One reason you could posit for why Hermione gets to be Harry's friend, but Draco doesn't is because everyone sees it as Draco's fault that they're in trouble. He told on them, and that's why they're being punished. Just...ignore the fact that it was Hagrid who had the illegal dragon, Hagrid who expected the kids to cover up for him, and Hagrid who now has the gall to supervise their detention without saying a word to defend them. And somehow none of the kids are angry at him for this.
/I would like to note that there is no mention of Hagrid looking for, or finding Draco. Nor does our hero wonder what happened to his rival./
Or to Neville. In the movie, they fix this by substituting Ron for Neville, and both Ron and Draco arrive with Hagrid and Hermione after Harry talks to Firenze.
no subject
Date: 2018-06-08 09:13 pm (UTC)I would agree, if the punishment would be more reasonable like forcing kids to accompany teachers in patrolling Hogwarts. It would be both dull and teach them something while not being insanely dangerous.
/Why does nobody point out that the Twins are the last people who should be angry at Harry and Ron? /
I suppose it might be because Harry got caught while breaking rules, but Ron points out that twins can easily lose 150 points during a school year so it still doesn't make sense.
/Just...ignore the fact that it was Hagrid who had the illegal dragon, Hagrid who expected the kids to cover up for him, and Hagrid who now has the gall to supervise their detention without saying a word to defend them. And somehow none of the kids are angry at him for this/
Jo likes her cakes so much that she wants to both eat and keep them :P
/Or to Neville. In the movie, they fix this by substituting Ron for Neville, and both Ron and Draco arrive with Hagrid and Hermione after Harry talks to Firenze./
Darn I missed it. Poor Neville, even I missed him :(
no subject
Date: 2018-06-08 07:33 pm (UTC)I have no idea whose idea the forest detention was, though it sounds like something Dumbles would come up with, but in any case, Minerva's name is on the letter, so the responsibility is hers. And the idea is stupid and terrible, and makes no sense except as a way to force the creepy Vampire!Voldie scene and to get Harry back into snooping. And the fact that Dumbles returns him the cloak afterwards supports the idea that the initiative was his.
no subject
Date: 2018-06-08 08:54 pm (UTC)Oh Wood is right and if this was isolated instance of this kind of attitude, I wouldn't comment it. When you look at whole PS, then you realise that Wood's comment is one of many instances where author of book for children about learning magic throws around anti-intellectual sentiments. It drives me nuts >:(
/ And the idea is stupid and terrible, and makes no sense except as a way to force the creepy Vampire!Voldie scene and to get Harry back into snooping./
Funny thing is I can easily repair this part of plot, especially if Jo insisted that dragon smuggling is too important to cut out:
1. Have kids set up the meeting with Charlie in clearing in Forbidden Forest. After all if taking the cargo directly from Hagrid's hut is too risky, then Astronomy Tower might also be too risky.
2. Have Hagrid help kids with dragon smuggling.
3. After exchange, party is split. Maybe somebody get's spooked by suspicious sounds and in panic runs off, or perhaps wild animal attack them and Hagrid tell them to run. There is a lot of space for improvisation.
4. Harry gets lost and after some time stumbles upon Quirrellmort feeding off dead unicorn.
5. Harry is saved by Firenze, who was asked by Hagrid to help in searching for kids.
6. Kids return on their own to castle and get caught by Minerva who gives them detention. For detention they have to accompany teachers/prefects in patrols to learn just how much work goes into making sure that everybody are safe.
7. Profit!
This way you cut out pointless drama, solve plot holes AND make everybody involved look much better.
no subject
Date: 2018-06-10 10:41 pm (UTC)To fail to win (or to misplace) is “to lose” (with a “Z” sound).
To untie or to release is “to loose” (with an “S” sound).
This has been a public service announcement from your friendly Ravenclaw language nerd. Yes, I know I’m annoying. I can’t help it. I’m under treatment for it.
Note that I inserted the necessary comma. I’m REALLY a Ravenclaw language nerd.
P.S. I entirely agree with the sentiment expressed. Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff doubtless want to see the Slytherin winning streak end, but they have no reason to regret seeing Gryffindor fall behind. Another loss by Gryffindor is no skin off their nose.
no subject
Date: 2018-06-10 10:50 pm (UTC)Nah, I don't find it annoying. I would even say it was helpful.
no subject
Date: 2018-06-16 07:23 pm (UTC)Draco comes across as a pretty normal kid. But of course Harry & co. don't like him. Draco tattled and that is a horrible crime in this world.
If Dumbledumble actually cared about the unicorns he could do something, but they are another group to be scarified for the his plan and the greater good.