HBP Chapter One
Aug. 1st, 2008 12:22 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
sistermagpie.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
deathtocapslockOkay, since my Friday's are busy for a bit so I don't really have time to do new chapters, I thought I'd re-post HBP before considering the remaining books. It seemed to make sense since so much of what I originally thought about HBP changed with DH. I could probably just say NEVER MIND for each chapter, but hey, my ideas were so wrong it's practically like reading a whole new book!
*One thing that doesn't change is how much I still dislike this chapter. Muggles are stupid, get it? So are politicians who get elected in some democratic fashion instead of being placed in a position for being heroic. So the Muggle Prime Minister is doubly screwed.
*First paragraph and already the Minister sounds like an overgrown child, worried about his opponent saying everything is his fault. Is it impossible to be a politician and an adult in these books? Doesn't anyone who actually cares about society ever run for public office?
*ETA:Luckily being the Head of State means you have very little to do with what's actually going on in your country, especially if you're fighting a war. Leave that to the Chosen Ones.
*If Voldemort can randomly collapse bridges and cause hurricanes, why doesn't he whip it out when he's facing Harry and his friends? Is the entire population of Muggles wearing red shirts? ETA: No answer there.
*Two murders are blamed on the Prime Minister's government? Is the murder rate really really low in England? It's not like Floyd and Goober getting chopped up in Mayberry, RFD.
*Apparently even Muggles know friends of Dumbledore are more important than anyone else.
*I'm sure the hurricane in the West Country was not Unnamed Minister's fault--I'm also sure that Unnamed Minister responded a bit more professionally than Unnamed President of a Distant Country in 2005.
*Oh, and btw, there was no hurricane. It's lucky that the Muggles in HP seem to have no technology beyond broken telephone booths, TVs, underground trains and Playstations so they can't study any of these phenomena.
*Of course, if Muggles had regular technology they'd know that the Prime Minister could, you know, set up a camera and RECORD the visits of the various Magic people so it actually wouldn't have to all rest on his word. I'm going to have to assume that in fact all Muggles in Rowling's universe know about the magical world and are just indulging the childish wizards. In fact they've also developed a cure for Memory Charms long ago. ETA: Hermione's parents will nevertheless pretend to forget her for the rest of their lives.
*So Muggles are all becoming more miserable, the pathetic victims of Dementor flatulence, yet wizards are totally fine and there's no mist there.
*You know, given the way wizards operate, particularly the politicians, I imagine a real Muggle Prime Minister might actually be able to dominate them quite easily. I guess that's why he has to be made into an idiot. ETA: Kind of like the entire freakin' planet.
*The Prime Minister does not like being made to feel like an ignorant schoolboy--I do not like him being made to look like an ignorant schoolboy, so we're even.
*Another little dig at politicians--the P.M. is sitting in his office, gloating, after years of dreaming and scheming. That's really all it's about. That's totally why Arthur Weasley isn't Minister for Magic, uh huh. He's not a schemer. ETA: Thank goodness we're hurtling towards a Golden Age where MoM will be all part of Dumbledore's crew. (Yes, that includes Hagrid.)
*Despite a lifetime of dreaming and scheming, the fifth sight of a man in a green bowler hat who can step out of the wall turns his brains to mush. No thoughts of using that to his advantage. Did this dreaming and scheming ever rise above the level of tricking Mummy into giving him two desserts?
*Apparently SIRIUS is strictly a wizarding name. Who knew?
*The Prime Minister has trouble following stories with names like Hogwarts, Quidditch and Harry Potter in his head. I hate to think how he deals with complicated situations with far more difficult names in other countries.
*If you ask Fudge, Voldemort's not dangerous unless he's got support. I agree. Which is why I'm so scared now that he's got the help of the Kid Who Cries In Bathrooms and Auntie Crazy. ETA: And few other people, actually. Plus he massacres a dozen of them every couple of days.
*ETA: Note that Voldemort needs support while Harry pretty much needs to do it almost alone.
*Don't you think Snape would have had this Prime Minister up to speed and working together in five minutes? Snape for Minister for Magic! ETA: Sorry, that job might take away too much pining for Lily time.
