deathtocapslock | OotP Chapter Thirty-Six

sistermagpie.livejournal.com posting in

*ETA: This was an interesting re-read, because there turned out to be a lot in this chapter I'd gotten wrong before.

*Not too flattering a title, is it, Albus? We were gonna call it "Coolest Bad Ass Wizard Ever" but this sounded more dramatic.

*Voldemort: Seventy years old, the terror of Great Britain, immortal and still terrified of his old Transfigurations teacher.

*ETA: No, we never will get an explanation for why Dumbledore doesn't tell the world who Voldemort really is, and why the good side doesn't just take to calling him "Tom" themselves. It would have avoided that whole taboo thing and really gotten under his skin as well--far more than "U-No-Poo."

*Thanks for taking care of all those DEs so quickly, Dumbledore. Why does the fate of the WW rest on Harry’s shoulders again? Couldn’t you just mop this up yourself?

*Apparently Sirius is dead now. If you don’t believe it it’s because you just can’t handle the dark realism that is OotP and not because, you know, death doesn’t actually work that way.

*Lupin is speaking as if every word is causing him pain—though not as much pain as Harry is feeling, remember. Lupin only shared an actual history with Sirius based on mutual friendship and understanding. Harry has all that bonding he could have had with him.

*Harry chases Bellatrix. How dare she run away and try to keep Harry from counter-Crucioing her in self-defense! Yes, it is still self-defense, because Harry called it!

*Guess her craziness comes and goes.

*So you can just ask the doors to tell you which way to go now? Not much of a security system, is it? Too bad we didn’t know this before. Maybe the doors are just scared of Harry now because he really means business.

*Hatred rose in Harry such that he had never known before. Really? Because I’d think Harry would be pretty familiar with all kinds of hatred by now. He seems freshly intrigued by every single one, and is constantly surprising himself by how much he can hate people. Accept it, Harry. You just have the gift.

*And people think it’s silly when people write H/D or H/S. Doesn’t this universe sort of turn on the idea that hate and love are connected? In fact, that hate=love? True love is signaled by irritation with another person, and Harry, whose special power is how much he can love, spends most of his time hating. He mostly loves someone when he thinks he’s lost him/her, or when they're useful, or when he doesn't actually have to see them, talk to them, or deal with them in any way.

*ETA: It's scary that that was written before HBP, the book that proved that love makes everybody assholes. And also the book where Dumbledore tells Harry triumphantly that when he talks about Harry's great ability to love he actually is referring to a burning need for vengeance against Voldemort over the parents he doesn't remember.

*Oh, I’m sorry. Apparently what Harry was feeling wasn’t hatred (even though it was just stated it was) but a "righteous anger."

*According to Bellatrix, you have to really want to cause pain and enjoy it, you have to "mean it." How, exactly, did Harry not "mean it" when he cursed Bellatrix? Seems to me Harry actually has an innate talent for Unforgivables. And if there’s one thing I can tell you after 700 pages (this book alone) it’s that Harry knows how to enjoy the pain of others.

*ETA: As crazy as I thought Harry was here, even I never suspected that this exchange with Bellatrix actually was a *lesson* that Harry would triumphantly learn and ace as part of his "growth." Harry learns to control his anger enough to enjoy causing pain for the sake of causing pain. Um. Yay?

*ETA: Of course, at the same time this is undermined in the same book by Draco Malfoy being forced to Crucio against his will and clearly not enjoying it (too cowardly and weak).

*So are we really supposed to think that this little Crucio incident proves that Harry is fundamentally not like the DEs? Because this is another one of these moments where I think okay surely, the point is to show how similar they all are, and how Harry’s going down the wrong path. ETA: Well, what to say about this? Because I think the point is that Harry is still fundamentally not like the DEs *despite* having the same sadistic impulses. A path because the right path as soon as Harry sets foot on it.

*Really, I just always feel like as a modern hero Harry is just entitled to everything cool, good or bad. Like the way that any good qualities associated with cunning or ambition are demonstrated not by Slytherins but by the good guys. Similarly, sure we'll show the bad guys being evil in their use of torture, but there's also that bit of coolness in the ability to torture someone, so Harry gets that too. We don't want him to be one of those boring saint characters who thinks just because he's the good guy he can't be bad.

