Deathly Hallows, chapter 2

[anehan]

In Memoriam

* The Dursleys are leaving tea cups outside Harry's bedroom door. What are they, house elves?

*Harry has never learned to heal wounds and thinks it's a serious flaw in his magical education. Maybe he ought to have, you know, studied during the six years at Hogwarts instead of letting Hermione do all his work for him. Sorry, Harry, but you have no one else than yourself to blame. Normal people, if they had a lunatic after their blood, would have actually devoted some time for making sure they weren't completely unprepared.

* Harry has never cleaned his trunk before. Gross. Our Harry isn't much for hygiene.

* Finding a fragment of the mirror Sirius had given him, Harry feels a sudden upsurge of bitter memories, stabs of regret and longing. He suffers, I tell you.

* Harry is going to take his photograh album and a stack of letters with him. Good lord, what does he think he's going to do with them. The boy is an idiot.

* And we come to the sickening obituary by Elphias Doge. One more person whom Dumbledore managed to hoodwink into believing he was a noble person.

* Dumbledore never revealed the remotest anti-Muggle tendency. Except when he bullied the Dursleys. But that doesn't count, because the Dursleys totally deserved it.

* Dumbledore became the most brilliant student Hogwarts had ever seen and constantly outshone his friends. Bet he liked that. It would have done good for him to be second-best at something. Instead, everything confirmed him in his belief that he was superior to others and that it was his duty to manipulate others for the greater good.

* According to Doge, Dumbledore never had Ministerial ambitions. True enough. He just wanted to take over the world.

* "Albus Dumbledore was never proud or vain". Ahahahahahaa!

* Dumbledore's losses "endowed him with great humanity and sympathy". Bitch, please. The man is clearly incapable of empathy.

* Doge was right in one thing, though: Dumbledore always worked for the greater good. Too bad his methods and definition of "greater good" were rather questionable.

* Harry had thought he knew Dumbledore quite well. What made him think that? The great openness Dumbledore displayed in his dealings with Harry, perhaps?

* Harry thinks that the idea of a teen-aged Dumbledore was odd, like trying to imagine a stupid Hermione. Much as I love Hermione, I have no problem in imagining her stupid. She isn't half so clever as she likes to think. For example, what good did it do to the DA to brand the traitor's face? It didn't prevent Marietta from squealing.

* The only personal question Harry had asked Dumbledore was the only one he suspected Dumbledore hadn't answered honestly. That's too naïve even for Harry.

* Unpleasant Skeeter may be, but I at least would rather read her book than any more of Doge's pennings. There might ever be a shred of truth in what she writes, if you manage to discount the more lurid details.

* Skeeter calls the Potter-Dumbledore relationship unhealthy, even sinister. Brava! At least someone finally got it right.

* Another chapter in which nothing happens comes to an end. I really need that alcohol to get through this.



Informed Attributes:
Dumbledore is noble. No, really.

Misdirected Answering:
Did you hear what Dumbledore got up to as a teenager? What do you mean, you're not interested?

Nut o' Fun:
Desiccated beetle eyes.

Final score: 3. Nothing happens in this chapter.

Comments

[tabaquis.livejournal.com]

You know, JKR has said repeatedly that she doesn't reread her old stuff. She works from (apparently) a large, general outline. She's admitted repeatedly that most of her fans know her world a lot better than she does.

The woman's obviously never heard of a concordance :P And shame on her editors for not pointing this crap out.

[horridporrid.livejournal.com]

You know, JKR has said repeatedly that she doesn't reread her old stuff.

To which I always wonder, "Why?". Not just, why don't you reread, but more importantly, why are you admitting you don't reread? Does she think it's a good thing? Why is it a good thing? Just... why?

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Being very uncharitible about the caliber of the poses Rowling seems determined to strike in public, I'd say she thinks it enhances her; "Yes, I know I'm a genius." act, "I take dictation from the Universe, and do not *need* to consult my sources."

[tdotm.livejournal.com]

I said below that if Healing charms were described as Newt Level Charms (which would make sense as there must be some risk and need for expertise involved) then Harry wouldn't look like such a fool. And it's totally belivable that Hermione would have studied them in her own time, as she has no life away from Harry and Ron. (Certainly no family worth mentioning)

However I'd forgotten what happened in HBP (me and JKR both).

JKR actively contradicts herself from book to book. It's apparent from her later books that she REALLY needed to reread the books over and over. I'm intrigued as to why she's not embarrassed at her incompetence at remembering her own work. Why is she broadcasting it in public? I'd say stupidity, laziness or arrogance.

