07 HP Chamber of Secrets

[chantaldormand]

Ch7 Mudbloods and Murmurs

>Harry is either very passive or very socially awkward here. If he has so big problems with confronting Colin about his behaviour he could ask his friends to talk to the boy. Instead he does everything he can to avoid eleven year old boy with serve case of hero worship. Tom, how can you consider his guy to be worthy adversary? +1 to Leap of Logic

>Ron’s wand starts to be public safety concern. Obviously nothing is done about it. +1 to Spell Count for Ron’s wand for boils.

>Wood didn’t mention to Harry that he planned Quidditch practice next day. Now I’m stuck wondering how he managed to collect female members of the team.
Olivier while standing in middle of the common room: Hey, Kate! Kate?
Random Student: Shut up Woods! It’s friggin 5 AM. Some people are trying to sleep here.
Olivier: Nothing is more important than Quidditch Cup!

>It never ceases to amaze me that Quidditch changing rooms are co-ed and yet we never hear about any shenanigans typical for teenagers.

>I have to agree with George: why Olivier needs his team at ass-crack hour in changing room if he wants to speak about training and strategy? Grab unused classroom or do team meeting in one of dormitories, for god’s sake! +1 to Leap of Logic

>Gotta love Harry here: he feels guilty about missing match, but doesn’t consider that perhaps having reserve Seeker would be good and smart precaution. Nor does Wood.

>”He had a look of trollish cunning on his face as he replied, ‘Plenty of room for all of us, Wood.’” WTF?? How somebody could have a look of “trollish cunning”? If the last book is anything to go off, trolls are stupider than rocks so they can’t be cunning...

>”‘Ah,’ said Flint, ‘but I’ve got a specially signed note here from Professor Snape.” Is there no coordination between teams and all a student has to do is to go to a random teacher?

>So when in PS Harry got to occupy the pitch three times per week it was great, yet now when Slytherins train new Seeker it’s nefarious plot? +1 to Leap to Logic

>A rich Slytherin Graduate funding brooms for his team= buying position on team for his son.
Teacher giving local celebrity professional tier broom so he can out speed everybody= 100% justified +1 to Leap of Logic

>Either Harry or Jo fails at basic English. You can’t be “smirking so broadly his cold eyes were reduced to slits”. The word you are looking for is “smile” or “grin”.

>Draco has a point: Gryffindors could find a sponsor or raise money for new brooms instead of whining.

>I don’t get Weasleys’ reaction to “mudblood” comment. Hermione not only is not offended, but also doesn’t even know what the word means. Additionally leashing out physically to verbal baiting shows just how immature those guys are. +1 to Crime Count

>Ron’s wand performed “summoning Checkov Gun” Spell. It was very effective! +1 to Spell Count for Ron’s wand.

>So Ron is cursed in very nauseating way by damaged wand for who knows how long and his friends decide that the best thing they can do for him is drag him to “Ace Educator of year 1991”. With friends like those two, who needs enemies? +1 to Leap of Logic

>Hermione admits it’s hard to tell what effects a broken wand could have on curse and it might be hard to break, yet she doesn’t decide to get him professional help… words fail me… +1 to Leap of Logic

>Why the heck kelpie would sit in friggin well?

>So Lockhart was employed, because he was the only candidate. You cannot convince me that man as well connected as Albus wouldn’t be able to find a friend of a friend who would be more suited than Gilderoy. At very least ask a member of the Order. +1 to Leap of Logic

>LOL Ron is offended that somebody could be called “of common blood”. And here I thought that ‘Light’ wizards were supposed to be “muggle loving”.

>”If we didn’t marry...” said pureblood guy whose family doesn’t talk about their muggle accountant relative. +1 to Leap of Logic

>I’m surprised that at “Come an’ see what I’ve bin growin’” comment kids don’t start to panic. Who knows what Hagrid adopted this time?

>Hermione starts to show signs of brainwashing: she is both disapproving and amused by Hagrid’s law breaking habit. +1 to Crime Count for pumpkins

>So was Ginny scouting for roosters or just stalking Harry?

>For his detention Harry is tasked with helping Lockhart with his fan mail. He never stops to wonder “Hey, why I am not getting any fan mail?”

