HPCOS: The Tally

[chantaldormand]

Another book finished, another tally up of points. Drum roll please!

Amount of supposed red flags Ginny rose: 5

Times Ron was seriously injured: 2

Anti-intellectual score: 8

Harry’s superb gymnastic score: 3

Times our Protagonist should have died: 18

Times good guys broke rules/law: 66

Amount of fruit baskets Freud send Rowling: 28

Olympic score in Leaps of Logic: 135

Times secret society/plot should have been uncovered: 11

Spell Count: Arthur:1, Draco:3, Harry:4, Hermione:2, Minerva:2, Ron’s wand:2, Severus:3, Tom:1.

Score for the series so far:

Times Ron was seriously injured: 4

Anti-intellectual score: 13

Harry’s superb gymnastic score: 6

Protagonist’s deaths: 48

Crime sprees: 123

Perverted comments score: 38

Jumping to conclusion score: 180

Uncovered score: 24

Spell Count scores: Albus:2, Arthur:1 Draco:4, Hagrid:1, Harry:4, Hermione:9, Minerva: 3, Neville: 1, Quirrellmort:2, Ron:1, Ron’s wand:2, Severus:3, Tom:1

For more visually inclined readers here is a graph:

Now that we have scores out of the way, let’s ramble about the book itself.

I already talked a lot about our protagonist, his friends and themes in the series in the previous tally post, but I wanted to revisit Pacing part before we move onto other things I wanted to discuss.

Pacing in this book was both better and worse compared to PS. Jo finally learned how to use cliff-hangers, but there were many places where I was bored due to (supposedly) necessary filler. Quite often it felt like there is not enough meat to the plot to sustain it for a whole school year.
IMHO if we took the suggestion I had during PS commentary (shortening PS plot to one term) and applied it to both PS and CoS we would end up with two much better books

The Adversary

In literature heroes are measured by their adversaries. They are supposed to cross heroes’ path due to pursuing the same thing and create obstacles for the heroes.
In GOOD literature Hero beats enemy via their own merit. Adversary is too powerful? Well, the hero better find a way to outsmart them!
Back when I was reading this series for the first time I expected Harry to slowly over span of the series grow as character and eventually beat Voldemort on his own with some smart solution. Perhaps using muggle technology since knowledge of modern technology is his main advantage over purebloods. At worst case he would use Power Of Friendship.
What we’ve got instead? Bunch of McGuffins and Deus Ex Machinas.

And this book is kind of foreshadowing of DH.

So if Harry cannot beat Voldemort without authorial intervention and he is constantly pushed by his surrounding to cross path with his enemy... Who is Harry’s adversary?

The most obvious answer would be Draco, right? Well, no. Most of the time Draco is more of annoyance than adversary.

Then it has to be Snape, right? I think we are getting closer, but that is not quite the right answer.

You see, I asked the wrong question. It’s not ‘who’, but ‘what’ is the adversary. Because Harry’s adversary isn’t material being. It’s system or rather “authority figures”. Be it adults, teachers, politicians, reporters, prefects... If it has some kind of power over our protagonist, he will fight it. The only exception to this is Dumbledore, and I suspect that is because Albus is Jo’s stand in for God.

The Mystery

A lot of people praise JKR for mystery component of this book and if I had to be honest, it is probably the best part of this book. That being said the amount of time that passes during plot of this book works against the mystery element. To make matters even worse adults are even more incompetent here than in majority of mystery books for kids.
But let’s be fair towards this book. Let’s compare it to another story where kids with special powers spend whole school year to solve supernatural crime. What is that story? Well it’s Persona 4. Sure it’s not a book, but the story has similar pacing and story beats to CoS.

So a short summary for everyone who didn’t play Persona 4:

Our protagonist arrives to small town to live next year with his detective uncle and preteen cousin. Within first week since his arrival there are two bizarre murders; bodies are found hanging on TV antennas. Cause of death? Unknown.
The second victim is a girl on whom main character’s classmate has a crush. This kickstarts an investigation by protagonist and other teenagers whom he befriends during the game.
Quickly kids realise that a) there is something supernatural going on and b) due to certain plot point they can predict who will be the next victim and attempt to save them. Slowly over school year kids figure out whys and hows of the kidnappings.

As you can imagine I’m going to say that P4 handled things much better than CoS, but let’s take a closer look on why it did much better:

-Story of P4 takes place in small town with underfunded police in world very similar to our own; in other words supernatural activity isn’t a norm. Even if kids decided to talk with main character’s uncle about what they know, he wouldn’t believe them.

-On the other hand we have Hogwarts ‘ staff, magical government AND magical police; a whole bunch of grown up adults who are trained for this kind of situations. The only way to make them look less like a bunch of bumbling idiots is to completely isolate Hogwarts from outside world and neutralise the staff. In fact the whole situation raises a lot of questions about Albus’ motives and competence.

-As you can imagine, in P4 there is a lot of lulls in investigation. The thing is P4 fills those lulls with character development. Granted a lot of this depends on player’s decisions, but all of this filler doesn’t feel pointless like in CoS.