*ETA: When I first read this book I thought Tom Riddle came across like someone who hated because he loved too. Especially after all the drama of his speech in GoF about how nobody cared about him! And also the whole "my father left my mother when he found out she was a witch" sounded very different from what really happened. In HBP he is revealed as a sociopath. The weird thing about him being a sociopath, though, is the way he's then treated as if he's being a sociopath on purpose, culminating in Harry taunting him to "feel some remorse" to save himself as if he's giving him one of those famous "choices" even though there is no choice there. He can only show what he is.

*Why are these curses blowing things up and blowing things off statues? It’s like the CoS movie where every curse just knocked the other person into the air. If you throw a Crucio and it hits a statue, shouldn’t the statue just not be affected? Or crumble or groan inside or something?

*As usual Bellatrix must spend more time telling Harry how powerful and evil she is than hurting him. Show, don’t tell, Bella!

*She learned the Dark Arts from Voldemort. I remain confused as to exactly what these Dark Arts are and how they differ from the Non-dark violent hexing and cursing hobbies of the good guys, but it’s kind of interesting Voldemort himself teaches them. Did he teach the other DEs? Because it’s never seemed that the children of DEs know them. I wonder if you have to be a DE before you learn the Vampire!Bat Bogey hex.

*ETA: Somebody should make a list of all the conflicting message threads in the book. Like how Dark Arts are a sign of a bad wizard but of course good guys can also do them.

*NOW Bellatrix suddenly remembers to protect the prophecy.

*Why, again, could they not have accio’d the prophecy before? I think they suggested it might break or something, though that’s never seemed to be a danger with accio.

*Btw, the official spell of OotP is "Protego."

*Oh, hi Voldemort. Nice of you to join us. Err. What’s up?

*Tom’s button says he is at the Ministry: To be easily dispatched.

*"Months of preparation, months of effort...and my Death Eaters have let Harry Potter thwart me again." *snerk* Yeah, the plan was perfect if not for them. How do you expect to rule the world if you can’t take responsibility for your own stupid plans that in no way required all those months of preparation and effort--or any DEs, really?

*Does Bella think Voldemort has entered the MoM to hear her sniveling apologies Voldemort wants to know? No, but while we’re on the subject, why has he entered the MoM and how? And why didn’t he do it sooner and come get the damn prophecy? Why come now, after it’s destroyed? I would like to think Lucius is wondering that about now. There was obviously no need to go through all this subterfuge. All he had to do was wait until after 6pm and he could waltz in and take it.

*Harry would have been history if not for Dumbledore in this scene. Remember that when he’s bragging about fighting Voldemort later. He won't.

*It’s wrong for wizards to think that other races should serve them. This is illustrated by the way the fountain springs to life and helps Dumbledore, having been brought to life like puppets by his magic spell. Pretty much says it all, doesn’t it? Dumbledore's tomb should read: "Do what I say and not as I do."

*ETA: And by "wrong for wizards to think other races should serve them" I mean that House Elves are obviously made to serve them. That goes on the list too.

*Bellatrix’s spells now bounce off the statues’ chest. Guess that was part of Dumbledore’s spell.

*I’d just like to say that throughout this summary I keep accidentally typing "Voldemort" when I meant to say "Dumbledore." Hmm...

*The Aurors will be here soon. Any minute now. Yup, they’re on their way. Just a second. Hold your horses. Wizarding transportation is verrrry slow.

*Um, is it supposed to be wonderful that Dumbledore is above killing Tom because there are other ways of destroying a man? Because, uh, wouldn’t it just be easier to take Voldemort out?

*ETA: Ah, it's the Horcruxes thing. That explains why he can't kill him. But it doesn't explain why he shouldn't kill the soul bit standing in front of him. Surely that would make it easier to hunt around for the other Horcruxes, wouldn't it? While he was searching for another body or something? You don't have to do this one last.

