Chapter 12

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

• Harry yells at somebody for asking the true story about Cedric, and the next day can't figure out any other reason the kid would want to get out of the room quickly except that he thinks he'll "turn into a nutter." Not much for the logic, that Harry. You already turned into a nutter.



• Hermione says the twins can't advertise on the messageboard for test subjects, but is that officially wrong? I realize I've been remembering this whole incident wrong and it's not as black and white as I thought it was. Apparently it's the prefects' job to "stop this kind of thing." Which thing, exactly? Because I can certainly see the problem with using kids as test subjects, but given the kinds of things kids usually do to each other in this school, and the fact that these kids are agreeing to exactly that and being paid, what specifically is the problem from her pov?



• The official story is now that Seamus thinks Harry's lying about Voldemort, though an accurate reading of the scene shows that Seamus was actually more curious about Voldemort before Harry yelled at him. Oddly, though a few pages later Hermione offers Harry a logical explanation for why other kids would deny Voldemort's return, her reported response to Lavender is to "Shut her fat mouth about Harry." Funny, I think I would have tried to explain things, reminding them that I actually knew Harry and know what he did over the summer etc. "Shut your fat mouth about Harry," simply makes Harry sound more guilty.



• Hermione then goes off on showing great friendship to destroy the enmity that "Voldemort" is spreading. Huh? So shouldn't you not have told Lavender to shut her fat mouth?



• Oh-now I see. Hermione explains that the enmity that matters is between the Trio and those who agree with them already. So it's not that they're supposed to try to make peace with people like Lavender and Seamus who aren't in the know (and certainly not Slytherins specifically) but that they should not fight amongst themselves when they have Lavender and Seamus as a common enemy. Something tells me that won't be difficult. Hermione is eager to work on inter-house unity, presumably so that she can boss around more people--Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs as well as Gryffindors.



• Hagrid is still missing. We know.



• Hermione still gets the Prophet to know what "the enemy" is saying. I can't help but think that usually Hermione just knows and tells us what the enemy is saying. And what they're thinking. And why. And what we should do about it. And she's always right.



• Fred and George reminisce about giving people boils during their OWLS, which presumably was quite the jape. They got 3 OWLS each…err, any British-types want to tell me if that's good or bad?



• Poor Ron. He thinks it would be cool to be an Auror. Only what does Harry then decide to be? Ron, meet your supervisor, the famous Harry Potter! He'll be better than you at everything in your professional life. ETA: Ha! Called that one!



• Why do the kids never learn who Voldemort is in History of Magic? Or some other class, like DADA? Wouldn't it help with the whole fear-and-dread thing if people could look him up in the yearbook? Does Dumbledore just like the drama of having him be an unknown? Or is there some law that history can't ever be relevent to what's going on in the present?



• Harry notes that classes can be better in the hands of competent teachers. In other words, Binns has never bought him a present and isn't personally loyal to him.



• Cho is remarkable in a scene for being alone and not surrounded by the usual giggling girls. Is there really any reason to read further about Cho? Girls who hang around with friends who are also female and giggle are stupid and worthless. Why, just look at Hermione, who hangs around with two boys and glares at them incessantly. (She's been glaring all chapter, just thought I'd mention.)



• I can't recall if we've heard about this group of girls before-usually I picture Cho alone on her broom and Pansy with the group of girls. Was she always this type of charicature, or did these girls just gravitate to her because her character was about to show itself unworthy?



• Cho also reveals herself to be dreadful by appearing pleased Harry is not covered in Stinksap. Ginny A worthy girl would have found it hysterical he was covered in Stinksap and sat down next to him!



• I suspect Ron is correct and Cho has only been supporting The Tornadoes since they started winning, because Cho's character is crumbling fast. Remember that all who long for Draco to get more page-time. He'll get two paragraphs of picking his nose or something. There's your character development!



• ETA: Okay, I was a bit wrong there. He got a whole book of what looked like character development that just turned out to be nose-picking.



• Hermione yells at sports fan Ron for not realizing Cho wanted to talk to Harry alone. Granted, that didn't take much brains to figure out, but must Hermione aggressively corral ever single personal encounter in this book?



