OotP Chapter Twenty-Six

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

*Seamus behaves very guiltily for not believing Harry. Luckily, Harry himself never feels guilty for insulting Seamus’ family, nor does he remember that he’s finally actually answered the reasonable question Seamus asked him four hundred pages ago and that's why Seamus believes him now. Funny how he didn’t just give a Quibbler interview about what a dumb bitch Seamus’ mam is.

*Hermione: "Oh, I forgot to ask because it’s so totally unimportant and would never amount to anything even though I was all over it weeks ago, but what happened to your date with Cho, Harry? How come you came back so early thus making it clear you had no fun? Oh my, don’t tell me your little old meeting with little old me was to blame! Harry you are very immature and tactless. You should have said how awful it was you had to meet me, even though I know perfectly well you would never have put it like that because in this book I know exactly how everyone is going to act all the time because the author shares her detailed character breakdowns and notes with me. And of course I know I'm not ugly. I'm just cool enough to be okay with you saying I am without meaning it." Hermione: 12,098,123,097 Rest of the school: 0.

*Hermione’s right about all things one thing, Cho was trying to find out how much Harry liked her, and she found out: he really couldn’t care less about her and doesn’t fancy her much at all, so what’s the big loss? Cho sounds pretty sensible to me. In fact, she seems more sensible than Ms. "I Can’t Believe You All Haven’t Guessed Yet Who Hermione Likes When She Tells Him To Shut Up All The Time" Author-Insert.

*If other girls always seem stupider after your friend who’s a girl has explained them to you, that may have been her intention.

*Going a bit overboard with Harry’s cluelessness for Hermione’s sake, aren’t we? "Why didn’t she just ask me how much I liked her?" Yeah, Harry would have loved that. Nothing awkward there. "I don’t know how much I like you! Everyone’s so demanding! Wah! My scar hurts!"

*Ron and Ginny went off for baths after dinner. Just had to mention this momentous use of the word baths, even if they did wait until after dinner. I guess if fanon is to be believed it's hard to find a free shower in the locker room, what with all the wanking and angry sports-rival sex.

*LOL—when the twins come in and say, "Ron and Ginny not here?" my mind immediately jumps to Weasleycest. How long have they been in that bath?

*But while Ginny’s gone, that’ll give us a chance to slip in some back story about how she got so good at Quidditch even though Fred and George never let her play with them—-because she’s always really liked Quidditch really, just not enough to mention it at the QWC.

*They only refused to let her play with them because then she could be spunky, feminist, and awesome at Quidditch.

*This also happily gives Hermione a chance to tell us details about another girl’s life. Hermione could probably tell us how Angelina got so good at Quidditch as well, since she knows everything about everyone.

*Btw, nice try on the, "Ginny’s not that bad," George. It’s almost like Ginny’s not going to effortlessly beat all the other Seekers because she’s just that cool and about 26 games away from being a professional star somehow.

*Third mention of Murtlap in the book. Is this important for future or is it just hard to come up with different herbal essences that sound funny? ETA: It's the latter.

*Everybody still hates Zacharias Smith for some reason. Oh right, he doesn’t prostrate himself before the mighty lion at every opportunity. It’s tough to be the red herring, especially when the real snitch is already so obvious.

*Hermione says she hates Quidditch because it creates tension between the other houses. Actually, Quidditch is usually the only thing bringing students together. Without that sport I doubt Harry would even remember the existence of other houses at Hogwarts.

*Besides, doesn’t everybody all get together to cheer Gryffindor on anyway, except Slytherin who bring everyone together by being a common enemy?

* Btw, in case anybody’s worried that Hermione really doesn’t understand the importance of sport, remember that when actually watching a Gryffindor/Slytherin game she cheers for blood, and she got pretty het up at the QWC as well. Hermione really only likes Quidditch when it’s all about that tension between people.

*ETA: Not that any of the games she's followed perfectly well will matter when Ginny smacks her down about it in the next book.

*Let’s please note that while everyone, including the regular Gryffindor players, are supposed to suck incredibly badly, Ginny steals the snitch from under the other Seeker’s nose. If you smelled something rose-like as the defeated team went by, that would be Ginny. She doesn’t need a bath after this game.

*"It was a lucky catch," she reports Harry, showing she already knows the standard super-cool athlete response to praise. "But I’ll do it again next game." (And remember kids, she’s being modest—Harry thought it was impressive and he’s the best Seeker ever!).

*Isn’t it great how Slytherin is favored to win the Quidditch cup for two minutes for no real reason? Not that I’m complaining when they get knocked out early—reading the book the first time I was sure we were going to be treated to a scene of Ginny beating Malfoy to the Snitch and probably pantsing him as she did it.

*Harry was impressed by Ginny’s Seeking, even if he assures us he would have been better. Wait. Harry? Impressed with another Seeker at Hogwarts? Another Quidditch player? How could this be? Oh wait, it’s Ginny. He has to be impressed by her. Remember everyone, Ginny almost won the game all by herself despite the fact that the rest of the team (most of which has won the cup before) absolutely sucks. She and Harry are going to make such a cute couple.

