OotP Chapter Nineteen
Feb. 29th, 2008 10:05 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslock* It's called The Lion and the Serpent because The Chapter Where Gryffindor Beats Slytherin At Quidditch As Per Usual doesn’t sound as cool.
* Luna provides a lion, but the closest we get to a serpent is Malfoy curled up in a fetal position on the grass while being stomped. That’s where serpents belong!
* I love that having people from different houses cross the Great Hall to speak to each other too often would look too suspicious. Ah, the house system. Such a brilliant idea!
* Ron became "very excited" when he saw Hermione’s galleons because he though she was giving out real gold. Ron's to have no dignity in this book whatsoever. He now drools at the mere sight of money.
* ETA: In DH Hermione supplies all the money for the Trio while they camp, even though Harry's the one with the fortune. It's good to be the Chosen One!
* Terry Boot seems offended that Hermione's not in Ravenclaw since she can do NEWT level charms. I wonder if this is a sign that all students suspect Dumbledore fixes the house cup to put the best people in Gryffindor.
* I once again find myself thinking there’s no intelligence involved here, just access to powerful magic and skill at using it.
* When I read this the first time I thought surely the fact that the coins reminded Harry of the Dark Mark, and Hermione confirms that’s where she got the idea, was a clear sign that yes, the good guys were indeed becoming what they despised. But maybe it’s just a way to lead to Harry’s joke that "he likes Hermione's way better" because she wasn’t so barbaric as to mark the members' skin. Except she did mark the members' skin, moron.
* Um, the Slytherins are bad, mmmmkay? Hexing people all week. At least Bletchly is. Malfoy sort of steps back in this book and lets other Slytherins do stuff that in the past would be all on him. All we hear about him doing is miming dropping the Quaffle at Ron, which would be funny if it were somebody else doing it. (ETA: Could the point be to have Malfoy already shying away from violence?)
* I hope this is a sign there are no "good" Slytherins waiting to plague me in the next books. ETA: Nope, the good Slytherins will only plague me in interviews.
* Harry's so cool the way he wipes the smirk off Pansy's face. Just thought I'd mention. Gryffindors would never stoop to such methods to psych out other players! They win only on skill!
* Some of the Slytherins insulting Ron are seventh years and far larger than he is! Like George and Fred are larger than Malfoy and those first years sorted into Slytherin! Only now that's a bad thing!
* We're definitely not in fanon—the castle’s drafty and cold, and students react by putting on gloves instead of doing a warming charm. Remember that the next time you see characters having sex on a stone floor in an empty classroom during Christmas break!
* Btw, stupid Muggles with their silly central heating that's only a poor substitute for Wizarding gloves!
* Slytherins are wearing silver and green hats? Are they pointy?
* Luna's supporting Gryffindor as the mascot. So we know she's awesome. Luna's quirky nontraditional thinking led her to Sort herself into Ravenclaw while really being a Gryffindor.
* Once again Harry’s super-vision comes through. He can read the Slytherin badges from no closer than he would ever get to a Slytherin. So can Hermione, because she’s so smart.
* Although Slytherin's been practicing for weeks on the pitch, Angelina has just now found out who’s actually on the team. Harry and Ron claim they know much about Crabbe and Goyle. Really guys? Can you name a single thing they’ve said since you started going to school with them?
* Just so everybody’s clear, Montague is ugly too. He’s built like Dudley, who we all remember was fat as a child, and therefore he must be evil and also stupid. Certainly not fit to share a pitch with the svelte Gryffindor team.
* I have to laugh imagining the Slytherins, actually. An entire team of large, stocky, black-haired hirsute men …and little Draco Malfoy of the white-blonde head. Although Draco, we should remember, is also like Dudley. He’s fat on the inside.
* Crabbe seems to be a better beater than Angelina gave him credit for, since he hits her with a bludger first thing. Jordan gives this an ‘ouch,’ but moments later reports ‘nice bludger work’ from George when he socks Montague in the head with one. Remember, when Slytherins sock people in the head with iron balls it's nasty even if it's the point of the game.
