Deathly Hallows, chapter 1

[anehan]

The Dark Lord Ascending

* Am I the only one who considers the Aeschylus quote rather hilarious in the context of DH? Is "the grinding scream of death" with Harry like a presence?

* Yaxley's features are blunt. All the baddies are ugly.

* If you haven't already realized it, the Death Eaters are like Nazis. Sieg Heil.

* And we arrive at Malfoy Manor. I've always imagined the Manor looking more like Avebury Manor than Burghley House. Unfortunately JKR seems to disagree with me. No doubt the Manor is decorated with bad taste.

* A meeting of the DEs? Check. Voldemort sitting on a throne? Check. A minor character to be killed? Check. What is this, a cliché parade?

* Voldemort orders Snape to sit on his right. Usually that seat is reserved for an honoured guest. Just observing.

* Poor Dawlish. He is fated to play the role of an incompetent Auror.

* Snape the Super Spy! Wheeeeeee!

* "A squat man" speaks up and giggles wheezily. I mention it in case you forgot the ugliness of the baddies.

* Note how the DE succeed in placing the Imperius Curse on an important Ministry official. And it took them only two years. I'm rather impressed. After all, the Order doesn't manage to concoct anything resembling a plan in three years.

* Poor Pius Thicknesse. Fated from birth to become a DE puppet.

* The DEs have several people planted within the Department of Magical Transport and therefore immediately know if Harry Apparates. Am I the only one who wonders how that works? Does the Department know when anyone Apparates, or just underaged wizards?

* "I shall attend to the boy in person. There have been too many mistakes where Harry Potter is concerned. Some of them have been my own. That Potter lives is due more to my errors, than to his triumphs."

Darling Voldie, how naïve you are. It's his nobility and selfless nature that have, and always will, carry him through.

* Go, Narcissa! I've always known she was the one who ruled the roost. Farewell trophy-wife!Cissy!

* Voldemort is stroking his snake. Has it, by any chance, ever entered Ginny's chamber of secrets?

* Yes, we know the Malfoys are not in Voldemort's graces. We don't need this drawn-out taunting. Oh, sorry, I forgot. There's the exposition dump on the latest news on the Tonks-Lupin courtship to be given. They are so important to the plot that even Voldemort is interested in them.

* And we come to Charity Burbage, the respected and well-known Muggle Studies teacher. No doubt you all feel her death like a presence.

* Poor Draco. At least his character development from HBP still seems to be going somewhere. Enjoy it while it lasts.



Day-for-Night:
"It was a dark and stormy night."

IITS:
So why did it take Voldemort two years to Imperio a Ministry official? IITS!

Informed Attributes:
Voldemort is scary. Death is with us like a presence.

Misdirected Answering:
Did you hear Tonks and Lupin got married?

Nut o' Fun:
Peacocks!

Final score: 5.

Comments

[go-back-chief.livejournal.com]

That Potter lives is due more to my errors, than to his triumphs.

He couldn't be more right. I doubt Voldemort knows that this is because he could go to the history of literature as the most incompetent villain who needs to suck because it's the only way for the serie's lame hero to shine a bit by comparison.

We don't need this drawn-out taunting.

HOW DARE YOU?! This is one of the only four scenes that even features the Malfoys in this book, you're suggesting any of them should have been cut? Huh?? Huh??? *roars at you*

Poor Draco. At least his character development from HBP still seems to be going somewhere. Enjoy it while it lasts.

And the count-down begins. Was anyone else reading this book, constantly wondering where Draco (and Snape for that matter) was hidden?

[va32h.livejournal.com]

Hmmm let's see....

A little over a year ago, Voldemort was desperate to get his hands on a prophecy given by Professor Trelawney.

Dumbledore made a point of keep Trelawney safe at Hogwarts even after she was sacked by Umbridge, because he feared that Voldemort would try to capture poor Sybil and fry her brain trying to get the prophecy out of it.