[tabaquis.livejournal.com]

I ask myself the same thing every time she gives an interview that blatantly contradicts either her prose or a previous interview. Why? I'm not even published yet, and I have COPIOUS notes, I cross-reference everything, I try to be terribly careful of continuity errors and such. It's literally incredible to me that she has the caliber of resources that she has - not just MONEY but a host of fanatically devoted fans who are willing to catalog, cross-reference, and organize EVERYTHING about her world... and she can't even be bothered to read her own books.

Of course, I wouldn't want to re-read the prose either. :P

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Ha! Rowling is Trelawney! (sorry for jumping in, but I couldn't resist.;))

[montavilla.livejournal.com]

Is a concordance similar to a bible? In the Vander Ark trial, she mentions her editors having a couple of bibles for the series.

Which makes DH even weirder, unless they were really rushing to get the book out. Which I don't know why they would be. Even when the publishing date was announced, I thought it was much too soon and I would have gladly waited another year if it had resulted in a better book.

(Of course, the publishing world revolves around me.....)

But I think there may have been pressure from the movie world as well as the fan world for an early release of DH, since those actors aren't getting any younger....

[tdotm.livejournal.com]

I wish the publishing world did revolve around you....

There's no point in having a bible if you can't get JKR to use it. I said before that not being edited was the worst problem of the book. I should have said the second half of the series. Her fame rocketed after Prisoner of Azkaban, and the quality of the books started to plummet. That's no coincidence

If she's too important to be edited, then surely she's too important to be pressured into publishing early? It's not like she's worried she'll have to return an advance. Or can't renegotiate the deadline on a contract. They'd have jumped to her tune - they already did in the EDITING. If she'd wanted another year, she'd have got it.

In the films, the characters are all 17/18 now. They could easily be played by 23 year olds. That's why we have id - because some people look years younger then they are and some years older. An HP producer said as much in a recent interview - not all 18 year olds look the same. I don't believe there'd have been too much pressure.

I think she was fed up with the whole thing. She wanted the praise, but not to put up with the pressure, and she got spoiled by a bunch of yes-publishers. Emperor's new clothes indeed. It's up to us to point out that she's naked!

[anehan]

I think she was fed up with the whole thing.

It seems to me that she was burned out by GoF, and never really got the groove back.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

I've been saying that for weeks. It took a long time to sink in, but I really do think that's what happened. She burnt out with GoF, possibly when a plot hole opened up beneath her and she fell in.

I honestly don't think she ever recovered. That's why the whole back half of the series has been incoherant, disconnected flailing.

Of course since the point at which she burnt out is the point that the mega-media showed up with contracts, and she (probably thinking that she *would* get over it) signed them, she hadn't any really good way of backing out of the project without repercussions that she didn't want to contemplate.

But it is interesting the number of excuses she's waved at us over the last year for *not* writing. I don't think I have a lot of confidence in anything she's likely to churn out now.

[anehan]

I remember her saying something like she was burned out after she finished GoF (very understandable considering it's a hell of a long book and at that time she was still churning out a book a year--anyone would be burned out after that and the beginnings of the media hullabaloo) and had to take a year off from writing HP.

[(Anonymous)]

She burnt out with GoF, possibly when a plot hole opened up beneath her and she fell in.

Well, the first huge, series-wrecking plot hole actually opened in PoA with the time-turner. Because it would have been soo easy for Sirius or anybody else who cared about the Potters to save them. Or for devoted DEs to save Voldy. JKR really should have left time-travel alone.

[cressida0201.livejournal.com]

No, I wouldn't say that ruined everything. She just needed to set some limits on the time-turners. She'd already suggested that they were rare and hard to get at; all she had to do was add something like "They can only be used to go back a maximum of three hours, and it was more than three hours before the bodies were discovered/the Ministry wouldn't authorize their use in this case."

[(Anonymous)]

How rare and hard to get could they be if a kid could get issued one for no weightier reason than because they wanted to take extra lessons? Then there would be quite a few officials with similar access - staring with DD, who is responsible for well-being of hundreds of kids.
3 hours limitation wouldn't be enough, because what about all those other people killed in the first VW? Shouldn't quite a few of them been saved via a time-turner? No, she really should have left the theme of short-range time-travel alone. It has seldom been done well even by good SF authors who took it seriously.

Re: Crouch junior and a portkey - it never made sense to me that Hogsmeade wasn't protected against all forms of teleportation. Because that means that any of the kids that go there on Hogsmeade Saturdays could be kidnapped at any time. And that stealing/robbery would be very easy. I mean, wouldn't the only wizarding village in Britain invest in security? And yes, some good ideas about the ritual happening on solstice. OTOH, the whole tourney shtick would still remain as idiotic as ever, because luring Harry outside of protections was never difficult and would have been much easier than to manhandle him through a tournament, in which he was singularly poorly equipped to compete.

Time turners: story breakers?