*ETA: Remember Harry could have been a professional Quidditch star too. He would have been a little better than Ginny, as it should be.

*Granted it’s difficult to "empty your mind" of all thought (even if you’re Harry) and Snape would have been better to tell Harry to focus on something neutral, but isn’t it great how Harry doesn’t just fall asleep without emptying his mind, but falls asleep to thoughts of loathing? It’s like the perfect ad for this book as a kid’s series: Read Harry Potter to your little tyke. Waves of loathing, wafting off the text, will lull him to sweet, angry sleep!

*Is there significance that Harry’s dream begins with McGonagall, Neville and Sprout?

*Harry’s angry all day at Hermione for her "let me pounce on the information from your dream and once I’ve enjoyed it scold you for having it at all," but it seems to make no impression on Hermione at all. Yeah, these are so believably three friends in high school.

*As an aside, I get how Hermione is useful when she functions this way, by running with something and then turning around and being against it, and I see how personality-wise it works, but it’s beginning to really distract me the way she does it so often in this book. It’s just something you can count on as a device and it doesn’t seem so much that it starts to seem less like Hermione being Hermione so much as the author explaining how the plot works. So it’s, "let me explain everything that Harry’s dream means but remember that it’s Very Bad that he’s having the dream." Or, "I’ve put together a secret army for X, Y and Z reasons, but don’t forget to be worried about Sirius and the theme of recklessness I established earlier." I can't really call it a flaw since Hermione's character believably does this, but it's done so much I'm noticing it as too useful to the plot.

*Harry’s sure Dumbledore was watching him when he gets his Quibbler but he looks away when Harry looks up. Anybody else get the impression that all is proceeding according to Dumbledore’s creepy plan?

*ETA: What isn't proceeding according to Dumbledore's creepy plan? Very little.

*As usual, Hermione is the only person smart enough to come to the obvious conclusion that Umbridge’s banning the Quibbler will make everyone want to read it.

*Hermione’s eyes beam as she explains how the girls in the bathroom asked her questions. I’ll bet. One of these days Hermione should just Imperius Harry for his own good so she can come out from behind that throne.

*Btw, either boys never talk in the bathroom, or Harry and Ron never ever use one. Hermione is, like, always in the bathroom or saying something about what happens in the bathroom, ever since Book I. I guess because she doesn't just have girlfriends.

*ETA: Ah, this is cleared up in HBP. Girls go to the bathroom to talk to other girls. Boys use the bathrooms to cry.

*So Theodore Nott is the weedy boy Hermione can naturally identify when neither Harry nor Ron can. I’ve always assumed he’s also the "stringy" boy from CoMC who could see Thestrels.

*Harry says the Slytherins are "acting like this" (Goyle’s cracking his knuckles...doesn’t he always do that?) because he named their fathers as Death Eaters but are they surprised that Voldemort challenged Harry to a duel and lost like an idiot? Have they been wondering all year what happened? Did they have any hint? For the first time in the entire series, there seems to actually be something interesting happening in Slytherin.

*While Goyle isn’t acting any differently than usual, Malfoy whispers something "undoubtedly malevolent" to Crabbe instead of doing what Malfoy usually does which is to say something in a “sneering voice." He’s not even making fun of the tearful Potter reunion in the graveyard.

*Perversely, I like to imagine that every single one of the "obviously awful" things Harry could tell Malfoy was whispering at different times were totally unremarkable. Like here he's whispering, "I like soup."

*Hermione says the best part is they can’t contradict Harry because they’d have to admit they read the article. So is she saying she thinks the boys would tell everyone Harry's wrong and their fathers are not DEs? This is Malfoy, who three years ago was crowing, "You’re next, Mudbloods!" so should he not be proud that his father’s a DE? Would they be giving their own father's versions of events, cleaned up to make them look less like the idiots they actually were?

*"I have wasted months on fruitless schemes," says Harry/Voldemort. Amazingly he’s not referring to the plot of GoF. He's referring to his whole new year of fruitless schemes.

*Speaking of fruitless schemes, I still don’t get it. Why does Voldemort need to eventually get Harry to the DoM to get the prophecy? ETA: Nope, it won't make any more sense at the end of the book either. They should have titled this book: Harry Potter and the Fruitless Scheme. Though I guess they could have titled most of the books that.

*Why does one become a DE again? Because okay, apparently Avery and Rookwood are quivering masses of jelly but what’s Lucius Malfoy getting out of this? It seems like they’d all be ambitious Slytherins, so isn’t it interesting they’re all so cowering after they saw their boss get his arse kicked by a fourteen year old and a baby?

*Btw, isn’t Azkaban supposed to drive you mad unless you’re innocent like Sirius was? Or has that idea served its purpose so now no longer true? Because Rookwood looks pretty good.

*"Got to be the weapon." Oh, poor Harry. If only he knew what it really was he could just sigh with relief that Voldemort’s not after anything important and go back to sleep.

*Harry opts to angst and manfully chew his pillow rather then tell "them" about his dream. By "them" he means Dumbledore and somehow this seems appropriate. He's learning from the master.