• Harry's crush on Cho has got, like, nothing whatsoever to do with Cho and everything to do with whether Cho likes Harry. Which is just too funny because he's totally taking the girl's traditional role: Do you think she likes me? She's come over to talk to me twice. Maybe next time she'll ask me out!



• Ron and Hermione are still bickering.



• Snape shows the side of him that is a good teacher by silencing the class just by walking in and by informing everyone that they will pass their NEWTS, including Neville. He says not everyone will study with him next year, unfortunately I assume Harry will pass his OWLS because…well, because he deserves it, doesn't he? He can't be not good in Potions when it would show Snape up if he did well. Besides, it's been a while since he's revealed another hidden talent.



• ETA: That hidden talent would be cheating, of course. I'm sorry, did I say cheating? Of course it wasn't cheating. Harry's got a lot on his mind. The Prince owed it to him to make him best in the class.



• Still, I'd really really hate to be Harry in Snape's class. He picks on him something awful.



• Ron wants to know where the evidence Snape stopped working for Voldemort is. Bwahahaha! Like anyone in the WW ever cares about evidence of anything! Hermione provides the evidence: Dumbledore says so.



• Harry tells Hermione and Ron to shut up. Thanks, Harry. Harry is pleased at their being so shocked and angry at his remarks--yes, he is becoming a really nasty person-only since we're also told there was a "flare" of anger I fear every nasty thing Harry's ever done will be chalked up to that mean old Voldemort and not just Harry being a lot like that Slytherin kid he doesn't like. ETA: Called that one too. All pretty much Voldemort



• For the second time Hermione tells Harry not to take his temper out on them, which is true, but also underscores just how impossible it would be to be friends with Hermione, because she'd always be telling you why you did something in a way that made you look foolish and her look good. I mean yes, Harry is in a foul mood and is more patient otherwise, but also maybe you two are just annoying. Hermione is doubly right, though, because presumably she also yelled at Ron that they should stop fighting.



• Harry doesn't need any stupid class to interpret his dreams. Honestly, it's not like dreams could be in any way important and why would correctly interpreting them be of use? Dream diary? Pshaw! It's really unfair that Harry, who suffers from Important Angst Dreams, has to share a class with merely average dreamers who have Not Known Pain and so can not have proper dreams that they Refuse To Talk About.



• Umbridge's class: really this is something one should go to the headmaster about. If they had a headmaster who actually ran a school instead of made up stupid plans to save the world in his office.



• Hermione's obviously spoiling for a fight here and intentionally trying to challenge the teacher and assert her own authority over Umbridge's. A Durmstrang student could just as easily have challenged Lupin over the fact he was only teaching Defense instead of teaching them about the Dark Arts on the same grounds and been told off the same way.



• I love the wonderful little defense of Fake!Moody, btw, because it's so the mindset of the book. I mean, clearly nobody is in the least bit chilled by the fact that Moody "turned out to be a maniac" because they "still learned loads." It's not that the kids shouldn't admit they learned a lot, but I genuinely think most if not all of them are incapable of re-thinking last year's class with this new information and wondering just what they might have been learning. It's like saying, "Sure Ted Bundy turned out to be a serial killer but he and I really hit it off and I liked what he had to say about women!"



• This is why they probably *need* just this sort of class in theory and law, to think about what they're doing instead of just finding out how cool it is to hex people who presumably deserve it because why would they be hexing them if they didn't?



• Umbridge plays Harry like a fiddle and he performs on cue. I note Seamus is listening avidly to Harry's words about what happened in the graveyard, now that he's finally gotten to hear it. Seamus=first wizard ever to try to ascertain objective truth.



• McGonnogal tries to explain to Harry about keeping his head down, but apparently he's no better at this than Draco was second year (OTP!!).



• She says she's glad Harry "listens to Hermione Granger at any rate," apparently not realizing Hermione was the one who started the trouble in class and didn't keep her bushy head down either. I am beginning to suspect Hermione stands over the authorial voice with a whip demanding plugs for herself every page or so.

Designated Hero
Isn't it obvious?

Exploitation Filmmakers' Credo
I think Harry's disinterest in dreams might somewhat fall under this rule.

Informed Attributes
Glad you listened to that Hermione Granger. She'd never intentionally upset Umbridge in class!

