OotP Chapter Thirteen

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Possibly the bitchiest chapter ever!

• Harry continues to unintentionally help the Ministry by acting the part of the attention-seeking glory hound angry with everyone for not believing him without doing much to make anyone believe him.



• Part of what makes this book such an unpleasant read-which doesn't have to be a criticism-is how perfectly Harry and Umbridge egg each other on. If there's one thing these books re-create wonderfully, it's the feeling of wanting to beat the shit out of someone, whether it's Umbridge, Malfoy, Harry…whoever. People always describe this book as "dark," but honestly it doesn't read to me as dark so much as just stressed out and pissy.



• Ron suggests Umbridge is spying on them and Hermione has no patience with him trying to make deductions. Though compared to her own announcement that "There are 2 prefects from every house," to a room full of fifth years who would know that already Ron's "I think Umbridge is spying on Harry!" is a shocking revelation.



• As crazy as it sounds, the Twins paying kids to be test subjects is a step up for them.



• Why is Hermione not picked on in canon? Her attitude in the scene with the twins, and throughout the last chapter and this one, is relentlessly angry and repressive. Exactly the type of thing the kids--particularly the twins--stand against in every other situation. She even threatens to tell on the twins to their mother (who in this scene is allegedly somebody they listen to). She yells at most everyone, and those she doesn't yell at she's contemptuous of (Lavender and Parvati) or condescending about. Why is she not continually covered in boils or humiliated, like everyone else is who acts like this? Isn't she actually far worse than Percy ever was in this regard? I'm not saying I want her to be hexed, especially, but given the rules of the universe the only reason she isn't seems to be that everybody's supposed to know she's important.



• Ron isn't doing anything to stop the twins, because Hermione will handle it. I can almost see the beer belly in Ron's future as he lies in the armchair letting Hermione deal with everything. (Which she wants to do--they're such a perfect couple--OMG OTP!!)
  
  
• Hermione then takes out knitting. Busywork-cause-mystery solving-homework-letter writing. I fleetingly wonder what the series would have been like if the boys had fought the troll with Lavender Brown instead.



• Hermione yells at Ron for suggesting the house elves don't want to be free when of course they want to be free-they just want to be tricked into becoming free by her. She's done nothing but snap, nag and order for two chapters now. In fact, I feel like if we looked back at her lines almost all of them would have some essence of, "Shut up, you're wrong, let me do all the talking and thinking."



• I think in the next book Hermione should just be replaced by a large dental drill.



• Ron waits until she's gone then slumps off to clear the hats of rubbish because the elves should "know what they're picking up, at least." Ron, they're slaves! They can't think for themselves!



• ETA: Well. What to say about this now? The whole R/Hr "romance" comes to a head when Ron pretty much does exactly what he does here, suggests the House Elves ought to make big decisions about their lives. And Hermione, who's since forgotten her position that House Elves want to be free, will congratulate him on his change of heart when in fact she has changed more on this issue than Ron, who goes from barely giving a damn to barely giving a damn.



• On the plus side, Harry gets his own slave to make him sandwiches and must do anything he says whenever he wants. Sweet!



• Seamus appears to still be trying to determine the truth about things, which is hard in a world that prizes snap decisions based on what your friends and family believe. Even though Harry insulted his mother Seamus he seems to want to know whether Harry's telling the truth or not--what's that about? He must get that from his Muggle father. We'll hex that out of him soon enough.



• Hagrid still missing. I think Hagrid and Ginny should share the award for "Characters you must adore or be driven mad."



• Ron and Hermione snap and huff at each other some more. Ron says her hats look like wooly bladders and she refuses to speak to him for, like, the entire day. Yeah, sleeping together is going to make this relationship all better. Please have lots of children soon too.



• Though to be honest in this book I almost wonder if Lavender and Parvati don't torture Hermione constantly by pretending she's made mistakes when she hasn't just to drive her insane.



• Draco appears-yay! People are laughing! But they're laughing at Harry, probably. Grrrrrr. Draco's such a dream bully-yes, you really are the most important person in his life! He has no life outside of making yours hell! He's just jealous!



• Draco imitates Hermione and Pansy shrieks with laughter-that's some laugh! I fleetingly wish Draco would do an imitation of Hermione yelling at everyone from morning till night, which has by far replaced the image of Hermione raising her hand in class.



• Of course Harry sees the imitation when Hermione doesn't, because he's staring at Malfoy. Awww.



• Harry is angered by stupid Lavender and Parvati showing interest in creatures Hagrid hadn't shown them. See how much pleasanter Harry is when we don't have to take him completely seriously?



• Draco gives Harry a hint about where Hagrid is. Draco, being evil, is pleased Hagrid is gone and so am I, which I guess makes me evil too. Now that the series is over I realize I am completely unable to imagine where or how Draco gets his insider info except for the general "His Dad's a DE."



• Obligingly, Draco refrains from making the joke a 15-year-old boy really would make at Harry running up to the sub, wringing his hands and asking when Hagrid would return: Potter, why are you so obsessed with Hagrid missing? Is he your boyfriend? Nobody round here can satisfy you the way his half-giant self can?



• Hermione tells Harry exactly what to do about Malfoy (Oh god, make her stop!) and also says Dumbledore would know if anything happened to Hagrid. Um, yeah, he would know. But that doesn't mean he'd tell you guys.



• Hermione reminds Harry that Malfoy's a prefect and so could make things difficult to add to Harry's feelings oppression. Though Malfoy's being a Prefect doesn't actually make him any different.



• Harry makes a joke about having a hard life and Ron laughs, though I wonder if Ron is laughing for the same reasons Harry is. Hermione frowns at it-NO HUMOR EVER FOR HERMIONE IN THIS BOOK!



• JKR's characters have relatively little sense of humor about themselves at all. It's the kind of humor born out of anger rather than pain, if you know what I mean. If it's humor from pain, it must be the pain of someone you are angry at, not your own pain.



• Luna believes Harry because Luna is determined to believe whatever the majority doesn't believe as part of her persona. Hermione judges that Harry can "do better than her." I'm not bothered by Hermione's attitude towards Luna--I often agree with her. (I seem to remember shocking somebody in a previous discussion about not thinking I would back down from "Everyone knows the Quibbler's rubbish.")



• However again, think about Hermione's personality in the last two chapters and think about how this personality would have been treated if attached to a non-Trio character.



• As came up in the previous chapter, isn't it kind of odd that Hermione is impatient about believing in things like Snorkacks, when she's Muggleborn? The girl suddenly found out every creature out of a fairy tale was true when she was 11.



• One might wonder if Hermione was particularly bothered by Luna with the way she dismissively tells Harry he could do better than her, but Hermione is so relentlessly disapproving of everyone nowadays she's probably not.



• Ernie, the Pureblood, make a Neville-like gesture of support. His family's always been behind Dumbledore-like Neville's-and they still are. Again, not so much for evidence or logic, but they're for Dumbledore. Seamus-still paying attention but also still angry at Harry-tries to decide what's true based on what is actually true. Seamus is fast becoming my True Hero of the Potterverse.



• OWLS becomes the new Expulsion Hearing-something for Harry to feel nervous about in his free moments so he's always harassed about something.



• Heh. I love Professor Umbridge's office, though I must admit at this point I don't really "get" her personality; what she's supposed to believe, what her motivations are supposed to be. I really feel like I should, but I can't.



• Continuing with pain management in the Potterverse, the quill is very very painful. Searing pain. Harry, who is good, is in pain. Does Hermione ever learn about this quill? I suspect she'd want Harry to get her one for future personal use-in the fight against Voldemort, of course.



• Harry continues to be Umbridge's perfect subject. She sure knows how to play the Gryffindor Code against itself (he won't tell Dumbledore, he'll make it into a battle of wills just like she wants).



• I notice in this book the way Harry is always surprised that as much as he hates one person, he can hate another person more. It fits right in with the constantly feeling harassed and constant anger and pissiness. I mention it because in this book especially Harry hate knows no bounds. It's Hatefest UK!



• Hermione seems to be going along a similar path where this is the book she's constantly amazed at how every time she thinks the people around her couldn't be stupider, they surprise her. Maybe she's having a sympathy possession.



• The twins are still testing on first years against Hermione's orders. From their perspective, Hermione=Umbridge Jr. Yet they don't hold it against her. Hermione=Molly Jr.?



• Harry's now acting like Dumbledore's neglected girlfriend as well as Hagrid's: I'm not going to him until he comes to me!



• Personally, I would have marched up to his office and informed him that he'd hired a psychopath. But then brave students never go to adults for help. You do that and next thing you know your parents might be asking after injuries at school.



• I would like to point out that Ron has apparently been made Keeper because he's a Weasley and Angelina assumes this means it's in his blood, making him a better choice than people who were better than he was in the tryouts. Nope, no blood prejudice in this house!



• Well, at least the Weasleys don't buy brooms for the team. All the Gryffindor players earn it their places on talent! Even if it's the talent of their elder siblings.



• Hermione would never be so stupid as Harry as to think Umbridge is connected to Voldemort like Quirrel was just because she made Harry's scar hurt. That was so four books ago! After a few more reminders of all the ways she's right, she goes to bed.



• When Harry finds Hermione asleep in front of the fire I assumed the twins had drugged her but it looks like they didn't.



• All three kids in the Trio are tired from lack of sleep. Harry had to do homework after his detention, Ron's been practicing Quidditch, Hermione has no reason to stay up late but she's decided to make hats until the wee hours. It gives me this picture of a girl desperately finding fake reasons to stay in the common room because she's so disliked by her dorm mates she would rather wait until they are asleep before she goes to bed. That idea should make me feel sorry for her, except that a) I don't think it's what the author intends-she's just driven and besides she needs to be even with the boys and b) she seems like a grown woman so probably really doesn't care if the 15-year-old girls don't like her.

Designated Hero
Take your pick.

Idiot Picture
Why would anyone complain to the Headmaster about a teacher harassing them? Let him come to them first!

Final score: 2

Comments

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

I agee and I'll add that her comeuppance has a sexual tinge to it. Centaurs in classical myth are often associated with rape. Her appearance at the end of OotP, with the leaves in her hair, and her PTSD reaction to the clip-clopping are strong hints that she was raped or gang-raped after she was carried off.

Going off the deep end here... I just noticed that there's a strong association (all implied) between sex and animals in this series. Another character who seems to get off on the idea of hurting children is Fenrir Greyback, who is, of course, a werewolf. JKR as much as said that Aberforth was having sex with goats. Almost all the characters in the books who actually have sex are either part-animal or described in animalistic ways. Fleur is part-Veela, Bill has "wolfish tendencies," dead-sexy Sirius is an animagus, Lupin is a werewolf. The only non-animal "sexy" person I can think of is Bellatrix. (I'm talking about sexy as viewed by Harry. Fans make everyone sexy.)

Even Harry's sex drive is animalistic. It's not him, it's a "monster" that claws around in his chest.

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

Very good observations. Interesting that it was the (IMO) essentially sexless Hermione, that instrumentalized the centaurs in this way. Of course, Umbridge's first name means "pains" and may well have been chosen just because of that. But at the same time, at least in my country (Germany), "Dolores" is a typical Spanish name, about like Carmen (remember Bizet), often associated with dancers or generally sexually aggressive, seductive but cruel women. The femme fatale variety. It would tye in with Rowling's depiction of sexuality as something animalistic and essentially bad - remember, the House of Water/ the Serpent is also the inherently bad house, which has to be cowed and accepted IN SPITE of itself. Somehow, I always envision Petunia with her pinched lips when faced with a stain when I think of JKR explaining about Slytherin...

[j-lunatic.livejournal.com]

"Dolores" is a typical Spanish name, about like Carmen (remember Bizet), often associated with dancers or generally sexually aggressive, seductive but cruel women.

The name comes from the same root as "dolorous"--painful and/or sad. There's a fairly famous poem by Swinburne celebrating a Dolores as his "Lady of Pain" (he was a serious masochist, so this was just his thing). And "Lolita" is a diminutive of Dolores.

As for characters with strong associations with animals, think about Umbridge's association with cats. Then remember how a cat that's caught a mouse will play with it.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

This may sound stupid, but should I assume that in England women who love cats and kittens have the same spinster connections? Presumably they do since JKR used it, but there's sort of some repressed sexuality there as well.

[j-lunatic.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming so, based on Judi Dench in Notes on a Scandal. Even before the idea of lesbianism was sufficiently mainstream that audiences could ascribe it to characters like her, there was always supposed to be a sense of something "unnatural" about their existence.

[violaswamp.livejournal.com]

I agee and I'll add that her comeuppance has a sexual tinge to it.

Yes. That's why I HATEHATEHATE it and why OotP is the worst book in the series, IMO.

I just noticed that there's a strong association (all implied) between sex and animals in this series.

Yes, it's very Greek-myth like. Of course JKR has borrowed lots of stuff from Greek mythology, but the thematic similarities to Greek myth exist even when there's no specific character or species borrowed from it.

[merrymelody.livejournal.com]

I hate OotP most, too!
DH sucks, but I never really managed to finish it all, it was so boring. But I'd rather be bored and read about anaesthesized characters acting as the plot demands than I would read OotP again; where everyone's just relentlessly vile, with our heroes getting an added dollop of being hypocrites who are rewarded for it (of course, they're hypocrites who are rewarded for their viciousness in every book, it just stands out the most in OotP.)

[violaswamp.livejournal.com]

Yeah, OotP seems to have a certain special nastiness to me.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

I can see why you would feel this way now. But, before DH, OOTP was my favorite book precisely because there seemed to be shades of grey developing. I thought the kids would "get their comeuppance", as it were, and learn that they could not and should not do anything they felt like and that actions have consequences - some of them unexpected. No such luck. In HBP, Harry gets to be a liar, thief and plagiarist, all with no consequences at all. He nearly kills Draco and never has to apologize to him. And, in DH, he is proud of becoming a torturer! All of the kids - but especially Harry and Hermione -are throwing around Unforgivables and acting in morally questionable ways, and it just doesn't matter.

I really hate these books now precisely because the kids - and especially Harry - never have to thank anyone or apologize to anyone, ever. That is a very poor message to be sending young adolescents. I thought these books were about growing up? You *cannot* grow up without recognizing other people are just as important as you are! You cannot grow up without knowing how to thank others and apologize to them.

Love means knowing how - and when - to say you are sorry. (Among other things). I knew that when I was *thirteen*! And Hsrry never learns it at all.

BTW, sorry for the rant! Getting back to Umbridge, I am actually creeped out by a lot of the sex stuff in the last three books. It strikes me as more than a little weird. The centaurs, Greyback, Aberforth and the goat - it's very disturbing in a book being read by kids under ten years old. And there is a lot of it, especially in DH. Like almost everyone else, I was desperately tired of all the wand jokes by the time I hit the third chapter.

[(Anonymous)]

But, before DH, OOTP was my favorite book precisely because there seemed to be shades of grey developing. I thought the kids would "get their comeuppance", as it were, and learn that they could not and should not do anything they felt like and that actions have consequences - some of them unexpected.

Ditto. Not to mention that I hoped that they'd actually have to learn to think things through, look beyond the surface and actually sweat for their victories. That they'd have to grow up in order to beat the Big Bad, you know? No such luck, of course, they only got ever more juvenile after OoTP. All in the name of elusive whimsey so many people decried the lack of in OoTP, no doubt.

[violaswamp.livejournal.com]

In HBP, Harry gets to be a liar, thief and plagiarist, all with no consequences at all. He nearly kills Draco and never has to apologize to him. And, in DH, he is proud of becoming a torturer!

Exactly. I wouldn't mind Harry doing bad things--if the text had some kind of acknowledgment that these were bad things. If we had a sympathetic portrayal of the suffering that these things cause, for instance (which wouldn't necessarily mean that the suffering characters were sympathetic). Or if some other good guy criticized Harry for them. Or if there were dark consequences for them. But none of these things happen. Basically, Harry does bad things and we're supposed to think it's okay because he's the good guy. That's pretty damn sociopathic.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

I think that when Rowling returned to writing the series after the 3-year summer the characters and their world were no longer *real* to her. It no longer mattered what she had them do, and there were no consequences because things that aren't real don't need to have consequences.

[aasaylva.livejournal.com]

But, before DH, OOTP was my favorite book precisely because there seemed to be shades of grey developing
Thank you so much for that! I've started feeling very awkward, reading how everyone seems to hate OotP whereas it was my favourite for precisely the reasons you mentioned. I still stand by that, however, as I'm utterly convinced that HBP and DH were not written by the same person as the first five books. So much promise gone down into mediocrity, hypocrisy and self-righteous sadism... (weeps)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Some background might explain this. This group is a spin off of a f'locked community that started because one fanfic writer wanted to re-read OotP for her fic. Only she couldn't bring herself to do it because she hated it. So she started a group of all people who hated OotP and thought we could only get through it with support. So you've actually joined something that basically started as an OotP-hate comm.:-) Not that this is a pre-requisite or anything, but just wanted to tell you you're not imagining it.

[(Anonymous)]

So you've actually joined something that basically started as an OotP-hate comm.:-)

Ah, this explains so much! ;). But excellent snark to be found here makes up for it. Anyway, OoTP is also my favorite book and actually the one that made me a fan, although retroactively I also like 3 and 1. At the time I only continued reading to keep abreast of the phenomenon, though. And yes, nothing came of OoTP's promise, but it still hints at what could have been, IMHO, so I still like it.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

I feel exactly the same way. These books could have been so good, and the last two - and especially DH - just destroyed them.

[cressida0201.livejournal.com]

If it helps, you're not entirely alone. There was a time when OotP was my second-favorite in the series, right after PoA. I realize now that this was mainly because I thought all of those intriguing new ideas and characters being introduced in OotP were actually going to go somehwere. Now that I've found out they weren't, the book has slid downward in my estimation--but I still like it the best of the last three books, by far. HBP was what killed the series for me.