*Do we ultimately know why Bode "went funny" because he tried to get the "weapon?"

*Lucius Malfoy appears to be acting rather cleverly and reasonably so far, what with Imperiusing various people to get the prophecy. Why does he later waltz into the DoM and start uselessly yelling until he’s arrested? Is he under the Imperius Curse? The ultimate author-kind?

*"Ron, be quiet." We don’t even have to know Ron’s saying anything now to get Hermione telling him to be quiet.

*You know, I’m beginning to see Steve Klove’s point. I think we should just give up and make Hermione the heroine, if only because it will save a lot of paper: Voldemort came up with a plot to rule the world. Hermione was really smart, figured everything out, understood everything, foiled the plot and then explained to everyone how she did it. The end.

*We’ll pause here to again list all the reasons why Harry has the worst life ever: not doing well in Potions, on tenterhooks Hagrid might be forced into more appropriate employment, other people who live in his house did badly at Quidditch yadda yadda yadda. Also, people are discussing the escaped DEs in the hallway, which he wanted them to do the other day, but apparently is really bugging him now.

*This book really rips the face off the innocent escapist Harry-locked-in-the-cupboard-is-a-wizard fantasy of the other books. Now it’s all, "I remember every single humiliation and will make the bastards pay tenfold for each and every one." Yet this is the book here he grows beyond the whiny bully for higher things.

*Snape still deals with Harry’s humiliating memories by not mentioning them to further humiliate him-wise choice. He’s only interested in the Rookwood memory. Surprising people would not then understand why Harry’s allegedly sensitive reaction to the humiliating memory of Snape’s he sees isn’t received well by Snape.

*Love Snape’s suggestion that Harry doesn’t tell anybody about his dreams of Voldemort because it makes him feel special and important, because while on the surface it seems so TOTALLY NOT TRUE OMG YOU JERK!!11 it’s totally true. Harry’s not sharing important information out of pride and spite or because he doesn’t want people thinking badly of him. He just doesn’t recognize this as arrogance or being difficult.

*Love the satisfied expression on Snape’s face when Harry tells him it’s [Snape’] job to find out what’s going on with the DEs. Since it’s a drawn-out moment I guess it’s important. Does Harry think he’s gone too far because he assumes everyone should be ashamed to be a spy? Or that Snape should be ashamed of his connections? Why does Snape look satisfied? Does it remind him he’s important? Or is it a sign that Snape in Book VII will be revealed to be…not Alan Rickman. Sorry girls!

*ETA: I guess he's thinking about how he's totally revenging himself on Voldemort for Lily by doing that, even though the only information he passes that's ever worth anything is that which is directly about Harry and that therefore gets broadcasted directly into Harry's head anyway.

*Trelawney loses her job, gets drunk. Dumbledore appears to do the one thing he does well, which is remind everybody that Hogwarts is about personal friends of the Big D’s (the more dependent the better) and not a bunch of professionals doing a job.

*Then he brings in a centaur to teach the class, validating my earlier impression that the reason Umbridge is at the school is that he wanted her as DADA teacher.

*Harry pushes through a crowd of "tall" Slytherins to see what’s going on. Tall? Just tall? Not weedy or gaunt or ugly or malevolently gigantic or sinisterly stretched or menacingly looming? Are we sure they’re Slytherins?

*Was this chapter really as long as it seemed? Because there was a second there, before Trelawney was fired, where I thought it was never going to end.



Designated Hero
The boy who loathed.

Exploitation Filmmakers’ Credo
How many times do we have to hear that Harry ought not to be having these dreams, and it would really be better if he didn’t?

IITS
Why do the DEs work for Voldemort? Why does Voldemort need the prophesy? Why doesn't he just go get it?

Idiot World
There’s nothing sadder than watching this world swing one way and then the next according to a magazine article. It’s literally like nobody can have any other thought or opinion besides whether or not they agree with what Harry Potter did or said last week.

Informed Attributes
If we keep being told Ginny’s "not too bad" at Quidditch maybe we won’t notice nobody stands a chance against her and think she’s an underdog.

McGuffin
You know, the more we hear about this weapon, the more disappointed we’ll be with that prophesy.

Misdirected Answering
Doesn’t really count, but I’d really rather know exactly what the position of the Slytherin boys is supposed to be because I have no clue. I know if I just accepted that their Slytherin-ness and their overall evilness was enough explanation I’d be happier.

POV Shots
This time in Voldemort!Vision.

Final score: 7.5

Comments

[go-back-chief.livejournal.com]

Going a bit overboard with Harry’s cluelessness for Hermione’s sake, aren’t we? "Why didn’t she just ask me how much I liked her?" Yeah, Harry would have loved that. Nothing awkward there. "I don’t know how much I like you! Everyone’s so demanding! Wah! My scar hurts!"

LOLOLOLOL

Ron and Ginny went off for baths after dinner.

Together? Oh wait, this was canon, right? "Baths" are so unusual there, I thought I'd better check...

Hermione could probably tell us how Angelina got so good at Quidditch as well, since she knows everything about everyone.

But why would anyone want to know that? She's only marrying one of the boring twins...