IITS and Idiot World
Why doesn't Dumbledore make a second effort to explain to the students what happened last year if they should understand it? Why is Voldemort not studied in History or DADA?

Final score: 5

Comments

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Actually, one of the things that really struck me doing these readthroughs is that I started with OotP and later went back to the beginning and there's a huge difference in Ron as he gets older. Why does he become an idiot? In the beginning he's an ordinary kid. He's not particularly clever, but he's got a perfectly good mind. As the series goes on he just gets lazier and dumber. In the beginning it could be chalked up to being clueless about girls because he hadn't quite hit puberty yet, but then he seemed to embody every idea of "why guys are stupid" about women. So Harry was somehow free of any vulgarity while Ron was both bad with women and more sexist.

But for some reason this was just what Hermione wanted. Don't ask me why.

Like I said above, Ron doesn't even come through int he "good friend" department where you'd think he could (and where he does in fanfic). Hermione's the one devoting her life to Harry. Ron keeps bringing up his own issues so he can cause problems.

Hermione is at her lowest in OotP for me because she just comes across as completely fake. I feel like she's literally is just churning the plot all the time with not a moment's downtime to just be a girl. She and Harry embody the irritated feeling I get from this book--Harry's angry all the time, and Hermione's making complicated schemes to make things happen instead of letting them happen naturally.

[cressida0201.livejournal.com]

...but then he seemed to embody every idea of "why guys are stupid" about women.

I'd go further and say that Ron, by the end of the series, embodies every idea of "why guys are stupid," period.

But for some reason this was just what Hermione wanted. Don't ask me why.

Don't ask JKR either, apparently. She claims to identify Hermione with her younger self, and she also claims to have dated Ron-types in the past (before marrying a Harry-type...hmm....), but she still can't seem to explain what would draw a Hermione to a Ron. Or maybe the Hermione/Ron pairing is just a relic of her original story plan, left over from the days when she did like Rons and she thought they were a good match, but she feels that she's so beyond that now and doesn't really believe in it any more, and so she's just using the whole thing to rag on the hapless Rons that she dated before she wised up. *rolls eyes*

And about Hermione (hit "post" too soon)

[cressida0201.livejournal.com]

Oops, I hit "post" earlier than I meant to, so here's the rest of what I was going to say:

Hermione's making complicated schemes to make things happen instead of letting them happen naturally.

I guess the thing with me is that I like scheming and manipulating characters, characters who use their brains to make things happen. They fascinate me, whether they're heroes or villains; but the latter is more common, so I'm especially fascinated by people who use their scheming and manipulating skills for good. This is probably why Hermione and Dumbledore used to be on my list of favorite characters in the series, and why I was reluctant to let go of my liking for them. However, once they both proved that they weren't actually all that devoted to good, I felt disgusted with them.

Re: And about Hermione (hit "post" too soon)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Just to be clear--I don't mind manipulators. They can be fantastic. But I felt like in this book it got too much, so *everything* came down to Hermione figuring stuff out and knowing what was going on or saying she did later and it started to feel like she had no life outside of this stuff. So she felt completely like the author and I started blaming her for my irritation with the way the book made me feel. Like the way this is a story where if people just talked to each other they'd have figured stuff out.

And yeah, Ron seems to ultimately be about Ron being stupid like a guy, period. Makes me wonder about that friend he's supposedly based on, because presumably he doesn't have all the worst qualities since he's a friend and not a boyfriend, but boy, I don't believe he's that dumb. And hopefully she doesn't cook and wash his underwear for him.

[xerox78.livejournal.com]

Actually, one of the things that really struck me doing these readthroughs is that I started with OotP and later went back to the beginning and there's a huge difference in Ron as he gets older. Why does he become an idiot? In the beginning he's an ordinary kid. He's not particularly clever, but he's got a perfectly good mind. As the series goes on he just gets lazier and dumber. In the beginning it could be chalked up to being clueless about girls because he hadn't quite hit puberty yet, but then he seemed to embody every idea of "why guys are stupid" about women. So Harry was somehow free of any vulgarity while Ron was both bad with women and more sexist.

But for some reason this was just what Hermione wanted. Don't ask me why.