*Apparently the Prime Minister has a persistent habit of wishing to appear well-informed on any subject that came up. It's a good thing the narrator tells me this; because I'd never have guessed with the "Bwah?" slack-jawed act he's been performing up until now. The man's seemingly freshly surprised every time he's told magic exists. I guess being persistent in this habit hasn't made him good at it.
*Three years on Prime Minister has apparently still not discovered that SIRIUS is not that uncommon a name.
*So Voldemort destroyed the bridge unless Fudge "stood aside" for him? Wouldn't he know by now he could kill as many Muggles as he wanted without wizards caring overmuch? It's like saying, "Let me run the government or the Gorillas in the Mist get it!"
*ETA: That's probably the greatest foreshadowing in the chapter. If you want to take over the MoM, just ask and have red eyes.
*Um, are giants invisible? Wouldn't people have seen them ripping up the trees or tromping over the downs? Oh, I see, some of them did. Only the Muggle grapevine is slow enough that the Wizards have time to go around modifying memories before the news crews show up.
*Usually news crews and hurricanes go together, but these Muggles prefer the traditional method of spreading information--gossiping in toilets. It's a bit slower.
*ETA: Boy, things will really go to hell in the next book, huh, if we're starting out with fake hurricanes and things? Or maybe they'll all disappear after this chapter.
*Naturally, even with hurricanes and bridge disasters to deal with, the P.M. has been closely following the Amelia Bones "locked room mystery" in the papers. Wizards even die cooler than Muggles. ETA: Remember when people thought Amelia Bones would be important? I mean, beyond being the deceased aunt-in-law of Cool Neville?
*Remember when we first heard the description of Rufus Scrimgeour and everyone thought he was going to be important? Fandom should remember the time it wasted on that whenever we get too obsessed about something.
*ETA: LOL! I should take my own advice there. Remember when everything in PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OotP and HBP seemed like it was going to be important? Fandom should remember the time it wasted.
*You know, I like Kingsley Shacklebolt but I still get really pissed off at the whole "best worker I've ever had" crap. Arthur Weasley, the guy who studies Muggles, can't even work a turnstile, but they can stick any wizard in an important government position and he's automatically better than the Muggles. ETA: Sometimes it seems like KS has to be awesome at everything and be MoM for the p.c.-ness.
*Another point to the Prime Minister for not being able to articulate why Kingsley's skill does not make it okay that he's a mole. Really? Can't think of any reason?
*Chorley is acting like a duck due to a poorly performed Imperius. I think this may be more evidence that Draco did not actually Imperio Rosemerta. It seems far beyond his abilities. ETA: Unlike Harry, who's awesome at them!
*But for heavens sake, you're wizards! You can do magic! Surely you can sort out -- well -- anything! Yes, this is a man I'd feel good about as Prime Minister. Hagrid was totally right in his reasons for why Wizards can't live openly around Muggles. We're just so darn stupid! ETA: Dude, you have no idea how little wizards can sort out. Without magic they'd have all died out from Darwin-awards type accidents.
Exploitation Filmmakers’ Credo
AKA Muggle Prime Ministers' Credo: No, this dummy can't remember what he saw five minutes ago! OMG, MAGIC!!
Idiot World
Does this need further explanation?
Informed Attributes
Watch out for those scheming politicians! They might...um...bluster and bleat at you. Also Voldemort is something to worry about for Muggles. Or anyone.
Misdirected Answering
I, for one, am SO GLAD JKR finally found a place to put this chapter into the books. Since day one I've been wondering if the Minister for Magic communicated with the Prime Minister via owl, firechat, floo powder or talking portrait. Finally I know, and we can move on to the actual story.
The Stealth Monster Rule
I didn't even see the giants sneak into England and stomp all over Swindon! And since they didn't leave any footprints, we can only suspect they were there!
Whooshing Powder
Poof! Chapter's over.
Final score: 6
*One thing that doesn't change is how much I still dislike this chapter. Muggles are stupid, get it? So are politicians who get elected in some democratic fashion instead of being placed in a position for being heroic. So the Muggle Prime Minister is doubly screwed.
*First paragraph and already the Minister sounds like an overgrown child, worried about his opponent saying everything is his fault. Is it impossible to be a politician and an adult in these books? Doesn't anyone who actually cares about society ever run for public office?