>Why the heck is giant snake talking about “ripping” and “tearing”? I was under impression that snakes tend to swallow their prey in one piece. +1 to Leap of Logic

>”And Lockhart said he couldn’t hear it?’ said Ron. Harry could see him frowning in the moonlight. ‘D’you think he was lying? But I don’t get it – even someone invisible would’ve had to open the door.” So our heroes live 10 months out of the year at ancient castle full of whimsical architecture, YET neither of them wonders if there is a secret entrance to Lockhart’s office. +1 to Leap of Logic

Crime Count: 2

Death Count: 0

Freud Would Be Proud: 0

Leap of Logic: 10

Uncovered: 0

Spell Count: Ron’s wand: 2

Comments

[elanor-x.livejournal.com]

>Either Harry or Jo fails at basic English. You can’t be “smirking so broadly his cold eyes were reduced to slits”. The word you are looking for is “smile” or “grin”.


Harry is simply providing his personal interpretation of reality. Only good people smile - bad may only smirk. :)


>So Lockhart was employed, because he was the only candidate. You cannot convince me that man as well connected as Albus wouldn’t be able to find a friend of a friend who would be more suited than Gilderoy. At very least ask a member of the Order. +1 to Leap of Logic


DD didn't want to lose an Order member in some horrible fashion or badly harm a friend by putting him in front of Voldemort's curse. Who would?
I am sure that with his intelligence and ability to read thoughts DD knew exactly how fake Lockhart was.



>Why the heck is giant snake talking about “ripping” and “tearing”? I was under impression that snakes tend to swallow their prey in one piece. +1 to Leap of Logic


In JKR's universe, snakes rip and tear more than anything else.
Arthur was supposed to bleed to death from a snake's bite in OoTF till JKR chickened out at the last moment.
A pity since dealing with Ron becoming an orphan could've been much more interesting than the boring Lupin-Tonks subplot in DH.

[smirkingcat.livejournal.com]

So when in PS Harry got to occupy the pitch three times per week it was great, yet now when Slytherins train new Seeker it’s nefarious plot?
its because slytherins are evel and therefore everything they do is evel and they have no reedeming qualities because evelness

Hermione admits it’s hard to tell what effects a broken wand could have on curse and it might be hard to break, yet she doesn’t decide to get him professional help… words fail me…
because only hermione can help those in need because she is jkr in jkr's imagination

Why the heck is giant snake talking about “ripping” and “tearing”? I was under impression that snakes tend to swallow their prey in one piece.
did jkr do any thinking before putting down words- THAT is the biggest question; and her adverb use is driving me NUTS that is why i never managed to reread it and even the relistening is not working that well, and i am not a native, i always wonder how natives see her english
but then i would also take umbridge in her money grabbing ways, but most people are fine with that so what do i know!

but as usual this was a very entertaining and awesome analysis from you and i enjoyed it a lot - thank you for the hard work!

[oryx_leucoryx]

We know Dumbles knew about Lockhart because of the 'hoist on your own sword' comment at the end - which means he knowingly let someone with a habit of permanently brain damaging people have access to all magical teenagers of the generation.

[sunnyskywalker]

I like to imagine the Hufflepuffs petitioning every year for standardized, school-provided sporting equipment. The balls are standard; why shouldn't the brooms be as well? The brooms aren't relatively incidental equipment--they're absolutely core to the game, and different brooms can vastly alter performance. Seekers should all get Broom X, Chasers get Broom Y, and so forth. There would be a general upgrade every few years.

There should also be a central practice calendar with a guaranteed number of slots per week for each team. You might not get the slot you want if you don't sign up in time, but you'll get a slot.

Merriam-Webster online defines "smirk" as "to smile in an affected or smug manner," so I think the smirking bit works (mechanically speaking). It's a specialized case of smiling.

Maybe magical snakes can be trained to rip and tear? Um... yeah, sure, that's it. And they have also acquired eyelids somehow. Right.

I want to know why the Muggleborn and half-blood kids aren't leaving convenient genetics texts lying around open to the bits about the Spanish Habsburgs and hemophilia spreading throughout the royal families of Europe and smirking about inbreeding. And maybe bragging about "hybrid vigor" in the half-blood kids' cases. (Probably in the context of really terrible pick-up lines.) Heck, probably even wizarding animal husbandry texts would do for this purpose. Surely there are articles about the increasing incidence of hip dysplasia and heart defects in the dwindling and increasingly inbred dragon reserves? Chapters on the importance of not letting your flying horses mate with their close relatives for too many generations?