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Nah, not together. Ron is a *Prefect* now. He gets to use the fancy bath. inny is still stuck with the plain white porcelain version. It probably has only one water spout too.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL! Angelina's taste is so unimportant she married the guy who looked close enough to Fred to be considered a high school sweetheart.

[kaskait.livejournal.com]

*If other girls always seem stupider after your friend who’s a girl has explained them to you, that may have been her intention.

Because when a woman bashes another woman it turns the bashing into feminism and totally negates the sexist support of the patriarchy. Harry must be serviced! Why can't all women be little help meets like Hermione looking to kiss his ass 24/7! Oh wait, look, I think I see GinBot on the horizon. Now that is feminism.

*Speaking of fruitless schemes, I still don’t get it. Why does Voldemort need to eventually get Harry to the DoM to get the prophecy? ETA: Nope, it won't make any more sense at the end of the book either. They should have titled this book: Harry Potter and the Fruitless Scheme. Though I guess they could have titled most of the books that.

Anyone and everyone in the whole WW plots fruitless schemes including the Big D. What is Volemole snorting? But then again he must be comparing his plans to medieval muggle plans. You know, we're the group that uses ballpoint pens and sometimes even spaceagey gel ink pens. But they could never compare to a quill pulled out of bird's ass. That is what you need to create really good plans.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Ginny and Hermione as the two good women (Luna semi counts, but she's sort of like a mascot) always come across as a really strong statement of some kind to me. Especially with Lily basically being a copy of them.

[violaswamp.livejournal.com]

This book really rips the face off the innocent escapist Harry-locked-in-the-cupboard-is-a-wizard fantasy of the other books. Now it’s all, "I remember every single humiliation and will make the bastards pay tenfold for each and every one." Yet this is the book here he grows beyond the whiny bully for higher things.

...and then proceeds to behave like the bully's psycho stalker ex-boyfriend in the next book. Yup.

And yeah, it's quite clear that these books are a lot like how people wish they had been in high school: coolly unpopular (because, let's face it, it's cool to be unpopular) and picked on by bullies that are persistent, but also persistently lame and easy to humiliate with witty insults.

You know, the more we hear about this weapon, the more disappointed we’ll be with that prophesy.

But...but...the prophecy will tell us that Harry is a MARKED MAN!!111! That's, like, the BEST EMO EVER. I am looking forward to laughing at that.

I kind of want to write a weird cross-over fic where Harry meets up with other heroes who come equipped with prophecies: Buffy Summers, for one (she'd make ruthless fun of Harry, it'd be great), and Sydney Bristow of Alias fame, and I know there must be others but I'm drawing a blank. But they could compare notes on the crushing burden of it all.

[tabaquis.livejournal.com]

Harry and Rand al'Thorn could go out drinking and take turns crying about whose life has been more ruined by MY TERRIBLE CRUSHING FATE!

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, you've got the total package in the HP books for a perfect high school career. It's brilliant that way. I feel like it manages to hit those kinds of contradictory things on all sorts of levels, the way you can always do just what you want and not really be challenged, only that makes you a martyr and a hero.

[moonspinner.livejournal.com]

Lol @ Ginny the underdog. That was a myth straight out of the tale of Beadle the Bard.

I always thought that Snape was the best tutor Harry could ever have for Occlumency.

I forgot to add that Hermione's indirect Disparaging of Cho might not have been accidental. Remember this is the same girl that was giving Ginny tips on How To Catch Her Man. Too bad, Ginny will return the favour next year by hooking Ron up with Lavendar.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I don't think it was accidental. I don't think it was planned, exactly, but I think she was happy to slot that into "failed experiment" for Harry early on and then talk about it as such.

[lachlanm.livejournal.com]

sistermagpie: *This also happily gives Hermione a chance to tell us details about another girl’s life. Hermione could probably tell us how Angelina got so good at Quidditch as well, since she knows everything about everyone.

Maybe she's learned legilimency and is secretly using it on everyone. I like this idea because it has just the right combination of Mary Sue superpowers and dubious ethics to be Hermione's style.



sistermagpie: *Harry’s angry all day at Hermione for her "let me pounce on the information from your dream and once I’ve enjoyed it scold you for having it at all," but it seems to make no impression on Hermione at all. Yeah, these are so believably three friends in high school.

I see them as like Odo and Quark on Deep Space Nine. They hate each other, but they're still the closest thing they have to best friends because they're all too dysfunctional to have a real relationship with anyone else. Except with Odo and Quark it wasn't supposed to be serious.



sistermagpie: *ETA: Ah, this is cleared up in HBP. Girls go to the bathroom to talk to other girls. Boys use the bathrooms to cry.

Well, it's more that two out of Harry's three crushes spend all their time crying in the bathrooms. That's why he notes specifically that Ginny isn't weepy.



sistermagpie: *Speaking of fruitless schemes, I still don’t get it. Why does Voldemort need to eventually get Harry to the DoM to get the prophecy? ETA: Nope, it won't make any more sense at the end of the book either. They should have titled this book: Harry Potter and the Fruitless Scheme. Though I guess they could have titled most of the books that.