[cressida0201.livejournal.com]

How rare and hard to get could they be if a kid could get issued one for no weightier reason than because they wanted to take extra lessons?

So, lose the "Hermione was using a time-turner all year" subplot. It's cute, but hardly essential. Find another way for the time-turner to fall into their hands.

what about all those other people killed in the first VW? Shouldn't quite a few of them been saved via a time-turner?

Well, why not? It wouldn't change anything important to the story if some of the deaths in the first war had been reversed. If three hours is too much, make it one hour and change the climax of PoA accordingly.

I agree that time travel is problematic, but I still think it could have been salvaged with a little extra work (and no, I don't mean destroying a bunch of time turners in OotP!). It wasn't anywhere near as bad as the plot holes in later books.

Re: Time turners: story breakers?

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, but it _also_ would have made CoS even more of an idiot plot than it already was. I mean, DD and McG should have been able to solve that mystery pretty quickly as it is, but throw in a time-turner and their level of ineptitude and stupidity would reach new depths. Some of the victims were found quite quickly, after all. Or PS with that attempt on Harry? Utterly trivial to fix even if he _had_ fallen. Etc.
BTW, CoS is another badly plotted book with lots of logical holes. I just think that while the books were short and more clearly aimed at young children, people were more willing to forgive the lapses.
Moreover, every event in that world would need to be re-examined with the possibility of time-turning in mind. It is just far too complicated and difficult on consistency, IMHO. Not that Rowling ever gave much for consistency, of course, but IMHO one cool/funny sequence wasn't worth it.

[cressida0201.livejournal.com]

the point at which she burnt out is the point that the mega-media showed up with contracts

I'm pretty sure the contracts happened before the release of GoF, or at least were being negotiated before then. I remember because the "waiting for GoF" period was when I first read the books and started getting into online discussion, and I remember people mocking those who were worried that the movies would "ruin everything" by taking away our personal images of the characters.

My own theory is that once the franchise went multimedia, JKR was just stretched too thin. She was having unprecedented control over the movies, plus she was going on book tours, being interviewed, and general having to live the life of a celebrity. I think she spread herself too thin and became exhausted, and that's when she burned out.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

The movie deal was being discussed before GoF came out, yes. It wasn't settled yet. Rowling actually hadn't been all that keen on it when the subject first came up.

And yes, she was stretched too thin. No question about that. She was also living in a fishbowl, which even with the grandstanding for publicity that Bloomsbury had set up was nothing like what it turned into under Warners.

But the initial burnout was clearly in the course of the writing itself. I now look at everything Rowling ever told us in an interview with a somewhat jaundiced eye, since she's turned out to be such a liar, but the writing schedule she'd been set was a grueling one, and the series got away from her in GoF.

I'm no longer taking Rowliing's word for it that the plot hole she fell into was just that Mafalda Prewett was in no position to know the information that she was supposed to be passing on to the trio, so she had to rewrite about a third of the book to delete the character. Yes, I believe that it took a rrewrite of a third of the book to get rid of Mafalda, but I am not convinced that it was only Mafalda that was cut from the book, nor that it was only Mafalda which turned out to be a problem. The whole book is based on a ridiculous premise and nothing that comes up in it goes anywhere. GoF served as the terminus point for a number of threads that had been present through the first three books, but none of the threads that were introduced in it seem to have been of any use whatsoever (with the exception of the Pensieve).

(And why completely *delete* the Mafalda character, just because she didn't serve the purpose she thought she was going to? I's not like everyone else we've met has served all that much of a purpose to the plot.)

Burnout

[cressida0201.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe it's a little of both; maybe she experienced burnout during the writing of GoF--she certainly hit some snags, as she's admitted, but whether they equal actual burnout, I'm not sure--but could have recovered if she'd been able to take a year off and just concentrate. Instead, she was plunged into an ever-more-exhausting routine of movie consultations, publicity appearances, etc., and that prevented her from recovering from whatever GoF did to her. (Oh, and I don't mean to sound like I think poor widdle JKR was just forced to be a celebrity, either; I think she probably enjoyed it, at least up to a point.)

I also agree with you that there were probably more changes to GoF than just the elimination of Mafalda Prewitt, and that the given reason for eliminating Mafalda doesn't ring true. I don't know what sort of information she was supposed to provide, but goodness, it doesn't seem like it can have been that hard to come up with a reason for why she'd know it. I've always been kind of curious about Mafalda, actually, and how the books would have been different if she'd stayed in.

Re: Burnout

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Well, it would have given us another nasty Slytherin to provide comic turns if she'd stayed. I gather she was supposed to be very smart too. Smart enough to give Hermione a run for her money.

One wonders how much of an improvement this would have turned out to be in the long run. A bit of competition wouldn't have done Hermione any harm...