*ETA: Naturally Montague doesn't go unconscious from being knocked out like Harry will in HBP. Remember, bad guys don't get injured.
* As much as I die for Ron, that song’s a pretty awesome psych out from Slytherin—and of course not half as bad as the kind of thing that would probably get yelled at most sports events. I can hear it now: "Hey Weasley, your sister’s got nice tits!" and Ron’s out for the rest of the game.
* Say what you like, that Malfoy boy can scan!
*Not that Jordan’s biased or anything, but Ron is suddenly a "promising new talent" who gets, "Come on, Ron!" unlike new players Crabbe and Goyle.
* I think at the end of the series it should be revealed that the Slytherin students are actually furniture that was temporarily made to look like humans to give the real students at Hogwarts a common enemy to hate. ETA: Damn.
* Even from the back, Pansy is pug-faced.
* Malfoy’s fingernails scrabbling hopelessly at the back of Harry’s hand. There’s an image I carried away from this book and never put down. Scrabbling Without Hope is actually Draco’s Elvish Name (it's in "Voldemort Defeated").
* Moment of note in HP history: Crabbe actually does something to Harry (or anybody) by whamming a bludger at him in frustration when he caught the Snitch. ETA: This clearly shows that Crabbe is psychotic killer and sadist! Can't say that came out of nowhere now!
* Aww, look at little Draco. He’s so used to losing he goes right into Plan B. "Saved Weasley’s neck, did you?" The kid bounces back like a ferret on concrete.
* "Talk about sour grapes," says Angelina. Yeah, nothing like disliking Cedric Diggory for an entire year because he beat Harry to the Snitch, no sir.
* Angelina calls Malfoy a "jumped up little…" I wonder what she was going to say, only because "jumped up" is an expression that usually goes with some sort of personal slur—jumped up little Mudblood, for instance, makes sense.
* Malfoy knows Harry’s been brought up by Muggles. Is that common knowledge?
* People are unable to stop from punching someone and getting in trouble because he says their house smells. Seventeen year old people. WTF? Good thing Malfoy didn’t bring out the cootie card—-he wouldn’t have gotten off the pitch alive!
* I have to believe that Harry is struck by the fact that Malfoy correctly pointed out that Harry likes being at the Weasleys because he pathetically wants his mum, and not because Malfoy suggested that Harry's mother’s house was also stinky. Because otherwise it’s just too dumb.
* ETA: That taunt of Malfoys rings in Harry's ears years later everytime he has sex with Ginny.
* Harry was not aware of letting go of George, see, so he’s not really pummeling Malfoy two against one, with an older student. If you’re not aware of it, it doesn’t count.
* Harry was trying to punch "every inch of Malfoy he could reach" and use of the phrase "every inch of Malfoy he could reach" immediately gets this sentence a slash rating of at least an R. You don’t punch every inch of a person, you KISS every inch of a person. It’s hard to imagine Harry, even as angry as he is, desperate to punch Malfoy in the ankle.
* George has a fat lip—did Draco manage to get a lick in from the bottom of the pile? If so this should not in any way count against the idea that Malfoy can’t fight anyone because he’s a wuss and a coward because…because it’s still Malfoy.
* Fred is being forcibly restrained from ALSO jumping on top of Malfoy, presumably to bravely protect Harry and George who are getting their knuckles bruised. Its’ self-defense, I tell you! Malfoy’s provoking him! ETA: I hope Malfoy thanked them later--it's this kind of training that helped him survive living with Voldemort.
* Crabbe is laughing—I assume at Harry’s being knocked out by the spell, since it seems an odd way to reveal that Crabbe is, in fact, the Good Slytherin Who Hates Malfoy, especially since he’s the one what hit Harry with the bludger. ETA: I think it's more foreshadowing of Crabbe being the all-around psycho! He hates everybody in the scene!
* Harry’s still holding the Snitch. He’s just that cool.
* McGonogall refers to the fight as "an exhibition in Muggle dueling." Muggles are the catch-all insult for everyone!