*ETA:Luckily being the Head of State means you have very little to do with what's actually going on in your country, especially if you're fighting a war. Leave that to the Chosen Ones.
*If Voldemort can randomly collapse bridges and cause hurricanes, why doesn't he whip it out when he's facing Harry and his friends? Is the entire population of Muggles wearing red shirts? ETA: No answer there.
*Two murders are blamed on the Prime Minister's government? Is the murder rate really really low in England? It's not like Floyd and Goober getting chopped up in Mayberry, RFD.
*Apparently even Muggles know friends of Dumbledore are more important than anyone else.
*I'm sure the hurricane in the West Country was not Unnamed Minister's fault--I'm also sure that Unnamed Minister responded a bit more professionally than Unnamed President of a Distant Country in 2005.
*Oh, and btw, there was no hurricane. It's lucky that the Muggles in HP seem to have no technology beyond broken telephone booths, TVs, underground trains and Playstations so they can't study any of these phenomena.
*Of course, if Muggles had regular technology they'd know that the Prime Minister could, you know, set up a camera and RECORD the visits of the various Magic people so it actually wouldn't have to all rest on his word. I'm going to have to assume that in fact all Muggles in Rowling's universe know about the magical world and are just indulging the childish wizards. In fact they've also developed a cure for Memory Charms long ago. ETA: Hermione's parents will nevertheless pretend to forget her for the rest of their lives.
*So Muggles are all becoming more miserable, the pathetic victims of Dementor flatulence, yet wizards are totally fine and there's no mist there.
*You know, given the way wizards operate, particularly the politicians, I imagine a real Muggle Prime Minister might actually be able to dominate them quite easily. I guess that's why he has to be made into an idiot. ETA: Kind of like the entire freakin' planet.
*The Prime Minister does not like being made to feel like an ignorant schoolboy--I do not like him being made to look like an ignorant schoolboy, so we're even.
*Another little dig at politicians--the P.M. is sitting in his office, gloating, after years of dreaming and scheming. That's really all it's about. That's totally why Arthur Weasley isn't Minister for Magic, uh huh. He's not a schemer. ETA: Thank goodness we're hurtling towards a Golden Age where MoM will be all part of Dumbledore's crew. (Yes, that includes Hagrid.)
*Despite a lifetime of dreaming and scheming, the fifth sight of a man in a green bowler hat who can step out of the wall turns his brains to mush. No thoughts of using that to his advantage. Did this dreaming and scheming ever rise above the level of tricking Mummy into giving him two desserts?
*Apparently SIRIUS is strictly a wizarding name. Who knew?
*The Prime Minister has trouble following stories with names like Hogwarts, Quidditch and Harry Potter in his head. I hate to think how he deals with complicated situations with far more difficult names in other countries.
*If you ask Fudge, Voldemort's not dangerous unless he's got support. I agree. Which is why I'm so scared now that he's got the help of the Kid Who Cries In Bathrooms and Auntie Crazy. ETA: And few other people, actually. Plus he massacres a dozen of them every couple of days.
*ETA: Note that Voldemort needs support while Harry pretty much needs to do it almost alone.
*Don't you think Snape would have had this Prime Minister up to speed and working together in five minutes? Snape for Minister for Magic! ETA: Sorry, that job might take away too much pining for Lily time.
*Apparently the Prime Minister has a persistent habit of wishing to appear well-informed on any subject that came up. It's a good thing the narrator tells me this; because I'd never have guessed with the "Bwah?" slack-jawed act he's been performing up until now. The man's seemingly freshly surprised every time he's told magic exists. I guess being persistent in this habit hasn't made him good at it.
*Three years on Prime Minister has apparently still not discovered that SIRIUS is not that uncommon a name.
*So Voldemort destroyed the bridge unless Fudge "stood aside" for him? Wouldn't he know by now he could kill as many Muggles as he wanted without wizards caring overmuch? It's like saying, "Let me run the government or the Gorillas in the Mist get it!"
*ETA: That's probably the greatest foreshadowing in the chapter. If you want to take over the MoM, just ask and have red eyes.
*Um, are giants invisible? Wouldn't people have seen them ripping up the trees or tromping over the downs? Oh, I see, some of them did. Only the Muggle grapevine is slow enough that the Wizards have time to go around modifying memories before the news crews show up.
