deathtocapslock | GoF Chapter Thirty-Two

Current Music: Flesh, Blood and Bone

Entry tags:

GoF Chapter Thirty-Two

*Against all odds, Voldemort’s stupid plan seems to have worked.

*Peter walking up with Voldemort in his arms is pretty awesome. It’s almost a shame it gets spoiled by Harry’s scar pain. Kill the spare: also awesome.

*I notice Voldemort does not say, "Kill the ruggedly handsome spare with lovely grey eyes," because he’s not a great big boy-fancier like Harry is.

*Harry stared at Cedric for a second that contained an eternity, or perhaps several sunlit days.

*Baby Voldemort: also pretty damned awesome. And the cauldron’s a nicely Celtic touch.

*I don’t know about you, but I think all this "bone of the father unwittingly given" stuff is just made up as they go along for dramatic effect. Voldemort’s the only one who seems to do dramatic magic. With everybody else it’s all perilously close to pig Latin.

*I guess Wormtail has at least had some practice losing body parts. Honestly, this guy is one of the weirdest in the Potterverse. I find myself trying to imagine poor IfYou’veAReadyMind!Draco in this kind of situation. (Did you know you have red eyes??!!)

*OMG, I need to get out of fandom. I read, "He felt the tip of the dagger penetrate the crook" as something altogether different. Especially the crook part.

*Has anyone explained to us why Peter went and found this baby man again? What’s in it for him, exactly? Why would he not rather just find a nice restaurant and live in the back alley off scraps?

*Robe me. I take it back, Voldemort is a big ole queen.

*Lord Voldemort had risen again. I admit that in itself didn’t seem like much of a big deal to me in reading it.

*Read over that part where Peter gets his hand cut off again. Could the set up be any better than the resolution to this storyline? People often plum forget Peter's even in DH much less that he gets killed in it.

This chapter was six and a half pages long and included bondage, blood-letting, nudity, devil babies, murder and self-amputation.

Final score: Zero

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

sistermagpie: *Peter walking up with Voldemort in his arms is pretty awesome.

I read this as "Peter waking up with Voldemort in his arms is pretty awesome."

sistermagpie: *I notice Voldemort does not say, "Kill the ruggedly handsome spare with lovely grey eyes," because he’s not a great big boy-fancier like Harry is.

Oh, but he totally is. He flirts with his male death eaters in every scene they have together. He enjoys playing them off against one another for his attentions, and he shamelessly compares the size of his wand to Lucius's. And none of them has any idea what to do about all this. Bella, on the other hand, clearly wants him (another parallel between her and Ginny), but he seems bewildered, annoyed, and almost frightened by her attentions, and we have no reason to believe it was any different pre-Azkaban when she was beautiful.

Actually, I keep having this vision of pretty!Bella in the pre-Godric's-Hollow days, walking down the hall at Death Eater headquarters and pinching Voldemort on the bottom, whereupon Voldemort screams in terror and either tries to beat her off with the nearest solid object or hides behind Lucius.

I read this as "Peter waking up with Voldemort in his arms is pretty awesome."

You and me both.

- Dan Hemmens

And none of them has any idea what to do about all this. Bella, on the other hand, clearly wants him (another parallel between her and Ginny), but he seems bewildered, annoyed, and almost frightened by her attentions, and we have no reason to believe it was any different pre-Azkaban when she was beautiful.

LOL! It's true. And he's just gearing up in this chapter for a big show. But now I'm really going to enjoy that image.

Yeah, that approach of (hooded) Peter to the two boys is fairly impressive.

But then it segues into one of the worst numbers glitches Rowling ever gave us.

Peter stops at a towering monument "only some 6 feet away" and they all stare at each other.

Then we get the headache, Harry dropping his wand and falling to his knees with his eyes shut, Cedric's murder.

He pries his eys open and there is Cedric lying there dead next to him. Peter grags him hustles him over to the towering monument -- still only some 6 feet away -- and ties him to it.

The he looks back to see Cedric's body lying "some 20 feet away" with his fallen wand next to him.

Where the hell were the editors?

Where the hell were the editors?

Smoking big, fat cigars and rubbing filthy wads of cash all over their naked bodies, safe in the knowledge that the book would sell about eight million copies in its first week whether they did their job or not.

- Dan Hemmens

I don’t know about you, but I think all this "bone of the father unwittingly given" stuff is just made up as they go along for dramatic effect. Voldemort’s the only one who seems to do dramatic magic. With everybody else it’s all perilously close to pig Latin.

Also: if that *was* the Ritual For Getting Your Body Back After You Have Survived Your Own Death Through The Use of Horcruxes, you'd think Dumbledore would have known about it.