Yeah, they wouldn't always want to draw attention to their backgrounds... but you can't tell me none of them ever snap and fire back with, "Oh yeah, well keeping it in the family means you're going to end up chinless and drooling within another generation, so there!" or "At least I don't screw my siblings!"

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/Instead he does everything he can to avoid eleven year old boy with serve case of hero worship/

I think that this is simply meant as a comedy gag. "LOL, look at Harry, being chased around by a crazy fan!"

/Ron’s wand starts to be public safety concern. Obviously nothing is done about it/

Again, I think that this is both to serve as comedy relief as well as a Chekov's Gun.

/doesn’t consider that perhaps having reserve Seeker would be good and smart precaution/

But the Slytherins do, at least in HBP.

/A rich Slytherin Graduate funding brooms for his team= buying position on team for his son.
Teacher giving local celebrity professional tier broom so he can out speed everybody= 100% justified/

But the rich Slytherin graduate's son is Harry's archenemy, so of course it's bad. Never mind that Harry is rich enough to buy his own broom. No, if he bought an expensive broom like Lucius did for Draco, he'd be greedy and conceited like them. It's much more fair to have someone else buy him and only him a broom.

/Draco has a point: Gryffindors could find a sponsor or raise money for new brooms instead of whining/

Or they could turn to their star Seeker who, again, is rich enough to buy brooms for all of them.

/Why the heck kelpie would sit in friggin well?/

That confused me too early on, because kelpies are usually said to live in lakes or pools of water. I don't know how they'd be able to fit in a well or why they'd want to live in such a restricted space. Maybe JKR thought that since kelpies live in and near water, they'd live in a well? I'm not sure.

/"If we didn’t marry...” said pureblood guy whose family doesn’t talk about their muggle accountant relative/

And whose Muggle accountant relative is never mentioned again after the first book. And whose mother disapproves of her husband's Muggle gadgets and makes disparaging comments about how King's Cross is "packed with Muggles."

[chantaldormand]

/I like to imagine the Hufflepuffs petitioning every year for standardized, school-provided sporting equipment. /

I'm on fence when it comes to teams' brooms. On one hand standardised sport equipment for team sport sounds wonderful. On the other hand my experience with sports in schools vary from sport to sport.
One of my cousins loves playing soccer. The pitch and the ball are provided by school and outfits at middle school level don't make that much difference so everybody wear whatever they find at home.
Back when I was rock climbing in my sport section in school and at uni, the climbing wall, ropes and harness were provided for us, but everything else was up to us. I started out climbing in my sneakers, but let me tell you there is huge difference between sneakers and even the cheapest rock climbing shoes. Gloves and a pouch with magnesia are optional, but they do make difference in performance.
Finally there is my sister, a huge fan of open water swimming marathons. The only thing her school provided her was a body of water for training. Sure she could just swim in those cheap swimsuits, but she wanted to have a good shot at first place so she bought herself one of those professional swimsuits that costs about 1k €.
So yeah, even in normal civilised schools you will get situations like one JKR described. Not that I agree with it, but schools aren't really eager to fund "niche sports" (aka anything that isn't soccer/football, basketball or volleyball)

/There should also be a central practice calendar with a guaranteed number of slots per week for each team. You might not get the slot you want if you don't sign up in time, but you'll get a slot./

Yeah, that is why this drama is surprising for me.

/Merriam-Webster online defines "smirk" as "to smile in an affected or smug manner," so I think the smirking bit works (mechanically speaking). It's a specialized case of smiling./

Yeah, but if eyes are reduced to slits it doesn't sound like smirk, more like grin or smile :P

/Maybe magical snakes can be trained to rip and tear? Um... yeah, sure, that's it. And they have also acquired eyelids somehow. Right./

If it weren't for Jo's multiple failures at biology, I could have accepted that Basilisks have eyelids since they aren't naturally occurring species. As it is I have a lot of fun poking at JKR's inability to do any kind of research :P

/I want to know why the Muggleborn and half-blood kids aren't leaving convenient genetics texts lying around open to the bits about the Spanish Habsburgs and hemophilia spreading throughout the royal families of Europe and smirking about inbreeding/

When I'm in more forgiving mood (or when I'm not writing posts for this community ;) ) I like to pretend that this kind of shenanigans are happening in the background. There are probably tons of leaflets and posters about animal and human inbreeding that Filch has to collect each month ;)

[oryx_leucoryx]

Maybe magical snakes can be trained to rip and tear? Um... yeah, sure, that's it. And they have also acquired eyelids somehow. Right.