I've done a lot of thinking since DH came out, and I've come to the conclusion that the anti-Ron/Hermione/anti-Ron camp has a point when they claimed that not only did Hermione not fancy/love Ron, she could barely stand the sight of him. (Going by the MACK thread on FAP, Emma Watson portrays this wonderfully in the movies. And didn't JKR say she told Emma the most about her character?)

This is my theory: Ron is simply a means to an end for Hermione, the end being her career and whatever plans she has to change the wizarding world. In wizarding politics, Hermione's brains and talent aren't enough. She's still a Muggle-born. She can wipe her parents' memories but she can't wipe her heritage away, so she needed to play the game: make a respectable pureblood marriage with no Death Eater connections. Marry her way up the political/corporate ladder, if you will. Face it, if anyone in the books would have their entire life planned out by age 13, it's Hermione.

Enter Ron Weasley. Per JKR, the Weasleys are the family of the wizarding world. Ron is the perfect choice out of the six Weasley brothers:

* closest to her in age and proximity
* not popular or respected like his brothers, so Hermione wouldn't have to compete with scores of girls for him.
* such a pathetic loser that not only can he not do better than Hermione, he can't do anything besides Hermione. She doesn't ever have to worry about him cheating on her or dumping her, no one else will have him. (Besides, the sun supposedly shines out of her rear end, so why would Ron want anyone else, anyway?)

It also explains much of Hermione's behavior in HBP and DH: why she flew into such a psychotic rage when he began dating Lavender (Hint: it wasn't on Lavender's behalf). He was throwing a wrench into her plans. Why Hermione was so distraught when he was almost poisoned to death in HBP and when he left in DH. If Ron had died, her carefully made plans would have been shot to you-know-where. Why she can deliberately inflict physical harm onto him and remain smugly proud of herself for doing so.

I imagine that once Hermione has safely achieved all her goals, she'll promptly dump Ron and take up with her chosen "worthy" upgrade (probably a fellow Slug). And since this is JKR's world, there will be no repercussions for her. In fact, I imagine that the Weasley family, including their children, will close ranks around the powerful, respected Hermione and shut the worthless Ron out. After all, they wanted a girl instead of him and he's not enough of an achiever to truly belong in a family of Head Boys, professional-caliber Quidditch players, etc.

[savagedamsel10.livejournal.com]

You forgot in your list:
*Someone who will never in any way make her feel stupid or inferior by means of achievement (no matter what Percy's error of judgement was in the war, his achievements are still too close to what Hermione has to make her feel entirely comfortable)
*Deeply entrenched with the family and Harry and never considered or seriously strived to make the hard yards for anything different or better (because this requirement would completely cancel out any possibility with Percy, who has proven that he's someone who isn't that happy in the family and someone I still believe needs a girl who is NOT a Weasley/Harry worshipper/assimilator).

*Sigh* I don't know about you, but I find it just so damn depressing that this could be a very valid interpretation of the text concerning Ron/Hermione. I liked Ron/Hermione because I always saw it as a goofy, lively ship that isn't schmaltzy between two people who are different yet matched for each other but eventually reality got in the way. I find it annoying because JKR whether she knew it or not (actually, considering her interview statements, she did) just reinforced the stereotype that a smart girl can't have a relationship of equals with a nice, goofy, ordinary guy without it becoming well, what we were given.

On the issue of family priorities, I tend to believe that if there was ever a conflict between Harry and Hermione, then Hermione would be kicked to the curb like a bad habit, especially by Molly (The Easter Egg incident I thought was very telling of where the cookie crumbles) but the idea of a family divide on a Ron/Hermione conflict is interesting, even if depressing. That said, Ginny would definitely want to side with Hermione (since that way she can jostle in the trio and Harry's myopic vision more strongly) but I do think that Harry would choose Ron (so that would leave Ginny in a bind). I'm of the firm belief though that Percy would support Ron no matter what in a possible conflict because Percy does very obviously love Ron (even if JKR never saw it as important enough to care about because it features two characters she doesn't like and even if he is a high achiever who likes Hermione) but that would infuriate Ron so I don't know.

Too bad few people would try writing a seriously problematic Weasley family divide without promoting ships I might not entirely care (like HHr) about or trashing characters I do care for (Percy and Ron), because it would be rather interesting.