*Usually news crews and hurricanes go together, but these Muggles prefer the traditional method of spreading information--gossiping in toilets. It's a bit slower.
*ETA: Boy, things will really go to hell in the next book, huh, if we're starting out with fake hurricanes and things? Or maybe they'll all disappear after this chapter.
*Naturally, even with hurricanes and bridge disasters to deal with, the P.M. has been closely following the Amelia Bones "locked room mystery" in the papers. Wizards even die cooler than Muggles. ETA: Remember when people thought Amelia Bones would be important? I mean, beyond being the deceased aunt-in-law of Cool Neville?
*Remember when we first heard the description of Rufus Scrimgeour and everyone thought he was going to be important? Fandom should remember the time it wasted on that whenever we get too obsessed about something.
*ETA: LOL! I should take my own advice there. Remember when everything in PS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OotP and HBP seemed like it was going to be important? Fandom should remember the time it wasted.
*You know, I like Kingsley Shacklebolt but I still get really pissed off at the whole "best worker I've ever had" crap. Arthur Weasley, the guy who studies Muggles, can't even work a turnstile, but they can stick any wizard in an important government position and he's automatically better than the Muggles. ETA: Sometimes it seems like KS has to be awesome at everything and be MoM for the p.c.-ness.
*Another point to the Prime Minister for not being able to articulate why Kingsley's skill does not make it okay that he's a mole. Really? Can't think of any reason?
*Chorley is acting like a duck due to a poorly performed Imperius. I think this may be more evidence that Draco did not actually Imperio Rosemerta. It seems far beyond his abilities. ETA: Unlike Harry, who's awesome at them!
*But for heavens sake, you're wizards! You can do magic! Surely you can sort out -- well -- anything! Yes, this is a man I'd feel good about as Prime Minister. Hagrid was totally right in his reasons for why Wizards can't live openly around Muggles. We're just so darn stupid! ETA: Dude, you have no idea how little wizards can sort out. Without magic they'd have all died out from Darwin-awards type accidents.
Exploitation Filmmakers’ Credo
AKA Muggle Prime Ministers' Credo: No, this dummy can't remember what he saw five minutes ago! OMG, MAGIC!!
Idiot World
Does this need further explanation?
Informed Attributes
Watch out for those scheming politicians! They might...um...bluster and bleat at you. Also Voldemort is something to worry about for Muggles. Or anyone.
Misdirected Answering
I, for one, am SO GLAD JKR finally found a place to put this chapter into the books. Since day one I've been wondering if the Minister for Magic communicated with the Prime Minister via owl, firechat, floo powder or talking portrait. Finally I know, and we can move on to the actual story.
The Stealth Monster Rule
I didn't even see the giants sneak into England and stomp all over Swindon! And since they didn't leave any footprints, we can only suspect they were there!
Whooshing Powder
Poof! Chapter's over.
Final score: 6
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Date: 2008-08-03 06:44 pm (UTC)OotP was my favourite book; contrary to what others thought, I found Harry a believable, pubescent teenager - which didn't mean I had to like what he did. Generally, I liked Rowling NOT going for the obvious but keeping things realistic, for example Cho and Harry's romance just peetering out out of sheer shallowness, Hermione and Harry being over-confident each in their own way, thus overplaying their cards, Sirius's death not being vindicated by something or someone more important that was saved by him, but out of sheer overconfidence. Harry's pettiness re prefect being treated as such etc. Generally, starting with GoF (other nations, house elf issues), OotP seemed to broaden Harry's world as it should for a 15-year old, to make him look farther than his own little school, thinking of politics and the general society he was going to live in. And the wording of the prophecy seemed to point to a more subtle idea of solving the Voldyproblem than the primitive "either you die or I die" we know ad nauseam from Hollywood movies. Oh, and the only time I thought "Well, why the hell don't they do x!" while reading was at the time when Voldemort couldn't have entered the ministry whereas six kids encountered absolutely no obstacle at all - which still might have had some explanation looming somewhere.