Also an incredible number of fangs, by DH.

I want to know why the Muggleborn and half-blood kids aren't leaving convenient genetics texts lying around open to the bits about the Spanish Habsburgs and hemophilia spreading throughout the royal families of Europe and smirking about inbreeding.

How much genetics does anyone know at age 11? The Muggleborns don't know that much about Muggle science.

[chantaldormand]

Yeah I suspect it was meant as comedy gags, but it's hard to take these people seriously in more serious scenes when they act like idiots a few pages earlier.

At first I though that perhaps Jo was trying to subtly show us that Lockhart is fraud, but Hagrid says this in the book:
"‘Givin’ me advice on gettin’ kelpies out of a well,’ growled Hagrid, moving a half-plucked rooster off his scrubbed table and setting down the teapot. ‘Like I don’ know. An’ bangin’ on about some Banshee he banished. If one word of it was true, I’ll eat my kettle.’"
The way Hagrid words it, it sounds like he doesn't believe Lockhart's tale about banshee, but he knows how to get kelpie out of well. So according to Jo it's perfectly normal for kelpie to dwell in a well when hunting for prey....

[chantaldormand]

Yeah, last night when I was reading CoS ch. 17 I almost chocked on my tea when I read "He could see the vast, bloody eye sockets, see the mouth stretching wide, wide enough to swallow him whole, lined with fangs long as his sword, thin, glittering, venomous …". So even in CoS Basilisk has impressive amount of fangs.

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

Maybe it was just one foolish or clumsy or unlucky kelpie that Hagrid had to rescue from a well. Hagrid does use a plural, but perhaps he was speaking generally: “I took care of that stupid kelpie just fine, and Lockhart tries to tell me he knows all about getting kelpies out of wells—like that happens a lot!” (I’m not going to try to write in Hagrid-dialect.)

I’m sure that’s not what JKR intended, but it’s a work-around adequate for retconning.

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

>Why the heck is giant snake talking about “ripping” and “tearing”? I was under impression that snakes tend to swallow their prey in one piece. +1 to Leap of Logic

When I was a child Johnny Cash taught me that they swallowed their prey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd0cX1dogtk

When you picture a snake bite, you picture puncture wounds - not tears and rips.

[sunnyskywalker]

Hm, I was going to say I'm sure I'd had a lesson or two at least on Mendel's pea plants and the royal families and hemophilia by then, but then I remembered I started off as one of the youngest in my year and then skipped a grade, so my sense of timing is probably off. (Also I read a lot of pop science magazines back then.) So, maybe not so many. But I'm sure at least a few Muggle parents want their kids to study a bit of Muggle science and math over the summers, so between them and whatever magical animal husbandry books exist, it should still be something they attempt to use in arguments.

[sunnyskywalker]

I knew a couple of swimmers, so I know what you mean about the benefits of "fringe" equipment. I mean, I would love it if schools could provide each kid in track with a running shoes budget, at least, but I know how tough the budgets are...

However, Quidditch is apparently the only sport at school, and brooms are part of the critical equipment, so what else are they using their athletics budget for? Just those ancient, wobbly brooms for first-year flying class and Hooch's salary?

They don't need to hire anyone to level the field (which doesn't even need to be level anyway since they're flying) or maintain the equipment or clean the changing rooms, since Hooch and the house-elves probably take care of that between them. They don't have travel expenses since they don't play away games with other schools. Which leaves... er... maybe they just have a really tiny athletics budget? Because nobody in the wizarding world except Lucius Malfoy wants to support his old team, I guess, and the school hasn't made any provision for official donations to the extremely popular Quidditch program?

[sunnyskywalker]

Also, didn't either Alicia Spinnet or Angelina Johnson start out as a reserve Chaser the year before Harry started? So the Gryffindors used to have reserve players, but gave up the practice for some reason. They must have gotten a notice to crank things up for MAXIMUM DRAMA.