And since "bone of the father" is a pretty rare commodity, and since he knew exactly who Tom Riddle's father was, couldn't they have just found Tom Senior's grave some time in - say - Harry's second year, and got rid of the damned bones. Sure there'd still be the issue of Voldemort's wacky incorporeal hijinks, but at least you've got him in a holding pattern.

So either the ritual was made up, and Pettigrew was actually just muttering "Darklordius Returnicum" under his breath the whole time, or Dumbledore was being a colossal dumbass.

...

... so I guess the ritual was probably real after all.

- Dan Hemmens

Yes, that's Dumbledore's style all right. So what would he have done if Harry died here? I admit I haven't wrapped my mind around the whole thing since DH, but as far as Dumbledore as concerned could Harry die here as easily as later on?

Well, it would've taken care of the horcrux in his forehead.

*I don’t know about you, but I think all this "bone of the father unwittingly given" stuff is just made up as they go along for dramatic effect. Voldemort’s the only one who seems to do dramatic magic. With everybody else it’s all perilously close to pig Latin.

The bone of the father stuff has a parallel in real magic. I read about it while doing essay research. Almost all of Riddle's stuff has rl background. That is why it is more convincing than the silly spells Harry does. Rowling seems to have her act together only to fall apart in the clunky, unedited prose.

*Lord Voldemort had risen again. I admit that in itself didn’t seem like much of a big deal to me in reading it.

Yes, he was a much better villain when he was hanging out on the back of someone's head. At least he was proactive instead of just standing around and talking nonsense to his DE people.

The bone of the father does sound more like magic as I've read about it--and it really sticks out like a sore thumb here. I mean, when has Harry ever had to gather ingredients for something with this kind of thought?

A Jabootu score of zero? It doesn't seem possible! How about crickets?

It's the only time that's ever happened to my knowledge! It's a very short chapter, of course...

*I guess Wormtail has at least had some practice losing body parts. Honestly, this guy is one of the weirdest in the Potterverse.
[...]
*Read over that part where Peter gets his hand cut off again. Could the set up be any better than the resolution to this storyline? People often plum forget Peter's even in DH much less that he gets killed in it.

One of the things I enjoyed about the Potter books were the interesting characters. They seemed to have such... I'm not sure depth is the word, but a presence, maybe? It was amazing how JKR could flesh a character out with just one well-placed scene. So one of the biggest disappointments for me was how badly she fell down on that in DH. All of her characters flattened out for me. (Even Dumbledore weirdly enough.)

And Peter (see I had a point! ;)) is a great example of the massive let down. Because really... what the heck was his motivation? I don't think JKR needed to devote an entire chapter to the man, but just... something to show us why Peter fell. But no, just a quick, strange death, and we move on. Boo, hiss, etc.

I know, what the hell was that? I guess we're just supposed to understand he's one of those people who betray their friends and spend their live acting on behalf of an abusive psychopath. It's in his blood.

And yeah, Dumbledore too. I actually like the way Dan Hemmings says it best: Suddenly Harry realized that JK Rowling was a really talented writer and all her characters were very complex!

Peter's like the #1 brain breaker in canon. He's a Gryffindor, but he's an abject coward, but actually he's very brave indeed physically, but most every bad thing he does is from fear of getting hurt. And he was TRUFRENS with James and Sirius, but he only hung out with them because they were the biggest bullies in school and Sirius saw him for the little slimeball he was and James only liked him because he stroked the giant Potter ego, so they entrusted him with James and his family's lives. Honestly I have a big soft spot for the character just because he's such an insanely weird plot device.

-L

Then there's the old thought experiment that Peter betrayed James out of sheer resentment. He could have been a very complex character, and provide pretty good insight into the James-as-bullying-little-shit plotline, but instead....

*Has anyone explained to us why Peter went and found this baby man again? What’s in it for him, exactly? Why would he not rather just find a nice restaurant and live in the back alley off scraps?

Ratatouille crossover AU, stat!

Well...he knew Sirius would hunt him down and he wanted the best protection on offer, so he ran to the guy who treats his followers like used tissues and who got himself killed by a baby. I'm thinking it made more sense in JKR's head.

-L

Yeah, I'm starting to think that JKR doesn't listen to her characters at all. Mine would be screaming at me like mad for writing something like that.

And we know she doesn't edit. Even if you won't let editors at it, at least edit it yourself, Rowling!

Well...he knew Sirius would hunt him down and he wanted the best protection on offer, so he ran to the guy who treats his followers like used tissues and who got himself killed by a baby. I'm thinking it made more sense in JKR's head.

How would Sirius hunt him down? He spends the entire book "keeping an eye on Harry" by sitting in a cave two miles away. He seems to forgot completely about Pettigrew. Even if he tried, he'd fail horribly because Sirius has no useful skills of any kind.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

GoF Chapter Thirty-Two

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject