OotP Chapter Thirteen
Jan. 18th, 2008 11:10 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
sistermagpie.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
deathtocapslockPossibly 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
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-01-21 06:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-22 05:58 am (UTC)But eventually it dawned on me that she's not all that openminded. Her default setting happens to be more liberal than Harry's and Ron's, but she's just as inflexible about it, and her core values are pretty much the same as theirs. (Books and cleverness, who needs them?) Also, rules-conscious != ethical. Whenever she has to look to her own conscience for moral guidance, she goes to the dark side frighteningly fast.
-L
Hermione
Date: 2008-01-22 03:44 pm (UTC)However, I think the first explanation is more likely. After all, that's what happened to all the other characters (with the possible exception of Neville). It seems pretty clear to me that JKR's attitude about a lot of things changed while she was writing the series, somewhere in the Book 4-Book 6 era.
Re: Hermione
Date: 2008-01-22 06:29 pm (UTC)What this reading consists of is that JKR claimed that she wanted to present a world that looked all fun and happy, but which you gradually saw was really not at all a nice place.
I am inclined to believe it. After all, you don't introduce concepts like slavery in the 2nd book and soul-eating mosters in the 3rd, and a complete dismissal of any due process of law in the 4th, by accident.
But it really doesn't look to me as if Rowling ever intended to do anything other than to point it out and go; "You see, nasty isn't it? I win." Because she sure the hell didn't do squat to *solve* any of these problems which SHE raised, and paraded past us.
Which hardly fits some of the poses she's been striking in her interviews since the last book came out, in which she claims to have written things which simply *are not there*.
Re: Hermione
Date: 2008-01-22 08:06 pm (UTC)Re: Hermione
Date: 2008-01-22 09:33 pm (UTC)Only she hadn't any idea of how her hero was supposed to fix it, so she welshed on showing us any of that.
Rowling's stance regarding Harry in particular in interviews lately really reminds me of the attitude of narriator of a fairly well-known piece of Austin's juvenellia. "Love and Friendship" wherein the narriator seems to think that the world ought to be extolling her fabulous wonderfullness, not because of anything she's ever *done*, but merely because of who she *is*.
Re: Hermione
Date: 2008-01-23 07:25 pm (UTC)Sure, but neither she nor her characters seem to be aware of the most fundamental and damaging problems of her world - like status of secrecy and how it humiliates and dehumanizes both wizards and muggles, for instance, leave alone mixed families. The problems she does touch on are all rather superficial and even they don't get any in-depth treatment. Rather we are supposed to think that with defeat of a Dark Lord and Harry holding court at the MoM "all will be well". Right...
Oh, and let's not forget that for all it's negatives, the wizarding world is still supposed to be _so_ superior to the muggle one that the Muggleborns routinely abandon society of their origin without a second glance. And presumably let their Muggle parents die young from the illnesses that can be cured by a wave of a wand...
Re: Hermione
Date: 2008-01-23 07:09 am (UTC)Heh. If the series turned into a giant bait and switch, at least that would explain why we were all seeing chess where (with hindsight) there was apparently nothing but tic-tac-toe.
It also occurred to me that JKR seems to have very little intuitive understanding of the kind of morality that readers would expect from an analytical thinker like Hermione. Someone commented in a big Snape/Lily discussion that JKR's own preferred ethics are based on empathy as opposed to principles. Hermione, Snape, Lupin, Percy and Dumbledore all have, or appear to have, a principles-based morality, but they all end up betraying it in some way. Except maybe Dumbledore, but he turned out profoundly ethically dodgy anyway. I suspect that a sense of right and wrong that isn't founded on who you like/dislike is so alien to JKR that she simply can't sustain it over seven books.
-L
Re: Hermione
Date: 2008-01-23 03:38 pm (UTC)Empathy vs Principles
Date: 2008-01-23 04:59 pm (UTC)I truly think it did. Not necessarily that JKR originally planned to wrap things up in a complex, chess-like manner; but I do think that some of her views on characters and issues are different in the early books.
As an example, Harry displayed principles-based morality at least once in the early books, when he spared Peter Pettigrew. (Although even there, it's wrapped up with how he feels about Lupin, Sirius, and his father.)
It also occurred to me that JKR seems to have very little intuitive understanding of the kind of morality that readers would expect from an analytical thinker like Hermione. Someone commented in a big Snape/Lily discussion that JKR's own preferred ethics are based on empathy as opposed to principles.
That's a good point, and it's just made weirder by the fact that she's repeatedly claimed Hermione is like her at a younger age.