Now Dumbledore is dead and Voldemort can scamper up to Hogwarts and kidnap any teacher he likes.

So naturally he chose Professor Burbage.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Not much is ever going to top the catalogue of lameness that someone over on the DHs sporking community pointed out insofar as that Snape and Yaxley Apparate into a dark lane, cross a dark garden, enter a dimly-lit entry way, and then a parlor lit only by a fire in the fireplace...

...and have to wait for their *eyes* to adjust to the darkness. When, from the opening of the chapter have they been in anything *other* than darkness? Hell, the parlor is the brightest place we've seen so far in this book.

Dark, dark, dark. Ooooo, this story is so *dark*. And serious too. And DARK...

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL! Who was the guy who read the Aeschylus quote and suggested that if bad books were going to insist on starting with quotes from classics, then classic books should start with quotes from mediocre books. Like a random line from Tom Clancey talking about guns.

The Peacocks are the best thing in the chapter.

This chapter really is a great cliche parade, especially with the Nazi stuff.

The sad thing is this chapter totally got my hopes up. We had the Malfoys tortured, newly!wise Draco (I thought) seeing something had to be done, Lucius broken, Narcissa taking over. It seemed like it was going somewhere. I should have known when they brought up Lupin/Tonks that it was actually going nowhere. They should have just been killed after picking Harry up in OotP.

Btw, the DEs are ugly!

[skull-bearer.livejournal.com]

I vote an addition to the Jabootu score: Godwin's Law. Every time brick thick parallels are drawn between Death Eaters and Nazis, mark one point. This book is infested with them, and when I reached the Ministry chapters and saw the blatent Holocaust references, I wanted to strangle JKR.

[ellecain.livejournal.com]

Yay! DH at last! I'm so happy. :-)

I'll be honest and admit I still have no clue what the the Aeschylus quote is supposed to mean. Reading it the first time, my reaction was "Um, ok," without taking too much time to think about it because I was so excited to get on with the book.

What is this, a cliché parade?

LOL, the whole book is a cliche parade. How strange is it that in all these DE meetings the actual business of taking over the world is given least importance? Imperiusing one Ministry official is all they've done because they sit around gossiping for most of the meetings, I bet.

Tonks and Lupin's impending nuptials being discussed at the big meeting? They're the Posh and Becks of the WW. Wonder how much Witch Weekly paid for the exclusive wedding pics?

[horridporrid.livejournal.com]

There's the exposition dump on the latest news on the Tonks-Lupin courtship to be given. They are so important to the plot that even Voldemort is interested in them.

This may have been the very first moment I was pulled out of the story by a "huh?" moment. It was not, alas, the last. ;)

[kaskait.livejournal.com]

* Voldemort is stroking his snake. Has it, by any chance, ever entered Ginny's chamber of secrets?

Oooh, yes. Along with Fawkes, her brother Ron, Lockhart and Harry. It's a large chamber, you know.

* And we come to Charity Burbage, the respected and well-known Muggle Studies teacher. No doubt you all feel her death like a presence.

I was never aware that Malfoy was such a big Muggle Studies fan and that he would even have known Charity from a hole in the wall. It must have been his secret extra credit class. Only taken when he was polyjuiced as girl student. A very ugly girl student, mind you, we couldn't have him rivaling the plain but secretly gorgeous Hermione Granger now, could we?

There's the exposition dump on the latest news on the Tonks-Lupin courtship to be given. They are so important to the plot that even Voldemort is interested in them.

They fought at the Ministry and Riddle was present as well. Why couldn't he have gotten to them then? If they were so important. It would have saved everyone from reading a bad and totally fruitless story line.

[(Anonymous)]

Am I the only one who considers the Aeschylus quote rather hilarious in the context of DH? Is "the grinding scream of death" with Harry like a presence?