* Just as McGonogall is saying something teacher-like about how what Malfoy said didn’t justify what they did, the focus conveniently switches to evil Umbridge and Harry and George as victims. Phew!
* Apparently Umbridge was already going to keep the Gryffindor team from re-forming by going to Fudge. Harry and George’s outburst may have actually saved the team by getting them banned instead.
* Just to be clear, this is a world where your school sports team gets disbanded by going to the Prime Minister. This is like that time in my school when the Twirlers wanted to raise money with a bake sale and had to wait to get approval from the Secretary of State.
* A lifelong Quidditch ban with the locked up broom is so something a teenager would fantasize about and would never happen. You could only be banned from playing a sport professionally. Why would a teacher be allowed to stop anybody from playing a game until THEY DIED OMG!!11
* It did not feel like they won the match at all. Malfoy would be smiling down in Slytherin if his face wasn’t so swollen, I’m sure!
* Crabbe got lines for whacking the bludger at Harry, at least, and since whacking a bludger at someone is part of the actual game I guess that’s not SO bad, though he should have at least gotten detention. Oh wait, if they're Umbridge lines that's pretty bad.
* I’m sorry to say I suspect if George had whacked a bludger at Malfoy after he caught the Snitch (pretend we’re in a universe where that would ever happen) George would claim he slipped and it would be funny and cool that Malfoy got hit and they got away with it. ETA: Did I call that Ginny plowing into Zacharias thing here or what ??!
* Fred’s still frustrated he didn’t get to pound the "little scumbag" (and he does mean little, being two years older and larger) as well.
* So in a book for young people in which two boys just jumped on one kid (who was younger than one of them) and beat him up, there’s no reason whatsoever for them to reconsider their own actions at all, thanks partially to Umbridge, but I don’t think they would have anyway. I guess we should just assume that Malfoy didn’t sustain any of the serious physical damage he would have sustained from this kind of thing. His awful personality shields him from actual injury.
* Not that I'm at all suggesting the boys' reactions were wrong. Draco said their Mums smelled. Self defense, remember!
* Harry does nobly point out Ron didn’t make him punch Draco. (Draco made him punch Draco!)
* Ron says the song wound him up and is assured it would have wound anyone up, though of course this is not true, because we just had a chapter telling us how it wouldn’t have wound Harry up. It is so hard for Harry having a loser friend like Ron. He has the patience of a saint.
* LOL! Harry gets angry at Ron for blaming himself for everything. Godammit, Ron, stop trying to horn in on Harry’s pity party! ETA: Just follow Harry's lead and tell yourself "all is well" when really you're still dying inside because your parents that you don't remember got killed when you were a baby.
* Hagrid’s back. NOOOOOOOO!
Designated Hero
In this chapter, our heroes pile up on a truly obnoxious but smaller kid and then mope about not getting to play Quidditch. Except Fred, who mopes about not being able to make it 3 on 1 as well as not getting to play Quidditch. It doesn’t even feel like they won the game! Their only small consolation is that hopefully Slytherin doesn’t feel like they won the game either.
Hero’s Death Battle Exemption
Malfoy might lose a game by not concentrating on the Snitch for minutes at a time, but Harry sure won’t.
IITS
Why would a fifteen or seventeen year old react that violently to some kid telling him yo momma smells?
And by the way, everybody wants Gryffindor to win even when they themselves are ultimately hoping to win. Don’t ask how that works. It's what will have to do in place of actual house unity.
Informed Attributes
Advanced charm work is the result of intelligence. Even though there’s no actual thinking involved, except what’s necessary to produce the right emotion or physical gesture.
Jabootu score: 4.5
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no subject
Date: 2008-02-29 06:14 pm (UTC)Hee! It's kind of weird that Draco was painted as anyway attractive at all. I wonder why JKR did so? Maybe she assumed blond was the new ugly? But how hard would it have been to make Draco fat on the outside, too?