Definitely PS/SS (Harry's fruitless scheme, but ultimately the staff's fault), PoA (Sirius's), GoF (Voldemort's), OotP (Voldemort's), HBP (Voldemort's, although in this case it was more of a fruitless lack of a scheme while he waited aimlessly for Draco to kill Dumbledore), and DH (Harry's, but I'm blaming Hermione too since she's his self-appointed keeper). This must be why I like CS---nobody did anything colossally stupid, although Dumbledore did sit on his ass as usual.

Actually, the fruitless scheme in GoF is kind of illustrative. Voldemort delays his resurrection for months so he can kill Harry in the most dramatic manner possible. This isn't believable for a rational villain, but it's totally believable for an over-the-top drama queen cartoon villain who cackles a lot. When you write children's literature that's supposed to be read by adults too, you have to remember you're writing for two different audiences, and I think JKR forgot that. She could have portrayed Voldemort as a serious villain for younger readers while simultaneously making it all into a big joke for everyone old enough to get it. (I ran into this a few years ago when I saw an episode of the Ninja Turtles and noticed that it was way, way funnier than it had been when I was five.) Instead, everyone is expected to see Voldemort as dark and scary, which is where we get what mike_smith might call CEDRIC DIGGORY THE FIRST CHARACTER TO DIE IN A CHILDREN'S BOOK EVER. These could really have been great books if people over the age of fourteen weren't expected to take them seriously.



sistermagpie: *You know, I’m beginning to see Steve Klove’s point. I think we should just give up and make Hermione the heroine, if only because it will save a lot of paper: Voldemort came up with a plot to rule the world. Hermione was really smart, figured everything out, understood everything, foiled the plot and then explained to everyone how she did it. The end.

When I read this the Murder, She Wrote music started playing in my head before I even realized what it was.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh, god. Older!Hermione as Jessica Fletcher would be kind of great. Especially because in her case she'd bring up those same suspicions as the TV show did--has anybody noticed that everytime that old lady comes to town somebody dies?

LOL--I forgot the Cho/Draco crying connection. Yeah, keep telling yourself you like your crushes non-weepy, Harry. You know you need that water element for balance!

[(Anonymous)]

This must be why I like CS---nobody did anything colossally stupid, although Dumbledore did sit on his ass as usual.

On the contrary, I feel that more people are colossally stupid _at the same time_ in CS than in any other volume apart from DH. That's why it was my least favorite book until DH came along.

Lucius - while his scheme isn't quite fruitless, it is massively idiotic. He smuggles a dangerous Dark artifact the nature and working of which he doesn't understand into the school where his son lives. Sure, Voldy may have said something about it clearing the Muggleborns out - but he hadn't been the most trustworthy person in the past, nor did he care for collateral damage.
Meanwhile Dobby (sic!) shows us how getting Muggleborns expelled _should_ be done and the absurd ease of it.

DD - has all the clues about what is going on from the start. He knows who, if he had 2 brain cells to rub together he should have known where (he was there where Myrtle was found and could question her ghost, too) and what (he can read as well as Hermione) and mounting surveyance of the bathroom should have shown him "how". Instead he sits on his backside, twinkles and watches half a dozen of his students get nearly killed. And BTW the older members of the staff who were there when Myrtle died are equally cretinistic.

Hagrid almost gets the boys eaten by giant spiders - that's pretty normal for him, but still. Nobody is annoyed at him for it, either.

Harry and Ron go to Lockhart although they know that he is completely useless (!) and although they intended to go to McG at first. When they see yet again that yes, he is useless, they somehow forget their original intention and decide to do it all by themselves, although they don't know any offensive magic apart from Expelliarmus. It is almost as if they don't really care whether Ginny gets saved, as long as they can play the heroes. They use Lockhart as a human shield - one of the darker and sillier things they have done in the series, but it is all played for laughs. Lockhart is intimidated enough by they wands (although he knows that they can't possibly kill or seriously harm him)to go into mortal danger. Etc, etc. Idiocy is so thick there that one could choke.

This isn't believable for a rational villain, but it's totally believable for an over-the-top drama queen cartoon villain who cackles a lot.

I don't believe that children _want_ a stupid villain, unless the whole story is supposed to be a joke. Those are just excuses of poor writers. Children can _forgive_ a stupid villain if he is flamboyant and memorable enough, but that's something different. I completely disagree that JKR had to write Voldy as an imbecile to appeal to children.

[r-ganymede.livejournal.com]

It’s almost like Ginny’s not going to effortlessly beat all the other Seekers because she’s just that cool and about 26 games away from being a professional star somehow.

ETA: Remember Harry could have been a professional Quidditch star too.

I know a lot of people find it unrealistic that pretty much anyone seems to be able to become a Quidditch star after leaving Hogwarts, but it's never struck me as odd that someone who only ever made the Hogwarts Quidditch team would be able to go professional. Mostly because it seems like the the British Wizarding World alone seems to have an abundance of teams, way more than its population size would normally have for a given sport. So for all we know, some 10% of the total population could have played Quidditch professionally at some point in their lives. Especially since there don't exactly seem to be many other job options for those who've just left Hogwarts. It's like, Auror training, Ministry job, work in a shop / on the Knight Bus, or play Quidditch professionally (oh, or get married immediately and be a housewife).

