OotP Chapter Eighteen
Feb. 22nd, 2008 10:57 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslock*Recently I remember somebody saying something about even how when Harry is upset he's still so kind that he's sweet to animals. In fact Harry is as careless about animals in his anger as he is about people. He's obnoxious to Hedwig and apologizes, and here he squeezes a bullfrog violently, much like he squeezed the bowtruckle. No, I'm not accusing him of animal abuse, but he's no Francis of Assisi either, as I remember him being described. He's nice to animals when the text is making a point about how awful people are mean to animals, and then the text forgets about it.
*Speaking of animals, the class is practicing charms on animals that are quite annoyed at them for doing it, but that doesn't count as being mean to animals.
*Hermione is practicing her silencio charm, which will later completely disarm DEs, the idea being that clever underdogs with less power can outwit far more sophisticated enemies, though what comes across is more that DEs fight so kids can beat them.
*Are we honestly supposed to believe nobody ever thought of silencing somebody so they couldn't do a spell? I'm surprised this isn't a common Wizarding Punishment for crimes. How exactly do adults fight if not by doing stuff like this? There's not that much stuff that's required in fighting, after all.
*Of course, if you go down that road you start wondering why anybody fights using anything but AK, expelliarimus and stupefy.
*Harry is only especially gifted in cool magic, while Hermione continues to surpass him in all things banal. To review: the twins do flashy things that are of no use to anyone (except they really are), Hermione does non-flashy stuff that's very useful, Harry does everything connected to angst and evil. Ron's just generally useless. Oh, and Ginny does the bat-bogey hex which is more awesome than everyone else except Harry's stuff combined.
*Angelina says she thinks McGonogall went to Dumbledore, who then forced Umbridge let Gryffindor reform the Quidditch team, as if that's a great thing for Dumbledore to do, proving his awesomeness. You know, as headmaster shouldn't Dumbledore being looking out for these kinds of things anyway? Should somebody really have to go to him and demand this? You'd think the whole school would be petitioning him.
*What to make of Hermione's sudden misgivings about the DA? As a character trait for Hermione that works--she's always thinking and insecure underneath so questions herself (unless somebody challenges her, in which case she's stubborn and won't listen). But in this book it feels to me like another handy way to use Hermione to herd thought processes. She makes up the club, but then must also be the person to question the club while everybody else just reacts to her, because Harry and Ron are too dull-witted to think at all.
*So checking off Hermione's "Expositional To Do" list, now she's got the DA established she can start dropping hints that Something's Coming with Sirius, etc.
*If Hermione more often questioned along the same lines I am, I'd probably find this more satisfying.
*Hermione sounds like Ron's mother, according to Ron. ::shudder::
*We're not in fanon anymore. The kids can't just do an umbrella spell so they don't get rained on.
*Seriously, Wizards came up with spell to make people dance or turn their legs to jelly, but nobody's come up with an umbrella spell. The Wizarding World in a nutshell.
*Last year Harry could feel when Voldemort was feeling hatred; now he can feel his joy too. Are they just more connected now or is that significant? Like, is there something to the fact that Harry can feel Voldemort's joy, like that they're becoming more alike? ETA: Yes, they did become more alike, but I don't think I was supposed to notice.
*I hope Voldemort's feeling Harry's feelings too. Imagine being stuck with a teenager's mood swings: "He's feeling pleased…somebody likes him." "He's in a snit. Nobody understands him." No wonder he wants Harry dead. It's like being mentally linked to Pitt the Younger from Blackadder.
* "The Weapon" is back, taunting us with a far more interesting plan that the one Voldemort is actually using. Damn that weapon!
* I kind of keep wishing the elves would rebel—but only to tell Hermione to stop intentionally cluttering up the Common Room that they have to clean. ETA: Rebel? Nonsense! Happy masters make happy slaves make happy children!
*This was also where in my first reading I thought we'd find out Sirius or Harry or Neville was being befuddled. Is that information about befuddlement there for future developments, or just so Harry can drift off to sleep thinking about Sirius being reckless? ETA: Guess we got that answer--it's the latter.
*I guess that's why Harry never actually accepts the fact that his own mistakes led to Sirius' death since as usual the real answer is right here for us. It wasn't Snape's fault, but it wasn't Harry's either. It was Sirius' fault because he's very very reckless.
*Dobby the Free Elf has so much more dignity than Kreacher the rebellious slave, the way he looks up at Harry with "positive admiration" and bows so that his nose touches the floor. See, Hermione knows the score here. Forcing someone into slavery isn't that great. Much better to have someone who bows and scrapes and does your bidding just because they adore you because you made them free. ETA: Or gave them a cheap necklace. Kreacher, you're still dead to me.