*But since we're not yet going to be told about the Horcruxes and Dumbledore doesn't want Voldemort to know he knows, he'll give a reply that is apparently supposed to make sense, that he's not killing him becuase that wouldn't satisfy Dumbledore enough.

*Dumbledore now reminds me of Tim, the Enchanter, from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, showing off with his foolish wand waving.

*Harry and Voldemort are locked together, experiencing the kind of pain usually only found in h/c fanfic, but then Harry realizes he’ll see Sirius again when he dies and the incredible power of love separates them. *ETA: This is, like, the fifth time in five books that Harry has realized that death is just a visit to happy fun land of people who love you. This is the problem with the whole WE'RE SAYING SOMETHING ABOUT DEATH! thing. If you've got happy ghosts and somebody that sure that people are waiting on the other side, it's not really death as experienced in the real world. And you can't make it freshly scary again every time you want Harry to be brave about it.

*Hello, here’s everyone else at last, arriving by floo, the very fast transportation which has still kept them from arriving until now.

*The elf and the goblin are applauding. Yeah, this is nothing like the statue’s original message at all. Now all we need is for the centaur to bend over and kiss Dumbledore’s arse. ETA: Seriously, the whole "relationships with other races" is such a weird confident 19th century hierarchy of peoples cake spread over with a thin layer of politically correct frosting.

*Dumbledore says Fudge has been chasing the wrong man for 12 months. Does he mean Sirius? Well, I guess now he’s dead it’s safe for Dumbledore to start proclaiming his innocence.

*Dumbledore orders Fudge to let Hagrid come back to Hogwarts. What a tragic ending.

Designated Hero
I think this applies here to the Crucio scene, simply because of the torturous attempt to turn Harry’s moment of sadistic hatred into a sign of his pure, compassionate soul. ETA: I stand corrected. It was not a sign of Harry's pure, compassionate soul (pure and compassionate as his soul nevertheless is). It was a sign that he hadn't reached his full level of hero-ness yet. You have to give him somewhere to grow.

Hero’s Death Battle Exemption
See: entire chapter

IITS
Voldemort would never come to the MoM! Except right now! Because it’s important he come now. To get the prophecy. Which he now knows is destroyed. So maybe he’ll just kill Harry now. Which he couldn’t do without the prophecy before. For some reason.

Idiot World
Dumbledore has already read and put this rule into action. He just doesn’t choose to assert his authority as lord of the universe until Harry gets tired of the fun of being TBWL.

Informed Attributes
You can not possibly compete with Bellatrix! She knows Dark Arts only Voldemort can teach! She knows how to throw the deadly...Protego!

James Bond Exposition Rule
With the added plus that Voldemort isn’t just telling us about his months of planning, but whining about how the DEs screwed it up.

Jason’s Rule of Explosive Endings
All spells cause explosions in a climax!

McGuffin
Although the prophecy has been pretty much revealed as useless, it’s still driving everything in the chapter!

Misdirected Answering
Err, well thanks for telling us why you’re NOT at the MoM, Voldemort, but why ARE you here? Or more to the point, why weren't you here BEFORE instead of all these other people?

Superfluous Racking
Bella does a little of this, probably as a tribute to the fallen Lucius.

Whooshing Powder
In case you were wondering, the floos do actually still work at the MoM.

Final score: 12

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: The Only One He Ever Feared

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com

Well this is kind of a cross-post, repeating (and slightly expanding) a comment that I left in another Lj this weekend, but seems to fit here too.

In light of Rowling's statement to Lev Grossman that she wanted to "subvert" the genre...

(Does she even understand what the genre is? She also tries to claim that she didn't realize she was writing fantasy until she popped in a unicorn. Inconsistency, much? Posing? Putting on airs to be interesting? Trying to impress Grossman, who obviously holds fantasy in contempt -- even though he doesn't seem to know what it is either?)

...and the fact that she made it clear to every reader by the end of PoA that Tom Riddle was *not* the worst problem the ww had -- and yet apart from getting rid if him, *nothing* appears to have been resolved. And then she nails the coffin shut with that utterly *smarmy* little epiloge: I find myself wondering if she really *was* trying to create something on the order of 'Animal Farm', seriously underestimated the amount of work it would take, burnt out, couldn't "get her groove back", flailed about, trying to find something that would get her engaged again, and failed at it, and finally cobbled something, anything, together just to get the plot to the end of her outline. The whole project completely misfired (not that she will ever admit to it) and what we ended up with was more like "Lunatics' Asylum'.