(More fodder for the idea that JKR was having serious conflict over what she was trying to say, exactly? Note, I'm walking right past JKR making her hero a bully who fights against... bullies, because that particular conflict drives me crazy.)
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Date: 2008-02-29 06:30 pm (UTC)Blonds don't fare too well in JKR's books, so that's actually possible. (There's Luna, but she's wacky.)
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Date: 2008-02-29 07:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-29 09:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-29 09:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-01 06:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-01 07:53 pm (UTC)SU: Did he graduate? And who did he marry? It wasn't Pansy right, or was it?
JKR: No! God, it wasn't Pansy Parkinson. I loathe Pansy Parkinson. I don't love Draco but I really dislike her. She's every girl who ever teased me at school. She's the Anti-Hermione. I loathe her. Yeah, sorry! Sidetracked there by my latent bitterness. He married Astoria Greengrass.
JKR, writing her personal revenge fantasies since 1997.
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Date: 2008-03-01 10:31 pm (UTC)But yeah, JKR seems so blind about her precious Hermione, who lets face it, does some pretty horrid things. And while Pansy reminds JKR of all the bullies in the world, GINNY is the one more likely to invoke memories of high school bitches. Not to mention that on a more personal reading note, while I was never bothered by Pansys or Ginnys growing up (I tended to secretly laugh at all the Ginny-types' choice of crap boyfriends because I was the school misanthropist nerd and possibly a proto-anti-H/G shipper) it was the kids who were bit more like the bloody twins who pissed me off the most (or well, they sort of did until they got expelled and I went to high school).
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Date: 2008-03-01 11:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-02 07:41 pm (UTC)Now that got me thinking a bit. I don't begrudge her her dislike for certain personality types (I loathe Molly a lot more than Hagrid, for example, although I admit there is no logical reason for it, but I find it easier to stomach whiney morons instead of domineering stupidity).
But why is Pansy the Anti-Hermione? (Did she say anywhere?)Hermione is the better student, but Pansy is never described as exceedingly stupid. What else? She is pug-faced ( = not pretty), but then Hermione is no striking beauty either. Pansy teases the trio several times, but Draco does so far more often and still gets a sort of pass compared to her in that interview you quoted. What else? Some of her actions can be interpreted as very sycophantic towards Draco - the sort of girl who will find everything right and brilliant as long as an attractive boy says or does it. Very annoying indeed and I can understand JKR loathing that - BUT that's exactly how she paints not only the ultimate bad woman (Bellatrix towards Voldemort), but also Ginny and Hermione towards Harry (and Minerva towards Dumbledore). So - where does the Anti-Hermionism come in?
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Date: 2008-02-29 07:26 pm (UTC)Even movie stars can't understand. They aren't Chosen Ones on this level.
I know, really. Is it the difference in color scheme that makes members of other houses avoid each other normally--they don't want clashing colored ties or something?
It's hilarious when you think of how small the classes are. Nobody gets the idea to go outside another house until Luna is pulled by the awesome that is Harry and Ginny?
You can't resist the dumbness, sistermagpie, because it sort of defines Harry, who is naturally the center of the universe. Resistance is futile.
Oh god, it's true. And in the next book Draco's pretty much still trapped on this level and when he says "if you're wondering what that smell is, mother, a Mudblood just walked in" his grown-up mother actually doesn't look at him in horror for it.
Tell me about it. I was a teenager when I read this book, and I fantasized about Harry's ban from Quidditch, too, only to find out it would never really happen :p
It is fun to dream about...
no subject
Date: 2008-02-29 07:57 pm (UTC)I have to say that I came to loathe Quidditch storylines, particularly the ones in OoTP and HBP. I mean, how ridiculous can it get? Harry is so disturbed by Ron's bad performance that he is distracted from looking for a snitch, but when recalled to order, "quickly" finds and catches it, winning the game for them by a comfortablr margin. Tell me once again, why should anybody agonize over the Keeper's performance or care about that of the rest of the team, for that matter? Clearly, they count for zip and after all the excitement only bring in pocket change score-wise.