Conclusion

The way I see it, Jo read one of Agatha Christie’s books and was inspired to write a mystery/crime book. Sadly she didn’t think things through and we ended up with underwhelming entry in the series. Yeah it’s better than DH or HBP, but it’s not a good murder mystery. :( 

Edit:18.08.19 didn't notice that part of my post wasn't copy-pasted properly from the text file.

Comments

[sunnyskywalker]

Not giving (good) reasons why the adults can't handle a lot of the plot is probably one of the biggest flaws of the series, and so much of it could have been corrected. Just have Dumbledore not know everything from the start and you're halfway there already!

But now I'm imagining Poirot and Miss Marple as new teachers, which is hilarious. They would have that DADA curse broken in two days, and they'd just be getting started. So thank you for that :-D

[chantaldormand]

Yup, just downsize Albus from God/Master of Universe status to simple Headmaster with little to non political pull and choose more fitting enemy for Harry. That is all what we need for this series to work.

Yeah and by the end of their first week, Albus would be wheeled on wheelchair out of Hogwarts due to his serve allergic reaction towards truth and competency :D

Honestly, that scene where Ron and Harry rapidly figure out whole mystery in chapter 16 does kinda remind me Christie's style.

[nx74defiant.livejournal.com]

It’s not ‘who’, but ‘what’ is the adversary. Because Harry’s adversary isn’t material being. It’s system or rather “authority figures”. Be it adults, teachers, politicians, reporters, prefects... If it has some kind of power over our protagonist, he will fight it. The only exception to this is Dumbledore, and I suspect that is because Albus is Jo’s stand in for God.


I hadn't thought of that before, but it is really true. That is why Percy is viewed as a traitor for trying to work with the ministry.

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

And Snape is the epitome of evil because he's a strict and demanding teacher who expects students to do their own work and not mouth off in class. No wonder Harry hates him with the fury of a thousand suns.

[aikaterini.livejournal.com]

/Perhaps using muggle technology since knowledge of modern technology is his main advantage over purebloods./

Heck, since Voldemort also grew up in the Muggle world, he could easily distinguish himself from other Dark Lords by using Muggle technology. But I think that that maybe would've been too complicated for the story that JKR wanted to write.

/Because Harry’s adversary isn’t material being. It’s system or rather “authority figures”. Be it adults, teachers, politicians, reporters, prefects... If it has some kind of power over our protagonist, he will fight it. The only exception to this is Dumbledore, and I suspect that is because Albus is Jo’s stand in for God/

In light of this interpretation, it would seem that there are two types of antagonists. Voldemort isn't an authority figure over Harry in any real sense, but he's the stand-in for the devil. Based on your conclusions from the first book, Draco is an antagonist because he's aligned with Voldemort or has turned away from Dumbledore, not because he's an authority figure, which he isn't. The authority figures (Umbridge, Fudge, etc.) are a problem not because they're aligned with Voldemort, but because they inconvenience the hero or obstruct his efforts to solve the problem of Voldemort. The good authority figures (Lupin, Weasleys, etc.) believe Harry and follow Dumbledore's orders without question. And, of course, Snape, being both an authority figure and someone who once followed the devil figure, has the worst of both worlds.

Actually, the difference between these two opposing groups could be seen as embodying the tonal dissonance between the two competing subgenres. Rebellion against authority figures is at home in the boarding school genre and YA. Voldemort, as the devil figure, seems more in line with high fantasy. He doesn't work within the system and he threatens to kill the heroes, not control them.

We've discussed possible reasons why Harry seems to have much more hatred for Snape than he does for Voldemort, and I think that, according to this interpretation, this may be another reason: Voldemort isn't an authority figure. For most of the series, he's out of sight, and he doesn't try to implement any measures until the last book. He doesn't try to tell Harry what to do. And being someone who's wrapped up in common fantasy villain tropes, he doesn't provide the same visceral reaction as Snape and Umbridge do, since his villainy is more removed from reality.

[chantaldormand]

I always though that Jo lost opportunity for interesting drama here. After all Voldemort is someone terrified of death who quite possibly at some point came back to his orphanage only to see pile of rubble. That is a very good justification to hate/fear non-magical humans and to keep up with their technological development.

Actually that is quite similar thinking process to what I've been keeping on my back burner. There is small difference that I wanted to keep to myself until I'm done with either GoF or OotP, but here it is: I think that Harry's perspective on Dumbledore-MOM conflict is bit more complicated than simple rebellion against authority figures. It's struggle between religious authority and secular authority. Notice this: when (from Harry's POV) Fudge is manipulated into arresting Hagrid he is this pathetic caricature of politician, when he goes out of his own volition against Dumbledore, suddenly whole Ministry becomes this cesspool of corruption.

Severus is complicated subject from this perspective. Obviously he converted to one true religion, but he doesn't follow rules closely and his past works against him. But then on Albus' orders he "betrays" him. Kinda sounds like Judas. He does what "God" asks him to do, but is vilified in spite of following God's will.

I'm probably wrong with my interpretations, but JKR's religious background and themes she puts in her books makes me think that way :P

[sunnyskywalker]

Is the Headmaster's office Snape's 30 pieces of silver? This is intriguing. I'll have to think about it more!