*Props to Harry here for being smart enough not to run off to see the RoR the second he hears about it, even if he has to hear Hermione's voice to do it.
*I can sort of understand Hermione/Snape when you see the kind of relationship she has to authority. Hermione feels mostly confident about something when a Good Adult (usually Dumbledore) is attached to it, which is more about emotion than logic. Which is good, because if you're really relying only on your brains, you're probably evil. The heart does much better thinking.
*However, this quality also makes her seem younger than 16, because it seems like the same impulse she had at 11. ETA: On second thought, it just makes her seem like a Wizard. The end of this journey is the same as the beginning: look up to Dumbledore. And then look up to Harry.
*Does the map show where everybody in the school is? I'm surprised you can find anybody with the hundreds of dots that must be moving around. ETA: After HBP I guess we know that it does show everybody. I'm surprised you can read anything on it.
*There's no mention of a solitary Draco practicing piano somewhere, so apparently it doesn't pick up fanon characters.
*Nice that all the books in the room are careful to imply these books are for people being attacked by others. I'm surprised there wasn't one called, "Cursing for Good Guys" of "Everything is Self-Defense If I'm Doing It."
*What is a dark wizard, exactly? Dark detectors are supposed to be able to tell—would it go off if one of the Slytherins walked in? Is anyone ever surprised to set one off? (Harry's used an Unforgivable, for instance—and what about Snape? He's described as a Dark Wizard.) ETA: Well, that won't ever be answered. Dark Magic? It's what those other people do!
*Harry mentions how the detectors can be fooled, because like so much else it's all-powerful but also totally useless as the plot demands.
*Hermione insists on giving Harry authority, because Gryffs love authority when they're the ones possessing it. Hermione also wants to name the group for "team spirit." You know, that thing that's so useful in singling out traitors and pressuring people to go along with the crowd.
*Note nobody says, "Wtf do we need a leader and team spirit for? We're not a team, we're here to learn DADA. Piss off with your team spirit."
*Can you imagine the way the Gryffindors would have reacted if the group had elected somebody else? As if any of them would bow to Terry Boot.
*Ginny comes up with the name Dumbledore's Army and everybody laughs cause she so rebellious and cool and witty. Not to mention right. Defense Association is far too neutral. This is an army for Dumbledore.
*At the next meeting perhaps they'll hand out the uniforms. Hufflepuffs? You get the red shirts.
*Hermione pins the damn paper with that title to the wall, for easy reference once they get caught. I'm sure whoever finds it will know it's meant to be sarcastic.
*Harry shuts up Zach Smith by revealing expelliarimus helped him against Voldemort. Yes, Zach just opens his mouth "stupidly" after claiming that charm wouldn't help against Voldemort. What else can he say? Harry Potter pwns all!
*But again, WHY would anyone think that Expelliarimus wouldn't work? What are all these other spells the DEs are supposed to be using? Wouldn't that spell either be something everybody used or the DEs had a good defense against? It's like if this was a Muggle class and Harry said, "Let's work on punching," and Zach said, "THAT won't be much good in a fight! Bad guys don't merely HIT people!" just so Harry could say he hitting does indeed help against bad guys.
*I have this image, when Zach opens his mouth stupidly, of him thinking, "Why do I always have to feed lines to challenge Harry, only to be shocked into silence by Harry's easily anticipated response?" And people
* Usually Neville can't even perform a charm, much less focus it on something as small as a wand. Harry's mere presence fills him with that elusive confidence he needed. Only bad kids truly lack skill.
*WTF is with all the hostility toward Zach? I hate to think what might happen if, as in fanfic, Slytherins showed up to this thing. They'd have to wash them off the walls.
*Not that I can't see the twins doing this, but you'd think Zach would, uh, notice. His needing Harry to figure out the twins are hexing him and put a stop to it is a little emasculating, wouldn't you say?
*Btw, no, it's not bad of the twins to be hexing him from behind at all. They can obviously tell he's the kind of person who'll push tiny children out of the way in his cowardly race away from the bad guys. Can't you just tell how cowardly Zach is in this scene?
*If I were Marietta I'd look sour too, dragged along to this meeting so I could watch Harry and Cho butter each other up. I wonder just what their relationship is that she's willing to do this for Cho. Cho seems like a very high-maintenance friend. Marietta's probably already sat up with her nights, slipped her in after curfew and accompanied her to a free clinic for a pregnancy test by now. No wonder Cho feels guilty enough to defend her—she probably was privy to the stress Marietta was under all year. Cho here tells Harry flat-out that Marietta is getting pressured by her parents to have nothing to do with stuff like this (Cho's family don't seem to work for the Ministry).