Yet notice how the opponent Beaters, the only players who actually can counteract the "insta-win" player or even take him out of the game entirely, largely leave Seekers alone regardless, unless they are in a spiteful snit.
No, I understand that imagery of Quidditch is really cool. I am into engineless flight, too. And I see that Rowling invented it in all it's absurdity to have a good laugh at cricket that is so omni-present in British "public school" novels and to provide a convenient ego-sop for Harry, as well as yet another opportunity to put him danger and to make him bravely suffer. Or in this case to remind the reader how pathetic and inferior to Harry Ron really is.
But honestly, once the Quidditch storylines started to propagate and take on ever more importance and space, she really ought to have added some interest to the actual game. Like, an illusion that the rest of the team actually matters. Or say, inclusion of actual tactics, tension of possible defeat and some characterization of the opposing players? After all, she did have some use for bit characters from time to time - so why not give them a minimum of personality via their playing styles?
I really hate the whole "Ron learns confidence via becoming a mediocre sportsman" development (except that he never did learn, of course, not until the locket Horcrux), but at least she could have made it more believable and diverting. As it is that was total waste of space. Frankly, if OoTP was bloated, then it was this storyline, SPEW and Grawp that made it so.
And yes, the indignation over the ban was totally comical. Really, they should ban players for a year or so for something like that and it would have accomplished the same effect story-wise. But of course Umbridge had to go so far over the top, to make the punishement seem like "OMG persecution", rather than richly deserved. Those gallant Gryffindors, indeed...
no subject
Date: 2008-02-29 08:21 pm (UTC)But that's really just an aside. The real problems are the chapters about this stuff that are so predictable. Unless you've got a Dementor to spice thing up, it's just a million ways of having Harry fly around and catching a ball out of the air, thus winning the game. I think OotP is the worst, though, in the way that suddenly we're supposed to believe it matters what happens to the Keeper. Even worse JKR tries to write a "Mighty Ducks" subplot where the team of scrappy losers is supposed to win. Only she can't because she can't ever really convince anybody Gryffindor will lose.
What's sad is the first time I read this book I honestly thought Gryffindor *did* lose. I thought the idea was the fighting between Gryffindor and Slytherin caused them both to be knocked out of the running (Slytherin lost its captain and Gryffindor lost its good players) so that whatever the other team was won. But no, it turns out Gryffindor won AGAIN as if it makes a difference that they only "scraped it"--as if they don't always scrape the win at the end after pretending there's any question they'll win as long as there are people on the team we're supposed to care about (Ginny, Ron, Harry).
Also it just shows even more clearly that other teams are always going to be a little worse than Gryffindor. How can a team that's supposed to be second string actually beat a team that's supposed to be good? They can't. Only they do because there's no real team for them to beat. And as you say, there's no focus on strategy or anything that can explain it.
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Date: 2008-03-02 12:35 am (UTC)LOL! Yes, that is an awesome idea, but it was always clear to me that it wouldn't happen in OoTP. What with Harry being persecuted by Umbridge, tormented by Cedric's death and DD's indifference, Voldy resurfacing with yet another sinister plan, etc. I was certain that Harry would get his Quidditch lolly. Oh, and Gryffindor only won the Cup once, after a string of Slytherin victories and Ron needed to save the day, after having been set up as a useless nerve wreck. I really don't see why he'd have to do this as a second-string Quidditch player, rather than, say a Chess champion or maybe somebody who truly distinguished himself in the MoM fight, but oh, well.
But I was naive enough to think that that's what would come to pass in HBP after Harry's and Draco's year-long distraction and eventual carving up of the latter by the former. Particularly since the very tentatively nascent in OoTP theme of bridges between the Houses/species and general reaching out was totally forgotten in the 6th installment and I just couldn't believe that it would be as irrelevant for the victory of the good side as it turned out to be.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-29 10:11 pm (UTC)This was the point where I started to hate Harry and the Good Guys. For the first four books I thought Harry was kind of boring, though I'd seen him made more interesting in fanfic. For most of the fifth book I thought he had gotten kind of annoying with all the CAPSLOCK! stuff. But it was this point that made me go "wow, Harry's a real jerk".