Perhaps this also explains why so many people were shocked when she threw in a piece of principles-based morality at the expense of empathy: saying that Harry was "right" to be repulsed by the image of Babymort in King's Cross at the end of DH. Not that Harry's ever shown much empathy for people he didn't like, but most people find it easy to empathize with something that looks like a baby in pain, and I think a lot of readers were more swayed by that image than by the idea that it wasn't what it looked like. Plus, if they were still with JKR by that point, they probably didn't have a problem going along with the general idea of "empathetic morality," so maybe it shook them to see Harry not displaying emapathy for something that their gut feelings told them should receive instinctive empathy. I feel like I'm rambling, but hopefully that makes a little bit of sense.
Re: Empathy vs Principles
Date: 2008-01-23 11:55 pm (UTC)Boy howdy.
The chess metaphor was a total crock from the beginning. I think she must have fallen in love with the image of that giant chess game (played for keeps!) and just had to fit it in somewhere. Which meant that *one* of the trio had to be good at chess, for that particular book. She let it taper off with a few references in later books to Ron beating people at chess in the common room, but essentially it was just another "use once and discard" plot element. Which means effectively that Ron's really unequivocal big heroic moment came in Book 1. We kept expecting him to live up to a promise which hadn't actually been made.
But you are absolutely right that some of her views on characters and issues changed between the early and the later books. The characterization of *everyone* is *absolutely consistent* in books 1-4, and came unmoored starting in book 5, and just got progressively more pervasively inconsistent from that point to the end of the series. She raised actual social issues in books 1-4 and then gave us cartoon issues in books 5-7.
And the Principles vs Empathy is symptomatic of the whole mess. In the first 4 books you could believe that the difficulty was in attempting to combine Principle *with* Empathy, and that the failures were simply varying demonstrations of human error. But as we moved into the war years Principle went out the window, or, worse, was painted black all over and confused with ideology. Usually political idiology, which was generally *always* assumed to be evil, since of course *our* team is quite apolitical and has no idiology, just correct *feelings*.
Re: Empathy vs Principles
Date: 2008-01-24 02:10 am (UTC)Re: Empathy vs Principles
Date: 2008-01-24 03:51 am (UTC)Re: Empathy vs Principles
Date: 2008-02-02 03:20 pm (UTC)Re: Empathy vs Principles
Date: 2008-02-02 04:15 pm (UTC)Re: Empathy vs Principles
Date: 2008-02-02 07:47 pm (UTC)With the exception of a half dozen or so scenes that it was clear Rowling had wanted to include for years. Those at least got spliced in all anyhow.
Re: Empathy vs Principles
Date: 2008-02-02 03:17 pm (UTC)Yes, exactly and this why there's so many complaints about how HBP and DH feel like fanfic, the characters are cardboard cut-outs of themselves. The larger plot (series arc) gets progressively unstuctured with each book. I used to believe the line about how nobody knows the characters better than the author (most notably used against Slytherfen). But given how all the characters got so bizarrely OOC, I have to say that some of the fanfic in HP could beat the canon in terms of characterisation. Now I smirk whenever someone says: "They're her characters, she knows them better than anyone else!"
*snort* Yeah, right.
Re: Empathy vs Principles
Date: 2008-02-02 04:14 pm (UTC)Then in HBP we've got the storyline that imo works--Snape and Draco, the UV and the assassination plot (which silly me I thought was going somewhere in DH but turned out to be just another elaborate plot machination to get Dumbledore dead by Snape's hand while Malfoy disarms him--what a waste). But other places we've got students living in war time for the first time, and responding by getting far more interested in school life than ever as a response. Ron and Hermione suddenly become unable to believe in evil plots at the school even when a murder's played out in front of them. Oh, and Hermione spends two books insane about SPEW and then has nothing to say when Harry inherits a slave.
I guess in those two you could really see how the structures of previous books covered things for us. When there was no plot against Harry himself the school stuff was pretty lame, and with no school year at all, DH was imo a nightmare.
Re: Empathy vs Principles
Date: 2008-02-02 06:49 pm (UTC)Hm... for me it was already painfully obvious in books 2 and 4. In fact, characters were acting quite OOC there, although admittedly mostly the adult ones.
However, I do find Hermione's infatuation with the obviously incompetent Lockhart a bit to hard to swallow too. Not that she couldn't be bamboozled by a charming and good-looking smooth-talker, but his shortcomings were just too obvious to be overlooked for so long by somebody so eager to learn, IMHO.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-23 07:13 pm (UTC)