*Not that this makes any impression on Harry. I think when Cho talks about Marietta and her problems and her family Harry just hears, "blah blah blah blah blah. You make me nervous."
I seemed to have forgotten Jabootu for this one. Go figure.
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Date: 2008-02-23 10:55 am (UTC)I guess the problem is that before OotP, the trio never had to face more than one enemy at the time, all the while JKR build up the DEs to be this horrible gang of Dark Wizards. Now she had to find ways for the sextet not to be beaten within seconds, but having to hold their own against these people. Seriously, there is no reason why the DEs didn't just kill anyone but Harry, who only is allowed to survive because Voldie wants to kill him himself.
*Hermione sounds like Ron's mother, according to Ron. ::shudder::
It's even worse when you look at the way Molly treats Ron. No wonder he thinks that being (passive-) aggressive towards someone is a sign of love. After all, his Mum acts like that towards him, so that must be how it goes, right?
*Dobby the Free Elf has so much more dignity than Kreacher the rebellious slave, the way he looks up at Harry with "positive admiration" and bows so that his nose touches the floor. See, Hermione knows the score here. Forcing someone into slavery isn't that great. Much better to have someone who bows and scrapes and does your bidding just because they adore you because you made them free. ETA: Or gave them a cheap necklace. Kreacher, you're still dead to me.
I wonder what JKR is trying to say with Dobby. His life was complete shit, first he works for Masters that he hates, has to punish himself and when he finally gets free, he cannot find a job. When somebody finally takes him in, the other elves reject him, he ends up having to clean Gryffindor Tower alone, the person he adores ignores him in favor of another house elf and in the end he dies. Whereas Kreacher, who is responsible for Sirius death, gets more dignity, a reminder of his beloved master and ends up with a master he likes (even though it goes against any prior characterization). Also, when did Winky or Kreacher ever have to punish themselves? Either only the Malfoys bewitched their elves like this or Dobby is simply a masochist.
*Does the map show where everybody in the school is? I'm surprised you can find anybody with the hundreds of dots that must be moving around. ETA: After HBP I guess we know that it does show everybody. I'm surprised you can read anything on it.
The Map is just another thing that shows how unrealistic a Snape/Lily friendship was. Wouldn't MWPP or at least James have noticed their dots being rather close several times? Neither Remus nor Sirius mention anything about it. Never mind that nobody of the staff seemed to have any clue that these two were friends.
*Ginny comes up with the name Dumbledore's Army and everybody laughs cause she so rebellious and cool and witty. Not to mention right. Defense Association is far too neutral. This is an army for Dumbledore.
I don't get why JKR couldn't have given Ginny any actual witty lines if she wants her to be seen as funny. I mean, she can do better than that, she does it with Ron and the twins. Heck, Hermione had better funny lines than Ginny. Instead we get this unfunny crap that gets passed off as humour.
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Date: 2008-02-23 03:51 pm (UTC)And even that ran thin in the end. Voldemort would have totally won if he didn't have that odd need. Even Crabbe might have wound up taking Voldemort out. Although luckily in that scene he was stopped by Draco, who would have done that even without Voldemort's orders. (Not that this would make him in any way worth anything!)
It's even worse when you look at the way Molly treats Ron. No wonder he thinks that being (passive-) aggressive towards someone is a sign of love. After all, his Mum acts like that towards him, so that must be how it goes, right?
Yes, I hope Ron finds a Muggle therapist. He's with a girl because she's just like his mother...she makes him constantly feel like she'd rather be someone else.
Also, when did Winky or Kreacher ever have to punish themselves? Either only the Malfoys bewitched their elves like this or Dobby is simply a masochist.
I think Kreacher did when he tricked Sirius--he just did it offscreen. Oh, and he does in DH so Hermione can say how awful the enchantment is. Because that's what she's always been against from the beginning. The mistreating themselves. Not that they're slaves. Totally from the beginning. No change there.
The Map is just another thing that shows how unrealistic a Snape/Lily friendship was. Wouldn't MWPP or at least James have noticed their dots being rather close several times? Neither Remus nor Sirius mention anything about it. Never mind that nobody of the staff seemed to have any clue that these two were friends.
Maybe Lily made sure Snape kept it pretty secret because it was embarassing to her? (I would say Snape would have his own reasons for keeping it secret when he fell in with future Death Eaters, but we see him being pretty dramatically open about the whole thing.)