And then came HBP. The first chapter was simple fun, the second was quite interesting - and then came a complete WTF. Time and again, I sat there, staring at the pages, thinking Rowling could not be serious with all that pseudo-romantic drivel concerning Ginny. I swear there were whole passages I felt she had just cobbled together from some outdated soap opera, right up to those sun-lit days and the last golden days of peace of the last paragraph ("Sick-bag, Ma'm?"). To be clear: While I had hoped for the story to continue getting more complex in the ways I've mentioned above, Rowling might still have gone the other way, showing that hormones sometimes DO get the better of you, especially when you are in your teens, making Harry abandon everything else in order to follow his dick pointing at Ginny. But Harry's obsession with her never rang true, but roughly like I imagined romantic love to be when I was ten years old. Clichéd, lazy, stupid. And there was nothing else there. Politics? The minister should just do what Harry in his wisdom deems right (see Shunpike). House-elfs? What house-elfs? Foreign countries? Yeah, they provide sexy girls for the boys to lay and the girls to be nasty to.
And the stupidity! It hurt!!! Phlegm is funny? I mean outside the kindergarten? You-no-poo is the height of witty Anti-Voldemort-propaganda? The safe-words consist of information that everybody has access to? Hermione of the murder-by-centaur-plan from OotP behaving like a clichéd Hufflepuff from fanfiction at Borgin and Burke's? I'm not saying there couldn't be stupid wizards, but contrary to what we had before, this wasn't acknowledged as such. I never liked canon Draco, but I cheered when he broke Harry's nose, just out of relief that the latter's braindead idea of concealing himself in a compartment the way he did, had not worked. At that point, I wasn't at all confident that Rowling wouldn't blithely tell us what a brilliant move it had been and had let him go undetected. And I'm not even starting on the whole Horcruxes idiocy.
My only explanation (apart from severe brain cell deterioration)after HBP was that Rowling had set up a massive red herring (love potion theory or something similar)and had not had quite the skill to pull off two complete stories (the real one in the background and the fake one on the pages)in a convincing way and thus had resorted to clichès for the fake story.
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Date: 2008-08-06 04:42 pm (UTC)I agree with so much that you say here! Pretty much all of this can be tacked on to my reply (which I just posted). At one time, OotP was my second-favorite book in the series, just after PoA and ahead of PS/SS. In addition to the reasons you mention, I thought the gradual turning of Hogwarts into a totalitarian state was both unexpected and satisfyingly creepy, with a whole different type of creepiness from the earlier books in the series. I had been rather disappointed with GoF, and OotP restored my faith in the series--but that was because I thought the new stuff introduced it was going to go somewhere. HBP made me start to suspect that it wasn't. I still hoped, but the abandonment of things like SPEW and House Unity did not bode well.
Harry's obsession with her never rang true, but roughly like I imagined romantic love to be when I was ten years old.
Yes! Harry's lusting after Ginny doesn't even work (IMO) as shallow teenage lust!
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Date: 2008-08-06 05:58 pm (UTC)I already tried to express this in my other post, saying I liked JKR not going for the obvious up to OotP - your mentioning of the other sort of creepiness and "phony war" are two more examples of it. Generally, it pisses me off when everybody from the start knows who are the bad guys, because in RL it is not like that. I mean, Hermione does know from the start that Umbridge is bad news, but she is (the author's insert) very shrewd and very similar to her in certain aspects, so you could argue it takes one to know one. But I liked how the school was turned into a totalitarian system where, in the end (and really from the beginning, if you take the dementor attack in Little Whinging into account), exactly the same things went on as under Voldemort, yet nobody batted an eyelash. Because it wasn't the Dark Lord, but the Pink Lady who acted on behalf of the legitimate minister.
And I generally liked Rowling's way of letting us just guess that, behind the scenes, there really was brewing something very different, against which you couldn't guard yourself, because you didn't know what it was. She had done this in the first five books, keeping the Trio concentrating on the wrong dangers and thus making them vulnerable - but as with so many things, she changed this as well in the last two books. Here, everything was just as dumb as it seemed...
no subject
Date: 2008-08-17 07:03 pm (UTC)I think this is part of the reason why I didn't get on board with the Love Potion theories. Because even if there was a Love Potion behind Harry's actions, the narrowing of the focus still felt really wrong.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-08 08:51 pm (UTC)