[go-back-chief.livejournal.com]

I don't think the Weasleys (not Molly anyway) would side with Hermione, nor do I think she'd ever leave him -why would she? If she can spend the rest of her life feeling smugly superior, I think she'd be very happy, but other than that, this seems sadly plausible.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

It really is weird the way this turned out. It did seem in the beginning like they were just going to be a bickering couple who still worked (the beginning being PS/SS). But it's hard to get around the idea that Hermione really needs to feel superior to her husband in every way, which isn't very flattering. Even if one disagrees with her that he's inferior, I honestly don't see any reason to think that Hermione doesn't find him so. There are a few moments where he does the right thing (tearing up Percy's letter) but they're just so buried in constant inferiority--and even those good moments show judgment on her part while Ron's poor judgment of her, when he has it, just comes down to his noticing that other girls are pretty. (The attempt to make a parallel between the "why do you say that sounding surprised?" in DH is painful.)

[cressida0201.livejournal.com]

But it's hard to get around the idea that Hermione really needs to feel superior to her husband in every way, which isn't very flattering.

Well, Ron's happy to let her be the superior one, too, and to get her to do his work for him. He mocks her studying until he's caught without homework (which he doesn't do himself, because he's too busy playing quidditich like a manly man), then he casually sponges off Hermione, and then he whines because he's not being recognized as a big success. None of that is very flattering either.

No, wait, that's backwards!

[cressida0201.livejournal.com]

I think I might have it. It isn't that Ron wants to let Hermione be superior--it's that, in general, I don't believe he really thinks she is. I don't get the impression that he actually values any of the things Hermione is genuinely good at until the moment when he needs her help. Then he uses her, and he's grateful to her for maybe five seconds...after which he goes back to belittling her skills until the next crisis comes along. It's such a very "male privilege" attitude.

Re: No, wait, that's backwards!

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's depressing all around. Ron on the one hand is used to being "not as good as" and obviously Hermione is more exceptional than he is. He's not surprised that she's Prefect, he knows she gets better grades, he doesn't have a problem taking orders from her. Ron's inferiority complex is then a whole storyline in itself--in DH there's that whole scene making clear that he'd expect Hermione to prefer Harry (not because he sees her as so great but because he always expects to be second best).

But then at the same time Hermione waits on both these two idiots in ridiculous way--in DH she's doing their laundry and cooking for them on the camping trip. And we already know she checks their homework for them and does it for them--wtf is that?

In DH when Ron does compliment Hermione it's insincere, just something he's saying because that's what he's supposed to say. I don't have a problem with both of them making no bones about telling the other one they're being stupid when they think they are (they both do that) but I'm not seeing any good basis of respect from either of them. The author gives Hermione a few moments where we see what she's supposed to see in Ron, as weak as they are, but I honestly think she forgets to show Ron ever seeming to genuinely respect Hermione--perhaps because she herself thinks it's obvious since Hermione's great. The only thing that comes through to me is that she seems to get under his skin. But personally I buy him more with Lavender and think he'd be happier with her.

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

Hermione is at her lowest in OotP for me because she just comes across as completely fake. I feel like she's literally just churning the plot all the time with not a moment's downtime to just be a girl. She and Harry embody the irritated feeling I get from this book--Harry's angry all the time, and
Hermione's making complicated schemes to make things happen instead of letting them happen naturally.
Interesting how different things work for different people: For me, Hermione seemed 100% believable (contrary to HBP, like I said above in a comment to Cressida), because I felt she just WAS this complete control freak, managing everybody's life but her own. From PS onwards, she always comes across as a "self-made girl", sort of living the American dream to drag yourself out of the mud(blood)by sheer hard work and iron will. Whereas at the beginning, her main goal was to establish herself in the WW by being better than anybody else (much like women try to do in male jobs),her association with Harry put a different spin on her goal: she doesn't just want to fit in, but to change things, improve the WW and be a "player". For a 15-year old to challenge the almighty minister and his deputy, you NEED a certain rigidity. The softer, lascivious, frivolous side of a pubescent girl would be completey contrary to that - in fact, Hermione comes off as essentially sexless/ frigid - and rightly so.