From:

aasaylva.livejournal.com

Ever since HBP came out, I've been scintillating between this explanation and the one where JKR was just overestimated by gigantic proportions. Just out of curiosity: You invested an incredible amount of work, thought and time for all your essays concerning the Potterverse and I suppose you wouldn't have done that if you'd despised her writing from the start. So when did you start to lose faith in her?

From:

jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com

Well, to be honest, I really only despise the last book. And I have indeed grown to despise that one. And I don't think all that highly of Rowling herself, because the caliber of the poses that she has been determined to strike since the last book was released gets right up my nose.

I do think that now that we can *see* how little of what appeared to be promising developments in the previous two books actually developed into anything that advanced the story, that there is no balking at the fact that they are really very inferior pieces of work too, and disgracefully padded, but at the time it was not clear that they were intended to go nowhere and merely give us something to spin our wheels about until the next dish of inferior pablum was served up. When we were still able to convince ourselves that they might *go* somewhere, it was possible to detect all sorts of potential promies in them. (The medium is the message, indeed.)

By now it is reasonably apparent that Rowling had completely burnt out by the time she turned in the ms for GoF. And it really is very difficult to blame an author for that. I don't think she was ever able to really get back into the series, and a lot of the things that are padding out the last three books now look remarkably like random ideas that she was flailing about with to try to get her own interest up again. Without success, appparently, since they either went nowhere, or would have required more effort to develop than she was willing to expend.

And by that point the media had weighed in and she had signed the contracts, expecting that she would get over the burn-out, and there was no way out in which she could save face, and, frankly, I would not want to go up against a contract dispute with Warner Bros, either. It was easier to spin her wheels and just generate babble to fill out the contract.

But there were the bones of a good series there. Or at least there were at the beginning. But she doesn't appear to have had a proper exit strategy, and what we ended up with is a train wreck.

Mind you, I do think that there was a monumental amount of unwarranted hype applied to Rowling, and her series, from the beginning. And I really do think that she never would have been able to pull this off successfully, because she really doesn't understand the genre she was writing in. Regardless of the surface similarity in appearance, fantasy is NOT folklore, and fairy tales are NOT fantasy.

The world of fairly tales is a murky hole where everything tends to boil down into some kind of psychodrama and nothing is quite what it claims to be. i.e., The "evil step-parents" who are really a euphamism for your *own* parents, who are out to thwart you. The Giants who intend to eat you, the evil witches who will either eat or enslave you, wolves in the woods, and all the rest of it. In a proper fantasy, the conflict is supposed to be *about* something that can be identified and which actually reads as a rational threat. It may parallel something that one can recognize in the real world, but it isn't supposed to be psychodrama.

DHs is. It's a fairy tale, it *isn't* a fantasy -- except in the "escapist" sense which has been giving fairy tales a bad name off and on all through the 20th century. And it is spliced onto a series which came across as at least an attempt at a proper fantasy adventure.

As to when did *I* lose faith, I was pretty sure after HBP that she just wasn't going to be able to pull it off. TO completely drop and refuse to develop virtually *all* of the new information she gave us in OotP struck me as a piece of bad faith on her part. But I have to admit that I would never have expected *quite* the level of epic fail that we ended up with.

From:

kaskait.livejournal.com

TO completely drop and refuse to develop virtually *all* of the new information she gave us in OotP struck me as a piece of bad faith on her part.

All those disparate but compelling ideas that were kicking around GOF and OOTP were the remnants of her original story arc. But as you say, she miscalculated the work that would be needed to finish those stories and became overwhelmed. I think if she stuck to her guns, she could have had the power to hold back Warner Bros for a few more years. But instead we got a slapdash ending in the form of DH.

That recent horror show story with James and Sirius was another show of rebellion from her. She seems determined to strangle the story even further.