It really bugged me that at the time everyone was defending his behavior with "OMG he's teenager, teenagers are just like this", because I was a teenager then, and I and everyone I knew were not like this, and we were well aware that that kind of behavior was not acceptable. So I kept thinking, no really, it's not that he's a teenager, it's just that he's an a**h***.
(BTW, I found this community through a random link somewhere. I had been contemplating rereading the books to see if DH in actuality made more sense than I thought, but was not looking forward to it like I would have in the past. Now I think I'd rather just read these responses.)
no subject
Date: 2008-03-01 01:45 am (UTC)But Harry's actions are totally justified--he feels even more justified about what happened after he gets punished. The punishment has the opposite effect, making it about Harry being a victim after he won a big game and then beat up somebody on the losing side for trash talking him. I would think most kids would know that was wrong and stupid.
And here you've also got the Twins being bigger and Draco's outnumbered. It's not just some playground rule thing. It would be fine for one of the twins to step in and stop Draco. He could use his bigger size to assert authority over him, and show that he can back up that authority physically if he has to. But you don't *beat up* a smaller, younger kid, especially this way, and 2 on 1, because aren't they supposed to be learning how to be responsible with power?
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Date: 2008-03-01 08:06 am (UTC)Just preparation for HBP, where nearly killing someone gets you the game AND the girl!
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Date: 2008-03-01 04:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-01 01:45 am (UTC)Darn it, deathtocapslock for making me like and actually feel sorry for Draco! I never hated him in the books because he was just to weak and vulnerable (and I loved Maya's fics) but because of these caps I actually LIKE him now!!! :D
Oh, and Harry and the Twins are such turd-heads. (What?! you know they would totally go postal at an insult like that instead of simply giving me a raised eyebrow for such a juvenile insult!)
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Date: 2008-03-01 02:07 am (UTC)It's funny because it must be hard to write Draco's lines in these scenes. She has to write something bad enough to make teenagers attack him, but really if it was too awful it should get appalled silence by that age. So he says something really idiotic and people react like he's got a razor sharp tongue. Can you imagine somebody asking them, "So what did he say? You got yourself kicked off of Quidditch for that?" Just think how crazy they would have gotten if Draco tried just repeating everything they said to bug them.
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Date: 2008-03-01 09:29 pm (UTC)Playing devil's advocate, but even professional players may act that way (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinedine_Zidane#Confrontation_with_Marco_Materazzi), and be rightfully punished.
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Date: 2008-03-01 10:53 pm (UTC)I'd also add that as a professional sports hero you might have more reason to think you can get away with stuff like that than a kid in school.
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Date: 2008-03-01 11:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-01 06:31 pm (UTC)the closest we get to a serpent is Malfoy curled up in a fetal position on the grass while being stomped. That’s where serpents belong!
The awful thing is, given JKR's sometimes weird use of mythology, I couldn't vow that this was NOT the intended image/meaning.
I love that having people from different houses cross the Great Hall to speak to each other too often would look too suspicious.
This is beyond weird. I mean - students wandering between Slyth and Gryff tables - o.k. But Huffs and Claws are supposed to be on friendly terms with each other and Gryffindor and meals don't seem to be as strict and quiet as in a nunnery where ANY getting up and walking about would be out of line.
*ETA: In DH Hermione supplies all the money for the Trio while they camp, even though Harry's the one with the fortune. It's good to be the Chosen One!
Ooooh! I never caught onto that side of it - being busy being annoyed that Hermione seemed to be the only one who thought ahead at all.
ETA: Could the point be to have Malfoy already shying away from violence?
Sadly, I think it is. Meaning the morally best thing a Slytherin can be expected to do is to do nothing at all. In fact, JKR treats them exactly like Vernon treated Harry in CoS: Make no noise and pretend to be non-existent!