Re: Burnout

[cressida0201.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, Mafalda might have become Hermione's own personal antagonist who never actually wins or does anything that seriously threatens her. Maybe we got lucky with Pansy, who's only in two or three scenes in the whole series.

[tabaquis.livejournal.com]

Yes!

Nothing in GoF serves ANY PURPOSE whatsoever except the very end confrontation with Voldemort... which, with Fake!Moody on scene, could have been done in what, the third chapter?
"Potter, come over here a moment." *waves Harry over in Hogsmead*
"Potter, what do you think of this?" *hands Harry a gewjaw that turns out to be a Portkey* *woosh*

Unfortunately, 90% of the book past the middle of PoA is like this. You go back through it, reading or listening to the audiobooks, and it's STAGGERING how much of what's introduced is... completely worthless. 90% of the fights use spells they learned in their second year!

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

You know, in retrospect, the red flag ought to have gone up with the "confession" of Barty Crouch Jr. Maybe Sirius Black's return and his account of the decline and fall of Crouch Sr and the hints at the Snape backstory, in which he gives us a half dozen names for Jr DEs some of which acto the stupid tapestry couldn't have still even been in the school when the Marauder cohort and Snape arives, and yet somehow failed to even mention Malfoy or "Mulciber" (who I am convinced was *supposed* to have been Evan Rossier, except that Rowling cannot be bothered to read her own notes).

Barty's confession is completely implausible and does not even account for the events we watched take place in the book. But it is perfectly in keeping with the sort of "explanations" we were handed over the *following* 3 books.

Now I've heard rumors that the whole Imposter!Moody bombshell was a last minute paste-on which she used to roof over the plotholes she was trying deal with from her original outline. And frankly, I'm not at all sure that I believe it. She's lied to us too many times in interviews, and the imposter plot seems too well-integrated for her skills if it was a late insertion (admittedly she still had an editor in GoF).

Chapter 1: we eavesdrop on Peter and Tom discussing their plan to spring Barty after the Word Cup. We are later told that Moody was captured the evening of August 31, and remember that Polyjuice takes 3 weeks to brew. So we know that there was nothing random about any of those.

The whole point of the business of the missing wand and the Dark mark over the campgrounds seems to have been to goad Barty Sr into sacking his Elf, since they couldn't have overmastered him if the Elf had been there to help him. In fact from the timing above Crouch barely had tie to get his party home and send Winky packing before he found himself under attack. (Tom and Peter were probably lurking outside waiting to hear the *pop* of Winky's departure.) So there *ought* to have been nothing accidental about the broohaha at the Cup.

And yet, even though Peter could have snuck into the house as a rat the night before the Crouches and Winky left for World Cup, lifted the Imperius and given Barty his instructions, nooooooo the rigamarole that Crouch gives us -- under veritiserum *doesn't explain how the "cunning plan" worked*. Instead everything is suddenly all down to sheer *coincidence*. And I for one do not believe a word of it.

[tdotm.livejournal.com]

'She just needed to set some limits on the time-turners.' cressida 0201, that's exactly what I think is the main problem of the whole series, far worse than the shoddy writing, maybe even worse than the nonsense that is the plot. She didn't think through the implications of anything. When inventing Time Turners, or Pensieves or those wonderful ideas that help to make this world so rich, she really should have though about how they would be (and more importantly could be used). If there was the potential for a clash, there was no need for her to get rid of the idea (except for Sirius’ stupid mirror). She could just have added a rule or limitation that would get round it. Her forward planning was awful.

In Goblet, as tabaquis points out the obvious thing was a portkey. 'Moody' earned Harry‘s trust early on, it would have been easy. But no, he was hanging around all year, imitating someone who was a close friend of Dumbledore (the observant). He also had a magical eye (Did Crouch remove his own in order to wear Moody’s false one? Ew.) and a limp. Now this was necessary for her plot, but why on earth didn’t realise the flaw and write in a reason for why it took a year?

How about that the Ceremony had to take place on the Summer Solstice? (That’s why they waited all year long). Moody had to be there 10 months earlier to put Harry's name in the Goblet. Or maybe it could have taken place on either Solstice, but in December there was an exciting kidnap plan that went wrong. Not Tolstoy, obviously, but then I’m not getting paid for this. It’s almost offensive how she wasted the opportunity she had to create an excellent series that would stand the test of time. Laziness.

[va32h.livejournal.com]

It was laziness, plain and simple. She just didn't make the effort - or didn't think her readers deserved the effort.

One of the things that I realized when writing my fanfic was that for every nifty device or bit of magic that JKR invented, I had to come up with some obstacle to keep them from using it all the time, or the story would be boring (and about 12 pages long!)

But it wasn't that hard - you came up with two perfectly good explanations off the top of your head!