GoF Chapter Thirty-Two

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

*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

Comments

[horridporrid.livejournal.com]

*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.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

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!

[(Anonymous)]

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

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

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....