Getting into to Auror training is supposed to be way difficult and I'm going to say getting a Ministry job is too. It's not like we actually see many recent graduates in the Ministry other than Percy and he has a far above average school record and a lot of ambition. And they probably don't have many job openings to begin with - it may well be a matter of waiting for someone to die so that everyone gets promoted and there's finally a job opening at the bottom. But basically, I think "professional Quidditch" might exist specifically to make sure there are some actual jobs for those just leaving Hogwarts.

Btw, isn’t Azkaban supposed to drive you mad unless you’re innocent like Sirius was? Or has that idea served its purpose so now no longer true? Because Rookwood looks pretty good.

I thought Sirius was okay because he was an animagus and turning himself into a dog made the dementors easier to bear, not because he was innocent. Maybe Rookwood's yet another unregistered animagus :)

[r-ganymede.livejournal.com]

Oh, and:

You know, the more we hear about this weapon, the more disappointed we’ll be with that prophesy.

I had totally been thinking it was the Wizarding equivalent to the H-Bomb or biological warfare or something and that Voldemort was going to use it on the Ministry or even all of London, so yeah, very disappointed.

[lachlanm.livejournal.com]

r_ganymede: I thought Sirius was okay because he was an animagus and turning himself into a dog made the dementors easier to bear, not because he was innocent. Maybe Rookwood's yet another unregistered animagus :)

Well, I always liked the idea that Sirius was still sane because he was an animagus, but that he attributed it to his innocence because he was just that self-righteous.

That said, I don't actually think Sirius came through Azkaban nearly as unscathed as we're supposed to believe. He seemed like a self-destructive drunk in OotP. But if we stipulate that Sirius is sane, then I think that to account for the sanity of both Sirius and Rookwood it has to be the innocence thing. In Rookwood's case, he's obviously not innocent, but if he honestly believes that nothing he did was wrong, that may equate to the same thing. (And Rookwood probably doesn't think anything's wrong. He strikes me as one of the more amoral, as opposed to immoral, Death Eaters.)

On the other hand, though, it may just be that Azkaban doesn't drive you insane. The only ex-con in the books who seems to be certifiably nuts is Bellatrix, and she was always like that.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

That's a very good point about Quidditch. I had been thinking of how Harry notes the difference between him and the professional players at the QWC and mistakenly thinking that must mean it's like real professional sports, but it probably is just played by people like Ginny and Harry who are normal kids who don't train much at all and have sort of knack for doing whatever it is one has to do. Maybe the professionals all take the Wizard eqiuvalent of steroids so it looks like they're playing at a higher level.

[savagedamsel10.livejournal.com]

*Everybody still hates Zacharias Smith for some reason. Oh right, he doesn’t prostrate himself before the mighty lion at every opportunity. It’s tough to be the red herring, especially when the real snitch is already so obvious.
Oh, no no no! Silly, didn't you know? ;) It's because they all know what he's going to do in the final book, of course! They're just punishing in advance, with more to come in HBP.
Huh, come to think of it, maybe JKR came across people hating Ginny for the ramming thing in HBP that she had to make Zacharias act so unlike what's been shown before in the final book so that her Princess Gin-Gin gets vindicated for knowing his true evil nature beforehand or some such crap.

*Is there significance that Harry’s dream begins with McGonagall, Neville and Sprout?
Once I came across a H/G shipping essay that explained this scene as Harry fantasising about Ginny. IIRC, he's dreaming about wanting to dance/be with Ginny (with McGonagall, representing the general Gryffindor crowd, approving heartily) but he can only associate the one time he saw her dance from the Yule Ball, which she went with Neville. But since he wants to dance with Ginny and not have her dance with Neville, he has to think of an alternative person for Neville to dance with, hence Sprout, because of Herbology associations. And since he can't admit that he's dreaming about Ginny, he sees Neville and Sprout together. I wish I was making this up.

*Perversely, I like to imagine that every single one of the "obviously awful" things Harry could tell Malfoy was whispering at different times were totally unremarkable. Like here he's whispering, "I like soup."
"I'm thinking of buying my mum perfume for her birthday. Mother has always said that she trusts my taste in all things to do with olfaction".
"One day I shall own my own private helicopter and ballet company"
"So guys, what's the verdict on Potter? Straight or gay?"

*Snape still deals with Harry’s humiliating memories by not mentioning them to further humiliate him-wise choice. He’s only interested in the Rookwood memory. Surprising people would not then understand why Harry’s allegedly sensitive reaction to the humiliating memory of Snape’s he sees isn’t received well by Snape.
Even though I can understand why people dislike Snape, I can never understand the ones who insist that what Snape's doing is evil because he's "stealing" memories. Not accessing, not prying, "stealing". Wuh?

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I should have known that about Zack--obviously he was going to do something bad and was just being pre-emptively and righteously punished by our heroes.