From:

jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com

In hindsight, the entry of the media into the equation did the series -- as a potential piece of literature -- no good whatsoever. The media generates "product" it doesn't create literature.

We were given ample helpings of "product".

But by the time the media showed up, the burn-out was already a factor, so I suspect the real question is whether we are better off with what we have, or if it would have been better in the long run for the series to have petered out in the middle, and remained unfinished. Because Rowling does not appear to have ever got back into the swing of things to finish the story that she *appeared* to have started out with.

Plus, of course, the original master plan was structurally flawed to begin with. There simply isn't enough *story* left at the end of GoF to justify three more books. Whether this is just because Rowling had lost too much momentum to be able to *develop* enough story, or if there simply wasn't ever enough potential story *there* I cannot really say.

But we really got something like a descending scale of relevance in each of the last books. Nothing that GoF built up to turned out to be relevant in the long run. She blatantly *dropped* what she had given us to play with in OotP. And she flat-out turned around and *contradicted* what she had given us in HBP.

I still think of DHs as the 759-page "Fuck you" note.

From:

montavilla.livejournal.com

There simply isn't enough *story* left at the end of GoF to justify three more books.

I don't know about that. I distinctly remember feeling very excited about the end of GoF, because it seemed like.. well I had the image of when a space probe uses the energy of arcing around the edge of the moon or a planet to gain momentum and shoot out into the vastness of space. As Dumbledore was gathering his troops, I thought, "This story is going EPIC!"

Which is why it was so bizarre and unsettling when, instead, the story imploded (like a dying star) into the singularity that was Harry's summer at the Dursleys with no news, no contact, and that strange hot weather that dried even the flower beds to concrete.

So, okay, the story didn't go in the direction I thought it was going... but, the various alchemical theories out there seemed to explain why (in terms of a direction), and I assumed it was still... out there. The connections to foreign wizards. The reaching out to other magical species. Until we hit the disappointment that was Hagrid's Tale.

From:

jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com

I'll have to admit that I tend more to the reading that the story isn't there because she didn't bother to develop it, rather than that there just wasn't enough potential story to carry us through three more years. But I cannot prove it.

From:

kaskait.livejournal.com

Sometimes I think that maybe the series, in her original concept, was never meant to "develop". I mean the kids were never meant to grow up. They would have existed in stasis like Nancy Drew. When I look at the series in that way, it makes more sense. Especially when the first three books are in that same style.

Kids get a mystery, kids investigate mystery and solve it. Along the way, they and we learn something about that world. No need for those overwrought story changes that she got bogged down with in the end. It could have been "The Little Rascals", and that wouldn't have been a bad thing.

From: (Anonymous)

Plus, of course, the original master plan was structurally flawed to begin with. There simply isn't enough *story* left at the end of GoF to justify three more books. Whether this is just because Rowling had lost too much momentum to be able to *develop* enough story, or if there simply wasn't ever enough potential story *there* I cannot really say.

Oh, IMHO there was tons of story waiting there - story of a civil war. Only, critics slapped Rowling down for spreading out and getting "darker" - i.e. slightly more realistic. _They_ wanted light-hearted boarding-school "whimsy", utterly focussed on the trio, Quidditch, etc. And that's what she delivered, for whatever reason, in HBP. What a bizarre turn that was!

Anyway, as to irrelevance, a ton of things was left by the wayside even in the early volumes. I.e. Philosopher's Stone, Chamber of Secrets - which turned out to contain no secrets except for a giant reptile whose initial raison d'etre remained unknown, time-turner, which changed the whole main storyline of the series into an idiot plot - Sirius or whoever had only to grab one to save Harry's parents, etc, etc. It always seemed to me that JKR just had those vivid ideas, which she liked - maybe even visually, and she tried to stuff them into her plots with intermittent success.

Sometimes I think that maybe the series, in her original concept, was never meant to "develop". I mean the kids were never meant to grow up. They would have existed in stasis like Nancy Drew.

IMHO, the books wouldn't have been nearly as popular in such a case. And also, the kids "grew up" in PoA. Granted, JKR has been attempting to stuff them back into their pre-PoA bottles ever since...