OotP Chapter Eighteen

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

*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 think once thought Zacharias Smith was Canon's answer to Fanon!Draco, Ice King of the bon mots?

* 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.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Well, if one pays attention to love interests in Fitzgerald's novels, they are all shallow, self-centered, party-crazy, sexy ditzes and all inspired by his wife, so he got what he bargained for more or less and he turned over heaven and earth to win her, too. IIRC, it was only the phenomenal success of "East of Eden" that allowed Fitzgerald to marry her.

Anyway, the funny thing is of course that the whole Snape - Lily- James triangle in DH is so very Fitzgeraldian, only Rowling's sympathies are clearly with the rich sportsman, rather than the figure most reminiscent of Fitzgerald's typical protagonist and alter ego ;).

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

IIRC, it was only the phenomenal success of "East of Eden" that allowed Fitzgerald to marry her.

This Side of Paradise. (I know you know the right title--easy mistake to make when you're writing quickly with the Eden/Paradise.)

I had never thought of that but it's true--Snape is totally the striver trying to win the girl who winds up with the rich sportsman. Which Daisy Buchanan does too, only FSF is saying something quite different about that.

This also reminds me of one of my pet peeve conversations in fandom, the "Malfoys are nouveau riche, clearly, in the text!" I remember one thread where Lucius kept getting compared to Gatsby. A less Gatsby-like figure would be hard to find in HP imo.

[cressida0201.livejournal.com]

This also reminds me of one of my pet peeve conversations in fandom, the "Malfoys are nouveau riche, clearly, in the text!"

What is it with the (American??) fannish obsession with proving wealthy characters to be nouveaux riches? That conversation drives me crazy in Jane Austen discussions, where people have argued that the Bertrams and even the Woodhouses(!) are "new money" (see here (http://cressida0201.livejournal.com/64342.html) for examples). I assumed it was just an Austen thing, though, and I'm fascinated to learn that it pops up in HP as well.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

That is totally fascinating! And it does seem like an American thing, though I've heard it from non-Americans in HP as well. I think with the Malfoys it's clear: they're vulgar. For some reason that gets translated into "can't be old money" even though at least to me the Malfoys are completely believable as both rich for a long time and disgustingly racist and so vulgar and obnoxious. In the Gatsby version I remember the Weasleys were morphed too into WASP old money who eccentrically lived in poverty.

Certain things the Malfoys do gets imo distorted. I've heard that the Malfoys: dress in gaudy clothes, Lucius jingles change in his pockets and Lucius throws his money around ostentatiously.

In reality this is not true. The Malfoys actually seem to dress well. Harry describes Draco as looking "like a vicar" in his dress robes in GoF, but that implies that he's just wearing a block robe with a high collar. Vicars are the opposite of gaudy. It's more the wizard equivalent of saying he looks like a head waiter in his tux--iow, Draco is probably wearing a designer robe, but it doesn't do anything for him. In HBP Harry actually notices Draco is wearing new clothes which are at least once described as "attractive" green. (Ironically, it's actually the Weasleys who are associated with gaudiness and tacky clothing--when they get money they splash it around.)

Harry also hears a clink of gold coming from Lucius at the MoM, but he's not jingling it, it's just a signal that yes, Lucius is bribing the MoM in his sinister way. Likewise I believe Arthur says Lucius is well-connected and gives money to *the right people.* There's no gaudy wing at St. Mungo's named after the Malfoys. And whenever characters in the know speak about them they call them an "old family." Sirius describes Narcissa as making a good marriage by the Black family's terms.

Anyway, I don't have a problem with people seeing it that way, of course. If someone's interested in that for fanfic especially it can be done well. I just don't get people honestly saying it's "obvious" in canon when it seems like the opposite is true and that Rowling is not making that kind of argument. They're just old, rich and gross. I was really surprised to read the post you linked too, though, because it's just the same thing, people looking for really subtle coded messages about "new money"--especially when talking about fictional societies that are small and where everybody knows everybody else and this stuff is just said.