Once I came across a H/G shipping essay that explained this scene as Harry fantasising about Ginny. IIRC, he's dreaming about wanting to dance/be with Ginny (with McGonagall, representing the general Gryffindor crowd, approving heartily) but he can only associate the one time he saw her dance from the Yule Ball, which she went with Neville. But since he wants to dance with Ginny and not have her dance with Neville, he has to think of an alternative person for Neville to dance with, hence Sprout, because of Herbology associations. And since he can't admit that he's dreaming about Ginny, he sees Neville and Sprout together. I wish I was making this up.

That's brilliant. You can totally see how the Harmonians get the reputation for doing crazy literary analysis for their ship. Not a single hippogryff in that paragraph!

"So guys, what's the verdict on Potter? Straight or gay?"

I like to think he started finding out the answer to that one (along with Harry) the day after the epilogue.

[guardians-song.livejournal.com]

"
*Harry’s sure Dumbledore was watching him when he gets his Quibbler but he looks away when Harry looks up. Anybody else get the impression that all is proceeding according to Dumbledore’s creepy plan?

*ETA: What isn't proceeding according to Dumbledore's creepy plan? Very little."
Dumbledore: *folds hands in front of face* *eyes twinkle* All is going according to the scenario laid out in the Trelawney Prophecy.

"
*Speaking of fruitless schemes, I still don’t get it. Why does Voldemort need to eventually get Harry to the DoM to get the prophecy? ETA: Nope, it won't make any more sense at the end of the book either. They should have titled this book: Harry Potter and the Fruitless Scheme. Though I guess they could have titled most of the books that."
I think Harry needed to be there because only he could grab it off the shelf, since the prophecy concerns him - ohwait, it concerns Voldemort too. *HEADLAPTOP*

I forgot all about the "weapon" foreshadowing! Gad, I HATED this book's constant whining from Harry. I think it's true what you said about "This book really rips the face off the innocent escapist Harry-locked-in-the-cupboard-is-a-wizard fantasy of the other books. Now it’s all, "I remember every single humiliation and will make the bastards pay tenfold for each and every one." Yet this is the book here he grows beyond the whiny bully for higher things." - when I was younger, I DESPISED it for that. You can't have Saint Harry of Gryffindor Who Is Also Really Bitchy and NEEDS MIDOL STAT!

Harry's a moron. Hermione thinks of everything. Ron just stands around and tries to be a decent person even as the "You MUST be pitiful to make MAH HARREH look better!" authorial mandate drags him down. So much wasted potential. In an AU, even though Slytherin!Ron is my way of spitting in "OMG SLYTHERINS ARE TEH SEXIEST!111111! AND WEASLEYS ALL SUCCCCCCCCCCK AND WANT HARRY'S MONEY AND THAT'S THE ONLY REASON THEY HANG AROUND HIM!111!!!!!"-idiots' faces, he'd be better in Hufflepuff - someplace with MORALITY, at any rate. The Epilogue is sort of a "He loved Big Brother" scene with the Muggle-hexing Ron. D:

"
*Love Snape’s suggestion that Harry doesn’t tell anybody about his dreams of Voldemort because it makes him feel special and important, because while on the surface it seems so TOTALLY NOT TRUE OMG YOU JERK!!11 it’s totally true. Harry’s not sharing important information out of pride and spite or because he doesn’t want people thinking badly of him. He just doesn’t recognize this as arrogance or being difficult. "
Snape's like one of those characters in fanfiction who the writer sets up to abuse the Sue and thus make everyone feel TOTALLY SORRY for the Sue, but ends up making far too many good points and thus earning the love of sporkers. Now I'm beginning to understand why people disliked DH!Snape. His basis was a believable character. But it wasn't... quiiiiiiiite... pre-DH!Snape. For one, he didn't get in any last-minute snipes at Harry's stupidity. TOTALLY OOC! (/only semi-sarcastic on that last point)

[savagedamsel10.livejournal.com]

The Epilogue is sort of a "He loved Big Brother" scene with the Muggle-hexing Ron. D:

I choked on my fruit salad reading the 1984 reference, it had been niggling at the back of mind when I was contemplating the Epilogue but I couldn't make the connection until now. :)

"He loved Big Brother. All was well." XD

I agree that OotP was really the beginning of the downward slide with HBP and DH, but that the cracks were beginning to emerge in GoF. It makes sense, since I think around this time editors started to really become overawed by her selling power and JKR was overwhelmed with the fame and popularity of her books, causing a writer's block and other stuff. if you have have the time to trawl through deathtocapslock you'll find the GoF recaps and many others.

[guardians-song.livejournal.com]

"
*We’ll pause here to again list all the reasons why Harry has the worst life ever: not doing well in Potions, on tenterhooks Hagrid might be forced into more appropriate employment, other people who live in his house did badly at Quidditch yadda yadda yadda. Also, people are discussing the escaped DEs in the hallway, which he wanted them to do the other day, but apparently is really bugging him now."
That reminds me - does Harry really CARE about his grade in Potions? He's not a Hermione-type whose boggart is failing all her classes (I admit, I never appreciated that boggart until I got a sub-excellent grade in my favored subject...), and he hates Snape and knows he'll never get fair treatment from him. You'd think he'd just decide "Eh, I'll wait for the job interviews and call in witnesses on Severus Snape being a greasy git." Like a REAL resigned, bitter teenager?