I think the problem with Ginny is that JKR can be funny when the situation actually brings something up and she just has somebody say something that's in character that happens to be funny. But Ginny just has to have "she's funny" as part of her character so she winds up just spouting off put-downs--which is somehow funnier when she does it than any time Draco or Pansy do it. And does not remind JKR of all the people who ever made fun of her in her life. (Maybe Ginny is all the things JKR thought in her mind against those other people!)
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Date: 2008-02-23 07:33 pm (UTC)And to remind him how lucky he is that she actually bothers with him and rub it in his face how others are so much better than him (with Molly it's Percy, with Hermione Harry).
One would think that at least Slughorn would have noticed any kind of relationship between Lily and Snape. Of course I suspect, JKR either pulled the friendship out of her ass for DH or kept it secret so she could be all "Guess you never suspected this" on us.
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Date: 2008-02-24 06:13 am (UTC)I accept that it was always hovering in the background. A tremendous lot of people came away from reading PoA absolutely convinced of it. (I still cannot figure out how she did that, it absolutely isn't in the text.) That had to come from *somewwhere*. She just dropped the ball on proper4 follow-through. We ought to have gottwn at least a couple of hints over the last 4 books.
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Date: 2008-02-24 10:43 am (UTC)At least that's the only explanation I have, because as you said, there is nothing else in the text.
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Date: 2008-02-24 04:47 pm (UTC)"She was so good at Potions"
Date: 2008-02-25 10:54 pm (UTC)Re: "She was so good at Potions"
Date: 2008-02-26 02:17 am (UTC)I remember a lot of theories after HBP that everything in the Prince's book was Lily's work that Snape just copied.
Re: "She was so good at Potions"
From:Re: "She was so good at Potions"
Date: 2008-02-26 01:56 pm (UTC)-L
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Date: 2008-02-24 04:22 pm (UTC)I have come to the conclusion that house elves are supposed to be the Muggle equivalent of dogs. Oh, talking dogs mind you - and dogs that actually be of use around the house instead of just chewing your shoes and peeing in your potted plants - but dogs all the same.
But SPEW is not PETA, advocating for the rights of elves/dogs. SPEW is the SPCA, asking us to be kind to our bat-eared/furry friends.
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Date: 2008-02-24 05:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-24 05:47 pm (UTC)"Look at him, the Chosen One, taking time out of his busy schedule to bury his beloved pet. Okay, not his beloved pet. A pet he found annoying and tried to avoid most of the time, except when it was saving his life, as it did repeatedly."
OTOH, dog ownership requires a lot of responsibility, which elf-owners clearly do not have. The trio don't want to summon Kreacher in DH because he might bring a Death Eater to them...who cares if that means Kreacher is then left at the mercy of said Death Eater. I mean, it's not like they couldn't summon Kreacher and then take on whatever Death Eater he brought with him. Three against one, and they've beaten the DE before AND they have an uber-powerful house-elf on their side as well but nah...we'll just not bother with Kreacher anymore.
So revised: house elves are not dogs, they are highly developed toy dogs that you can just stuff in your toybox when you are tired of playing with them.
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Date: 2008-02-26 02:43 pm (UTC)There's something on the Evil Overlord's list that says something like, "I will kill the child who is destined to kill me myself instead of trusting my henchmen to do it."
But there really ought to be a corollary to that: "If my henchman has a clear shot at my enemy, I will tell him to take it. I will not insist on killing him myself to defend my honor."
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Date: 2008-02-23 06:14 pm (UTC)Don't see anything impossible there. They only made the map after they learned how to transform and they only learned to transform in their 5th year. And when all those horrible assaults on Snape that we were shown took place? Right. It is one of the few things that actually make sense in this whole affair. They got the map, noticed how much time those 2 spent together and upped their persecution, finally managing to break them up.
And why would S&R mention this? Wouldn't it have made James look very bad to Harry if it turned out that he attacked Lily's friend out of jealousy? And put Sirius's so-called "prank" in a very sinister light? No, better to pretend that Snape was the one who was jealous of Potter's accomplishments and Marauders fun.
I do agree that secret friendship would have fit much better than the open one and would have put Lily in a vastly better light if the true reason for break-up were that after the Mudblood incident she wanted to go open with it and make a stand, while Snape refused for self-preservation, but that's just typical DH for you. Nothing truly fits even in rare cases when it does make vague sense.
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Date: 2008-02-23 07:39 pm (UTC)The biggest problem with the friendship is of course Snape's Worst Memory, because if you know that Lily is supposed to be Snape's friend, she comes of rather badly in this scene. Before DH I always thought that they had the kind of relationship Harry had with Pansy Parkinson. They know the other exist and maybe share some classes and that's it. Coupled with the fact that nobody apparently knew these two were friends for at least 5 years, it makes me suspect that Lily didn't want to make this public. I mean, she even says her friends don't know why she hangs out with him.