[cressida0201.livejournal.com]

it's just the same thing, people looking for really subtle coded messages about "new money"

Yes, the best theory I can come up with to explain it is that they want to be the clever ones who unraveled the secret meaning. I assumed it was confined to Austen discussion because she writes about a society where money is such a big deal and so openly discussed. Then again, we know JKR likes Austen, so she may have picked up on enough of that aspect to evoke a similar response in readers.

[(Anonymous)]

Sistermagpie, yes, I always mix up these 2 titles, thanks.

Cressida:
What is it with the (American??) fannish obsession with proving wealthy characters to be nouveaux riches?"

Because constantly bragging about their money is a typical "nouveaux riche" behaviour, both in literature and in RL. Quite internationally, too. But personally, I have no doubt that JKR intended them to be "old money", and just failed to depict it convincingly - as she did with so many characters and aspects of the Potterverse.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree. I think she just needed to rub in Ron's being poor and the easiest way to be to have the Malfoys walk around and saying, "You're poor as dirt!" (And I wouldn't be surprised if *children* of rich people might tease a scholarship kid that way.) Because the funny thing is that for all Ron's whinging there's really not much need for money in this universe. At least not as much as in the real world. For all the loud bragging, what does Draco do with his money? We don't hear about his houses in other countries or fancy flats, he doesn't have a fancy car, people mostly wear the same clothes...

Ron could just as easily be the child of a parent who's strict about allowances with the struggles he has (except for the ridiculous wonky wand that doesn't get replaced). Sure he's got the ugly dress robes that his handy mother somehow can't bring herself to just alter magically even though she seems like she should sew whole outfits, but there's not a whole world built showing Ron (or presumably Snape) as the scholarship kid amongst rich people. He's certainly in the same class, such as it is, as most kids at Hogwarts.

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

Well, in Snape's case, we have that odd moment when he's turned upside down and see that he can't even afford trousers. Or washing. Even though it didn't say "washing extra" at the bottom of Harry's Hogwarts letter.


Perhaps all that money that Severus and Ron didn't have is spent on elves. Although no one seems to pay the elves either. Or feed them. Or clothe them.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I think Snape fits it better, probably because he's got all these other things that make him an outsider. We see him in the run down house in the mill town, Petunia looks down on him, he's ugly, he's socially inept. All those things can take the place of this kind of stuff or work just like it. Also he's a Half-blood. Nobody thinks he comes from an old family, and clearly James and Sirius are born into "right" families by comparison.

Of course, the grey underwear seems just like the greasy hair--he just doesn't take care of himself. Only oops! All the kids have their laundry done by the house elves so...what's up with that?

[merrymelody.livejournal.com]

It's evil soaking his follicles and coming through his sweat. Just like Draco's hair in the movies - we thought it was gel, but it was literal Slytherin sliminess!

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

I know! It's so odd. I hate to obsess about Snape's underwear, but....

All I can really relate it to is this chapter in Farley Mowat's The Dog Who Wouldn't Be, which involves his father's infuriation with an ad for bluing, which leads to an unfortunate incident where the father grabs the eponymous dog, hauls him into the basement and washes him with so much bluing that the dog ends up... well, black and blue instead of black and white. I gathered from this story that bluing was a product used to keep whites very white, as bleach tends to yellow them....

But the only thing I can think of that would turn his underwear grey would be if he accidently mixed them with a washing of black clothing. If he put them in with the reds, he'd end up with pink, which would have been even more embarrassing.

Or, perhaps Snape was ahead of his time? I'm thinking about Return to the Future, where Marty's mother sees the Calvin Klein name on his underwear and assumes that he's named Calvin. Isn't there some famous designer underwear that's grey?