"
*Why does one become a DE again? Because okay, apparently Avery and Rookwood are quivering masses of jelly but what’s Lucius Malfoy getting out of this? It seems like they’d all be ambitious Slytherins, so isn’t it interesting they’re all so cowering after they saw their boss get his arse kicked by a fourteen year old and a baby?"
Because they very well know that THEY'RE so pathetic that he'd kick THEIR arses if they didn't rejoin him. Bellatrix, of course, who's the only one nearby him in power to judge from the DH battles, is too busy having bodice-ripper fantasies about him (...and it might not be HER bodice being ripped...) to complain.


"Idiot World
There’s nothing sadder than watching this world swing one way and then the next according to a magazine article. It’s literally like nobody can have any other thought or opinion besides whether or not they agree with what Harry Potter did or said last week."
I thought it was a TAD strange back when I was a kid, and I think it's freaking bizarre now. JKR should have watched the Democratic race this year - she'd know that there's ALWAYS a snowball effect or it dies out of the public ADD-influenced consciousness.
Hell, even reading tabloids or browsing their covers would have done...

And oogh, tough!Ginny sucks. :P

"*Everybody still hates Zacharias Smith for some reason. Oh right, he doesn’t prostrate himself before the mighty lion at every opportunity. It’s tough to be the red herring, especially when the real snitch is already so obvious."
I still fangirl the Sacrifices Arc version of Zacharias Smith, so I'm busy thinking "She just couldn't stand his awesomeness next to Harry's juvenile temper tantrums, huh? Character-bashing fool..." XD (Eh, it's how Snape and Draco fangirls react to Harry bashing Draco or Snape because one of them outsmarted Harry for once, right? XD)

I LOVE your snark. Please do it forever... GoF was the beginning of the decline, in retrospect - it's when the HUGE novels began. Will you look at it after you're done with OOTP? I mean, just out of curiosity for how the decay began. :P =) :D

[savagedamsel10.livejournal.com]

I still fangirl the Sacrifices Arc version of Zacharias Smith

Ooh, is this a fic or a rpg? Do you have a link or know where it's located? Thanks!

[horridporrid.livejournal.com]

*Seamus behaves very guiltily for not believing Harry. Luckily, Harry himself never feels guilty for insulting Seamus’ family, nor does he remember that he’s finally actually answered the reasonable question Seamus asked him four hundred pages ago and that's why Seamus believes him now. Funny how he didn’t just give a Quibbler interview about what a dumb bitch Seamus’ mam is.

Okay, this right here... Every once in a while (or actually, kind of lot, I think?) people pull up "The Code of the School Yard" (tm) to explain (read: excuse) various bad behaviors on Harry's part.

"Oh, the Trio and the Twins magically beat the snot out of Draco because of something Draco said? Why that's just the School Yard Code, and Draco should have known better!"

And while on one hand, I do agree that particular code (Jack London called it the law of tooth and claw) seems to be the governing ethic of Gryffindor (so also Hogwarts and the WW), Harry seems to break it with impunity. He insulted a boy's mother to his face, and nothing comes of it. Seamus actually lets it go, and it didn't seem to give Dean much pause at all. Realistically this sort of fight should have created at least a cold war within the boys' dorm.

I think it's another way in which it's hard for me to see why people in this world actually like Harry. Generally someone this self-involved doesn't do well in social situations. Unless they've got some sort of surface charm or something. But other than his notoriety, I'm not sure what the attraction is.

Do the Hufflepuffs loathe him? They should as he may have been involved in Cedric's death, but I don't recall that it was ever an issue... I mean, there's Zach, but I'm not sure he's supposed to represent Hufflepuff in the end. (A bitter point for me, because I thought that was the point of Zach and boy, was I wrong, wrong, wrong.)

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh god, yes. The dreaded "Code of the Schoolyard" that we supposedly all follow, even though Harry blatantly breaks it whenever he wants.

It does seem like people would dislike Harry. Why wouldn't they, given how he comes across? And yet whenever they get the chance to show a random person's pov it's always, "He's really nice." He is? When?

I share your disappointment over how Zach turned out to be just another person to contrast with how great Harry is.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

It's so sad how the last book just squashed things that sounded good into fruitless mush!

[(Anonymous)]

Why does one become a DE again? Because okay, apparently Avery and Rookwood are quivering masses of jelly but what’s Lucius Malfoy getting out of this? It seems like they’d all be ambitious Slytherins, so isn’t it interesting they’re all so cowering after they saw their boss get his arse kicked by a fourteen year old and a baby?

Oh dear, you've not been listening again. People become Death Eaters because they're cowards. Because cowards always try to ally themselves with bumbling psychopathic would-be evil overlords who care more about their high school headmaster than actually taking over the damned world already.

- Dan Hemmens

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

It's true. I could have saved myself so much confusion if I'd only gotten that early on.