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Date: 2008-02-24 06:17 am (UTC)Admittedly they may have been calling Remus Moony since the end of 1st year.
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Date: 2008-02-24 11:21 am (UTC)The biggest problem with the friendship is of course Snape's Worst Memory, because if you know that Lily is supposed to be Snape's friend, she comes of rather badly in this scene.
IMHO, she comes out badly no matter what. The only scenario I was able to think up where he behavior could be explained by benign motives was one of secret friendship rooted in out-of-school contact. One where Snape asked for it to be kept under wraps - after all with all those future DEs holding court in Slytherin quarters and the Marauders being after him outside, he would have been ground into dust between them. We have been repeatedly shown that a student who is persecuted by his peers has no recourse in Hogwarts and given what abuse DD had left slide, the DEs in spe likely would have gotten away with doing anything to Snape short of outright murder.
That would explain the strange manner of Lily's intervention, where she wouldn't even talk with somebody she supposedly defended, nor would she act decisively as a prefect. And James seemed to hint that he knew something about her association with Snape - as well he would have if he followed their clandestine meetings via the Map.
This scenario also offers a reason for breakup that doesn't make Lily look awful and Snape a complete imbecile (He wanted to impress a Muggleborn by joining the DEs?! Right...). I.e. that after the SWM incident Lily felt that it was time to take an open stand and to provide a public example. She could have felt that with them now upperclassmen and able to share most lessons, they could have protected themselves sufficiently for that to be doable. Gryffindor reckless bravery and all that.
But Snape would have refused to complicate his already quite difficult life in such a drastic way (and to be honest, he would have gotten the worst of this bargain). That in turn would have seemed like a betrayal to Lily and made her more receptive to advances of somebody who was ready to stand by her no matter what.
YMMV. Instead, we got the travesty which was the Prince's Tale in DH.
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Date: 2008-02-25 09:24 pm (UTC)Then, have that fight with Lily be about his not wanting to open about their friendship--instead of him supposedly chumming it up with the Muggle-baiting Mulciber (it's just so hard to imagine Severus chumming it up with anybody!)
Yes, we could have fallen in love with Lily in the memories, instead of feeling that that Snape got easy because he only ended up sacrificing his whole adult life to protect her ungrateful whelp. I mean, it could have been worse. He could have married her!
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Date: 2008-02-28 09:08 pm (UTC)Because she wanted Snape to be a "bad boy" and being an aspiring DE seems the only way to achieve this status in her eyes, at least in HP universe. She wanted to show that Lily was right, so right to break up with Snape... but in fact achieved the very opposite and made the whole situation completely unbelievable in the bargain.
I mean, why would junior DEs allow a halfblood son of a blood traitor, who is openly friends with a mudblood to chum up with them? Why not stomp somebody like that into dust instead?
And how could anybody with 2 brain cells to rub together think that he could have both? For that matter what is attractive about the DEs to a marginally intelligent person, who is neither a rabid bloodist, nor crazy? Rowling didn't provide anything remotely seductive about their organizartion. BTW, isn't it incredibly funny that she loves Scott Fitzgerald and even compared herself to him at some point?
Anyway, another part of Snape's supposed bad habits in DH is his negative view of Muggles.
Ironically, the way she depicted it, partly he just reacted to his life experiences and partly he voiced inconvenient truths. Because honestly, good guys actions in the series show very clearly that yes, it doesn't matter what Muggles think. Is there a single example of Muggleborn in the series, who remains friends with Muggles or tries to share the magical world with their family? Supposed Muggle-lovers talk about them as we would about cute domestic animals. Nobody asks what the Muggles think or feels any compunction about lying to them or brain-washing them when convenient, etc. But apparently JKR just doesn't see the hypocrisy of her position.
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Date: 2008-02-29 08:55 am (UTC)I like how naturally, when she mentioned him, her perspective is that he couldn't have a peaceful life with Zelda Fitzgerald because she made it impossible for him to write. Like he was some quiet stay-at-home house husband. But of course in JKRland, behind every good man is a temptress trying to hold him back.
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Date: 2008-02-25 11:05 pm (UTC)Even there, she's rather hit-and-miss. "Phlegm" is nowhere near as funny as everybody in HBP acts like it is.
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Date: 2008-02-26 02:30 pm (UTC)Ginny's Wit
Date: 2008-02-25 10:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-22 03:47 am (UTC)It was mentioned that Kreacher punished himself for wounding Witherwings but didn;t have to punish himself for lying to Harry, as Harry wasn;t his master.