Yes, yes, I know. All this is silly season stuff. It works emotionally. It just doesn't really work when you try to fit it in with anything else in the Potterverse. Harry wears jeans under his robes. We know this. Why wouldn't Snape at least wear a pair of shabby courderoys? (I used to wear courderoys and boy, nothing makes you feel like a scholarship case more than fuzzy pants.)

In explaining this fanfic-wise, I had to kill off Eileen and have his Housemates prank him by stealing his pants just to make SWM plausible for myself.

Grey Underwear

[cressida0201.livejournal.com]

I could swear I remember reading somewhere about the way white clothing becomes grey with washing; something about the length or temperature at which it is washed? I'm pretty sure it wasn't just about washing it with colors. I thought it was in one of junediamanti's entries, but I just skimmed them quickly and couldn't find anything. Anyway, I remember it because as a child I loved From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, and in that story, Claudia and Jamie's underwear turned grey after they washed it; the two sets of grey underwear just, uh, resonated. (Now there's an image!

Re: Grey Underwear

[(Anonymous)]

White clothes become grey after multiply washings. So it would mean that Snape's underpants were old or maybe even second-hand...

[lachlanm.livejournal.com]

montavilla: But the only thing I can think of that would turn his underwear grey would be if he accidently mixed them with a washing of black clothing. If he put them in with the reds, he'd end up with pink, which would have been even more embarrassing.

He may just not care. I have a lot of blue clothes, and all my white clothes turn slowly blue because I wash them together. I just don't have that many clothes, and it's more efficient to do it that way than to make two tiny loads. Anyway, no one ever sees my underwear and my socks generally wear out before they can turn noticeably blue, so it doesn't really make a difference. I doubt Snape would care either.

[(Anonymous)]

I wonder also where Ron's insecurity about money came from. He already has it when he appears in the first book. He behaves when he first meets Hary on the train like a kid teased much because of his poverty. But all Weasleys were home-schooled and had little contact with other children. He had no point of comparison to make him realise his poverty and suffer because of it.

[cressida0201.livejournal.com]

I could offer a Watsonian explanation: Ron probably accompanied several of his brothers to Diagon Alley to shop for their Hogwarts equipment, and they could easily have run into the Malfoys or some other snotty rich family who Made Remarks. But meh, my heart's not in it. "It's convenient for the plot" is also very, very true.

[(Anonymous)]

I wonder also where Ron's insecurity about money came from. He already has it when he appears in the first book.

I suspect it's down to Molly. Just as her children know she'll disapprove if their grades aren't good enough, they know about the recurring cash flow problem and that it's something to be ashamed of. She's easy to read that way, even Harry's noticed her bitterness on the subject. I don't entirely blame her. Arthur's laissez faire attitude must be exasperating. He can't change the fact that he's not the high flyer Molly must have expected when she married him, but does he have to be so complacent about it? Their budget is his problem too. Really.

-L

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

It's like he confuses hand-me-downs with poverty. Or I was reading a thread about class recently where Ron came up. One person inaccurately imo said she identified with his working class background--because Ron is not working class. But someone else said imo more accurately that Ron's attitude just reeked of somebody who was of a privileged class, because he obviously feels entitled to more than he's got. That's Ron's problem, not that he really doesn't have a lot, but that he seems to feel he belongs at Draco's level--which is exactly the way the Malfoys feel. They don't pick on milkman's children like the Creeveys, they call out the Weasleys for letting down their own side.

[(Anonymous)]

I am not convinced :) Ron's shame is too great to have been caused by Molly's complaints or a few comments. He behaves with Harry as somebobody regularly picked on because of his poverty.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I agree with that too. I must have read it because I'm practically quoting it, I notice! But yes, that's pretty much how they seem to me. I love this especially:

Personally, I think this misses something about JKR's approach to fiction writing, and that if she'd intended the Weasleys to be read as "codedly Irish" she'd have codedly called them something like "Seamus Finnegan" and had them go on holiday in tents covered in shamrocks.

LOL! Because...yeah. Wasn't his boggart a banshee as well? You can't be too obvious about these things, dammit!