I think at the end of the series it should be revealed that the Slytherin students are actually furniture that was temporarily made to look like humans to give the real students at Hogwarts a common enemy to hate.
OMG - that would explain such a lot. Perhaps Draco was a really pretty Rokoko chaise longue with white silk and silver stitchings...
Harry was not aware of letting go of George, see, so he’s not really pummeling Malfoy two against one, with an older student. If you’re not aware of it, it doesn’t count.
It doesn't count anyway. It might have been the chest-monster or Voldiesliver!
So in a book for young people in which two boys just jumped on one kid (who was younger than one of them) and beat him up, there’s no reason whatsoever for them to reconsider their own actions at all, thanks partially to Umbridge, but I don’t think they would have anyway.
Presuming there IS a moral principle in Rowling's books at all (and I think there is, however weird), the general explanation for all the outrageous outnumbering others, hexing them from behind etc., the Gryffindors are never once called upon, is simply that she doesn't consider these as fights in the chivalrous sense. They are plain punishments. Just like you wouldn't think to call it "unfair" if ten policemen rounded up one criminal - the latter isn't supposed to have a sporting chance but to be brought to justice. So - the real infamy in OotP consisted in this "natural task" being taken over by the Slytherins as Inquisitorial squad.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-01 10:04 pm (UTC)Actually, I don't think that's quite it. JKR thinks she was writing against authority, when really she was just against the government. So, I don't she'd be okay with ten policemen rounding up a criminal, because they probably don't know what they're doing and have the wrong guy (like Sirius) or they've been infiltrated by bad guys or are generally corrupt or whatever. What's okay is ten vigilantes beating up a criminal because they know in their hearts he's evil. So the Inquisitorial squad is evil because it essentially is the police, appointed by a government official, and Harry and Co. are good because they're pursuing vigilante justice.
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Date: 2008-03-01 10:52 pm (UTC)taking overcleaning up the Ministry by taking up jobs there it does feel slightly worrying, although there's like no one out there who's willing to write a fic about a corrupt MOM government *because* of Harry and not despite his presence. All I can think of now is Lisa from the Simpsons going, "But who will police the police?" in "Homer the vigilante".no subject
Date: 2008-03-01 11:33 pm (UTC)I'm not a fic writer, but I'd love to read a fic like that. It would be so plausible.
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Date: 2008-03-02 01:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-03 02:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-11 01:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-01 10:52 pm (UTC)"Years ago we had an amusing little show rounding up Communists and other unwashed people of that type. We called ourselves the Black Gang, and it was a great sport while it lasted."
-L
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Date: 2008-03-01 10:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-02 07:27 pm (UTC)In fact, one reason I loved OotP was the way she depicted very well how it is possible to convert a society into a totalitarian system by disbanding fundamental human rights (it read like a metaphor on Hitler's actions after having gained power quite legitimately). The point was: I waited for our heros to catch onto the fact, that this was only possible because of the sorely lacking way the WW is organized on the political plane. This should have been something for Hermione to catch onto like whoa. We've known seven years of WW now and never ever got one inkling at how someone becomes minister. There don't seem to be elections or some other way for people to decide who rules them, so it's fair to assume it is just something that's decided in little clubs behind closed doors.
Instead, JKR seems to preach the best world is the one where you are at the top because then you get to decide what happens and that's a good thing! Yeah, Voldy must love her to pieces...
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Date: 2008-03-01 10:47 pm (UTC)LOL! The Voldiesliver did it!
They are plain punishments. Just like you wouldn't think to call it "unfair" if ten policemen rounded up one criminal - the latter isn't supposed to have a sporting chance but to be brought to justice. So - the real infamy in OotP consisted in this "natural task" being taken over by the Slytherins as Inquisitorial squad.
That nails it.
OotP 19
Date: 2008-03-06 04:35 am (UTC)Me too <333
And Snape's the slightly delapidated (but sturdy!) antique carved chair ;-)
An entire team of large, stocky, black-haired hirsute men …and little Draco Malfoy of the white-blonde head.