If I had had any respect left for JKR after OotP and HBP, the Aeschylus quote would have killed it dead as Dumbledore. I mean, dude, what the hell do people think they're doing when they do this kind of thing? Surely the last thing you want to do at the start of your mediocre fantasy novel is to remind people that there's a wealth of genuine literature out there which is way, way better.

Of course, I'm a roleplayer, so I really can't talk. RPGs have been doing this for years, usually with Aristotle, Sun Tzu or Shakespeare. It always struck me, to borrow a turn of phrase from Terry Pratchett, as like a child coming proudly to show you a full potty. "Yes yes dear, very clever, you found a quote from a famous person. Why don't you try writing your book now."

- Dan Hemmens

[tdotm.livejournal.com]

I’ve never commented online about Deathly Hallows, I’ve just let it fester inside me. However this is the ideal place to get stuff off my chest, so I opened an account especially. Please excuse my long rant, I’ll calm down for later chapters. Probably.

If JKR wanted to kill Burbage that‘s fine. I even remember thinking that she was saving the more important Trelawney for a bigger scene later on. Yeah right. However we should have met her earlier - not a controversial view on this site. How easy would it have been to introduce her in OotP being awfully sweet to Harry like lots of other teachers were when the Quibbler interview came out? Or sniggering behind Umbridge’s back with Flitwick, when the twins were making their presence felt? She taught Muggle Studies, it would make sense that Umbridge would have no respect for the subject or the teacher, and given her a hard time. It makes sense to me, anyway. JKR stopped linking little things like that together after Goblet.

Also why didn’t she come up with some other plan(s) that the Death Eaters had been using to try to infiltrate the Ministry? She didn’t have to go into detail, just let us know there were some. Then, Voldemort could say that the time had come to finally resort to the Imperius Curse. Snape could remind him (and tell us) that all staff at the Ministry had to constantly submit to random testing for ‘Dark Manipulation‘, for want of a better phrase. (The existing spies would be of currently limited numbers and voluntary). It’d make sense and prevent them seeming as foolish as they are so very ugly.

It’d have been even better if Thicknesse changed sides willingly. (Though perhaps he shouldn’t have been an Auror, just a high ranking politician.) The persuasion and bribery necessary could take a very long time, and the random testing would explain why they persevered. As it stands, I was already taken completely out of the story, in the very first chapter, thinking, well what have they been waiting for/doing all these months?

My other big gripe is with nobody being allowed to kill Harry Potter except Voldermort, or rather the way that that was handled. I heartily agree with The Dark One that it was his own mess ups that got the snivelling little rat, I mean our hero, off the hook over and over (though perhaps JKR shouldn’t have pointed that out, as it makes him seem rather silly). The importance of image and ‘respect’ drives people to act in terrible ways in the real world. Therefore it could have been totally believable if this had been played up in the book. Voldemort failed to kill a baby in his cot, and was actually turned into Voldemist. Not impressive. Then, finally in possesion of a body again, he let the whining adolescent escape in full view of his Death Eaters. The Shame! Then he had to run away after the break in at the Ministry. Embarrassing or what? Are Love Sacrifice/Priori Incantatem/Dumbledore to the rescue, reasons or excuses? Couldn’t Dumbledore point out that if someone else succeeded where Voldermort ‘failed’, then he might not like the risk that they’d be seen as the better Wizard? Might even think they were actively trying to set themselves up as such? As a nouveau half blood trying to pass himself off as the crème de la crème, and bestest Wizard ever, you could see why he’d hate the idea.

Personally I’d let someone kill Potter, then kill that loyal servant to prove I’m the Business. But JKR should have made more of an attempt to show why Voldemort didn’t think that way. We didn't have to agree with his thinking, just be made aware of it. (Snape could also have added the ‘I didn’t want to set myself up as a rival’ schtick to Bellatrix in Book 6 to shore up his rather vague arguments.)

Sorry to go on for so long. Best to get it all out before we get to The Trace, Secret Keepers, Kreacher’s conversion and (shudder) the camping scenes…….