He's soo...so cute *_* I wonder how the movies would have turned out if they have casted Tom Felton as Harry instead.
Scrabbling Without Hope is actually Draco’s Elvish Name (it's in "Voldemort Defeated").
AHAHAHAH WIN X-D
Now I wish I can speak Quenya or smth *g*
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Date: 2008-03-01 09:55 pm (UTC)Of course, having Lee Jordan comment in favour of the Gryffindors won't psych out the other teams at all. I mean, it's only something that everyone, including the players, get to hear during the whole match, particularly when he wishes that they'd get violently hit.
Malfoy knows Harry's been brought up by Muggles. Is that common knowledge?
Probably came out in the best-selling book, The Extraordinary Life of the Boy Who Lived, ghost-written by Dumbledore and an integral book of the Hogwarts curriculum. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out all the students had to take an OWL, if not a NEWT, on Harry Potter and his many accomplishments. If we haven't heard about it in the books, it's because Harry is naturally shy and retiring.
George has a fat lip—did Draco manage to get a lick in from the bottom of the pile?
Of course he did. Instead of of taking his rightful punishment like a noble Gryffindor would, he treacherously struck back, not to defend himself but because he is a natural sadist and likes to hurt other people.
Or you could pick choice the second: Are you silly? Malfoy is stupid and incompetent. It was a... rock, or something like that, more worthy of hitting a paragon of a Gryffindor like George that a weaselly Slytherin.
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Date: 2008-03-01 10:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-01 11:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-01 11:53 pm (UTC)Of course it is. Probably where Harry gets much of his gold from, too, it being a best-seller and all.
Are you silly? Malfoy is stupid and incompetent. It was a... rock, or something like that,
In fact, George hit himself. There is no way a Gryffindor could ever have been hurt conquered by ANYTHING... including a rock. O_o
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Date: 2008-03-01 10:49 pm (UTC)It's clearly a sign of Harry's immense humility that he keeps forgetting that little detail. Annoying as Ron gets with his "Why doesn't money just fall out of the sky when I want it", the fact that money actually does fall out of the sky into Harry's already filthy rich lap is more annoying by an order of magnitude.
* Luna's supporting Gryffindor as the mascot. So we know she's awesome. Luna's quirky nontraditional thinking led her to Sort herself into Ravenclaw while really being a Gryffindor.
I liked Luna in OotP, but this was embarrassing. I wanted her to rumple the Gryffs' feathers like she did over Hagrid, by thinking differently. Not by her delightfully unconventional mode of sucking up to them.
-L
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Date: 2008-03-01 10:58 pm (UTC)Once again with Luna, there's only so far JKR can really imagine somebody being unconventional.
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Date: 2008-03-04 04:52 pm (UTC)Oh dear, has JK now informed us all that There Are Good Slytherins Really - thereby making it completely okay that all the ones in the books are just evil and pathetic.
I suppose there had to be Good Slytherins out there because it's All About Choices.
- Dan Hemmens
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Date: 2008-03-04 07:09 pm (UTC)I think it's the usual pattern in interviews from before; in the books she writes them as completely pathetic and evil, but when asked why they continue exist she claims they're not all bad. She also oddly said that she agreed with Dumbledore that they "sort too soon" because it's terrible to mark a child that young...but if Slytherin isn't evil, it's hard to say why it should be so bad to Sort them. Dumbledore himself says that line to basically tell Snape that maybe he didn't deserved to be damned so young.
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Date: 2008-03-05 12:49 am (UTC)Rowling was ambivalent about the evil she was trying to portray. It even messed her up with Riddle/Voldemort. She wrote characters with nice characterization that gave them real impetus to act badly. But then didn't understand that this would draw sympathy from readers.
I still say she should have never allowed the trio to grow up. They should have stayed 11 or 12 throughout the whole series. Then the simplistic black/white characters would have meshed better.
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Date: 2009-01-05 02:40 am (UTC)Also, Muggles are pussies for fighting each other with fists. Real men use deadly weapons.
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Date: 2009-01-05 03:26 am (UTC)